Former MP for Gloucester
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I must start with an incontrovertible statement of fact. Every right hon. and hon. Member has a mother, but only one of them has me as a mother. I congratulate by hon. Friend on trying to meet the objections and anxieties of many parents. He wants to create a framework for sex education in schools which is appropriate, moral and kept within certain confines. In my view he has failed on one...
That is as may be. He is just the sort of person who might be chosen as one of these new parent governors. I do not even know whether he is a parent, and that is the danger. I wonder what chance that girl's mother would have had against a governing body composed even in the new way that is proposed. How would such governing bodies react if at the time of their annual report a substantial...
Will my hon. Friend give way?
During the debate a number of right hon. and hon. Members have, by inference, represented the Privileges Committee as some kind of pompous hanging and flogging body which is paranoid about secrecy. At this stage in the debate we should ask ourselves whether there is a certain amount of pompousity in an editor of a newspaper who decides that it is in the "public interest" or, as the...
The Privileges Committee has considered every aspect, including that point. It has been said several times by right hon. and hon. Members that it is the confidentiality of evidence given that is of importance to the Select Committees, and that there will be a lack of confidence among those providing evidence to the Select Committees. In fact, that lack of confidence already exists and is...
I concur with my right hon. Friend in his general line, and deplore the militant action that has taken place. But will he bear in mind that—as he will know from correspondence that he has had with me—prison officers in Gloucester have been under considerable pressure? That pressure is the result, among other things, of the presence of a special unit in the prison and of at least one...
I must begin with both a declaration of interest and a confession. I am on the main board of Boots, a company engaged in the research and development of new drugs. I confess that I am one of those who are deeply affected when confronted by animal suffering. I would not go so far as to say more deeply affected than when confronted by human suffering, but it is often a struggle. I care...
