Former Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, which the curmudgeonly Minister would not do. It would help our proceedings if we knew which amendments the Government will propose within the tight timetable. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we have received absolute and categorical assurances from the press that there is a letter in the post to all of us setting out the Government...
As this will almost certainly be my last speech in Parliament, I shall try hard not to upset anyone. However, our debate here tonight is a grim reminder of how the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are betraying some of Labour's most cherished beliefs. Not content with tossing aside the ideas and ideals that inspire and inform ideology, they seem to be giving up on values too. Liberty,...
I declare an interest as the vice-president of the National Secular Society. For those of us who believe that religion is the backward march of history and the enemy of rational discourse, the greater is the need to support the free speech of those who wish to expose the metaphysical nonsense in which the adherents of religion indulge. Even before I became a cantankerous and cynical...
Is the Minister aware that the public are becoming increasingly bewildered by the defensive posture of Ministers towards what appears to be a pattern of bad behaviour, negligence, crime and possibly manslaughter and murder at Deepcut? It is probably too late now to find out how one my constituents, Private Gray, died, not least because the Army was itself negligent in conducting the initial...
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) on obtaining this important debate, and on the succinct and eloquent way in which he put the case on behalf of the four families whose children died at Deepcut. We are right to praise our soldiers for their heroism in war, but equally right to condemn their betrayal in peacetime by those who are charged with their...
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you can help the House. I was delighted to see the shadow Home Secretary on television a few moments ago saying exactly what had happened. Should the House not be informed, as well as all the television viewers? I knew what had happened, and I supposed that everyone else did—
I can be exceedingly brief. Although I do not want to embarrass him, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase), who sits beside me, said just now that a jury trial is the criminal classes trying the criminals. I do not agree with that. However, having heard my hon. Friend the Minister speak, I was reminded that Gladstone once said of Disraeli that his only...
There are many Labour Back Benchers whose views I respect who are saying that making this intervention into jury trials is not an important issue. That is not the history of the Labour party since the Representation Committee was formed more than 100 years ago. People have different sticking points in politics. I can only say that this is one of my big sticking points, and I would hope that...
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to Epsom and Ewell constituency, the effects on Epsom and Ewell of her Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997.
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to West Dorset constituency, the effects on West Dorset of her Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to South-East Cambridgeshire constituency, the effects on South-East Cambridgeshire of her Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997.
To ask the Solicitor-General if she will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to Folkestone and Hythe constituency, the effects on Folkestone and Hythe of the Law Officers' Department policies and actions since 2 May 1997.
To ask the Solicitor-General if she will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to Maidenhead constituency, the effects on Maidenhead of the Law Officers' Department policies and actions since 2 May 1997.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to Haltemprice and Howden constituency, the effects on Haltemprice and Howden of his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to Havant constituency, the effects on Havant of his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997.
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will set out, with statistical information relating as directly as possible to Haltemprice and Howden constituency, the effects on Haltemprice and Howdenof his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997.
