Stuart Bell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many officers and staff from the North Yorkshire Constabulary have been involved in the investigation into the affairs of Cleveland Constabulary from the time the terms of reference for a full investigation were agreed with Cleveland police authority on 25 August 2011; and if she will make a statement.
Stuart Bell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the expected cost to Cleveland police authority is of the ongoing investigation into the affairs of Cleveland Constabulary in each month from November 2011 to March 2012; and if she will make a statement; (2) what proportion of the likely costs of investigations into the affairs of Cleveland Constabulary from 1 May 2010 to 31...
Stuart Bell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which officer is presently appointed as senior investigating officer into the investigation of the affairs of Cleveland Constabulary; and if she will make a statement.
Stuart Bell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department who the Senior Investigating Officer was appointed to oversee the initial enquiries into the affairs of Cleveland constabulary authorised by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary; and if she will make a statement.
Stuart Bell: Given that Italy is now on what the Prime Minister has described as a “credible fiscal path”, will he help the Group of Twenty’s Finance Ministers to meet and contribute to the creation of a European financial stability pact in a way that will assist the eurozone?
Stuart Bell: Now that the Greeks will have a new Government who will ratify the 26- 27 October agreements, and as the Group of Twenty is an informal grouping, would it not be appropriate, where there is agreement, for the group’s Finance Ministers to get together to help the European financial stability fund put together its firewall under the Sarkozy presidency?
Stuart Bell: indicated assent .
Stuart Bell: I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). He made a point about the European convention on human rights and was corrected by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty). The convention has nothing to do with the European Union and we should not confuse our concepts. The hon. Gentleman also talked about a...
Stuart Bell: The hon. Gentleman can sit down because I am not giving way to him. Teesside is the third largest port in our country. We face out to Europe and we export to Europe. The point has been made many times, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), that 50% of our exports go to Europe. Why did Nissan come to Sunderland? It is because it has the Tees and so can export to...
Stuart Bell: The Prime Minister rightly said that the 27 nation states will make any decision on the single market. He has not told the House that the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has been elected president of the 17 nation states within the eurozone, with France on one shoulder and Germany on the other. The President has said that he will inform the British Government prior to...
Stuart Bell: I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), who has real knowledge and experience of the bond markets, as he has revealed today. He obviously knows a lot about the ratings agencies and he has a Bill before the House on debt ceilings. He is also an expert on credit default swaps. I share his great enthusiasm for that, but he will have to explain,...
Stuart Bell: I am not giving way; it is too late in the day. The unforeseen consequence of a too-rapid reduction in the deficit and no growth is that confidence has gone from our system. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) referred to that. We have lost confidence. We say that we have the confidence of the markets, and of course we do; why would we not? We do not have the confidence of the...
Stuart Bell: It was no doubt an oversight that the Chancellor did not mention the conference at the weekend between President Sarkozy and Angela Merkel where they called for a rapid and global response that had to be in place by the time of the G20 meeting in July. The Prime Minister responded by saying that he did not want to put a single euro into saving the euro after 2013. He said that he did not want...
Stuart Bell: The House will certainly have welcomed the statement that retail banks are likely in the future to funnel their deposits into domestic lending rather than the vast maw of the money markets. The Chancellor has said that there ought to be 10% capital for the retail banks. Presumably that is high-quality equity, and it is reported that a further 10% of non-equity may be required. May I ask the...
Stuart Bell: Is the Chancellor aware that, with the exception of Portugal, growth among member states of the eurozone is higher than ours? If fiscal union is to take place, and there is to be a common euro bond, in which order does he think they should come?
Stuart Bell: The House will have noted that the Chancellor did not mention the fact that inflation is approaching 5%, the fact that that our borrowing is £46 billion higher than his figure, or the fact that consumer and business confidence is falling. He did mention his growth plan, but there is no growth. When will he accept the paradox that the sharper and deeper the cuts, the less growth there will be?
Stuart Bell: I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who was a member of the House of Commons Commission for 17 years. I did not get anywhere near his record. I served only 10 years on the Commission. It is a pleasure to catch the Speaker’s eye because this is a parliamentary occasion, as well as a memorable occasion. It is memorable...
Stuart Bell: I will not follow the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), but I will refer to him later in my speech. The first ghost that I should like to lay to rest in this debate is the ghost of manifesto commitments past. It is a well known and well subscribed to constitutional position that the sovereignty of Parliament lies in the fact that Parliament cannot bind its successors. It follows...
Stuart Bell: It is not our policy, and my hon. Friend would do well to realise it. He replied to the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) about debates in the other place. I will write to my hon. Friend, so he can read last week’s debate and the statement made by Baroness Royall, which said that the Labour party is divided on this issue. Whatever forum...
Stuart Bell: We have to be careful about free votes, because one does not know where they will end up. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda has made a series of remarks from a sedentary position, which I heard and which I will not forget.