Liam Fox: My right hon. Friend will be aware that when devolution was established in Scotland, there was no separate Scottish civil service created; we have a UK civil service, with UK ministerial oversight. Given the turmoil in Scottish politics, will he confirm that any civil servants who feel pressurised to behave inappropriately have a mechanism to seek redress beyond the Ministers to whom they are...
Liam Fox: The cladding issue is of great importance to many of my constituents, particularly in Portishead. They understand that a balance must be struck between the problems of leaseholders caught in the cladding trap and the interests of taxpayers at a difficult time for the public finances. We know that the Government will publish more details of the financing scheme when further discussions with...
Liam Fox: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, the former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, accused the Scottish Government of “the complete breakdown of the necessary barriers which should exist between government, political party and indeed the prosecution authorities in any country which abides by the rule of law.” That would be a damning indictment in a tinpot...
Liam Fox: It was great to hear the Prime Minister say today that the Government’s policy will continue to be based on data, not dates. It would have been wrong to give in to those who wanted a premature lifting of restrictions on the basis of the calendar rather than the available scientific data, but it would also be wrong to continue unnecessarily with restrictions if the data said that it was safe...
Liam Fox: I will give way, almost reluctantly, to my hon. Friend.
Liam Fox: Proving the point that show is always better than tell, my hon. Friend is exactly right. We have to not just hold the Government to account on the issues of the day but have genuine debate in Parliament about the whole range of issues that will become live once we start to get complete control over the covid pandemic. It is time that we set out a programme for immunisation in Parliament for...
Liam Fox: It was great to hear the Prime Minister say today that the Government’s policy will continue to be based on data, not dates. It would have been wrong to give in to those who wanted a premature lifting of restrictions on the basis of the calendar rather than the available scientific data, but it would also be wrong to continue unnecessarily with restrictions if the data said that it was safe...
Liam Fox: I will give way, almost reluctantly, to my hon. Friend.
Liam Fox: Proving the point that show is always better than tell, my hon. Friend is exactly right. We have to not just hold the Government to account on the issues of the day but have genuine debate in Parliament about the whole range of issues that will become live once we start to get complete control over the covid pandemic. It is time that we set out a programme for immunisation in Parliament for...
Liam Fox: Politicians have never really come to terms fully with globalisation. Perhaps it is the inevitable loss of sovereignty that provides the reticence, but it is a reality. We live in a world that is more interdependent and interconnected than at any time in history. Examples of the impact of that are all around us, from the financial crisis to the effects post 9/11 and the covid pandemic. Events...
Liam Fox: I wish to make only three brief points. First, the House of Commons is the appropriate place to scrutinise the elected Government’s independent trade policy. That is why I am against Lords amendment 1B, because it actually gives powers away from the House of Commons. The amendment requires the House of Lords to give its permission for the elected Government to even have discussions on our...
Liam Fox: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) on securing the urgent question today. It is right to shine a light on the vile atrocities being carried out in Xinjiang. The official denials by the Chinese state today are a humiliation for China on the world stage. I, too, would welcome stronger Magnitsky-style sanctions against individual officials, but is not the bottom...
Liam Fox: I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), to the Dispatch Box. I always think that there is nothing like a baptism of fire for a new Minister. Portishead in my constituency of North Somerset is one of the best examples in the United Kingdom of the development of a brownfield site, taking...
Liam Fox: For many of us, as we contemplate the inhumanity, brutality and sheer scale of the holocaust, one uncomfortable question sits in our minds: how could ordinary people like ourselves collude with, acquiesce in, or support a regime that behaved in such a barbaric way and, perhaps even more uncomfortably, do the factors exist in our contemporary world that could allow it to happen again. In...
Liam Fox: Thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian regime murders its opponents abroad. It poisons its challengers at home. It still has armed forces on the sovereign territory of the Ukraine and Georgia. It believes in the Soviet concept of a near abroad and presents a clear threat to continental Europe’s security. Does my hon. Friend have a message for those in Europe who still...
Liam Fox: I will not—my hon. Friend will forgive me—given the constrictions on time. It would have been possible to create a system that allowed us to do that. The House would have been happy that Parliament would have been able to set those parameters, and not anyone else.
Liam Fox: Okay, I will give way to my hon. Friend. She has charmed me into it.
Liam Fox: My hon. Friend should ask the Government; I am not the Government. My view is that we want to ensure that the powers are exercised exclusively by Parliament. I do not want any outside body, including the courts, to have a say on what we should or should not do. But I agree that we could have had a mechanism that allowed the House to do that in a way that satisfied all the reservations that...
Liam Fox: Because I believe that the high court of Parliament is the appropriate place to do that. Parliament can apply sanctions where it believes they are justified. Our new legislation allows us to do that. I believe that setting a political precedent to make a political case is bad practice. If Parliament wants to take action against China or any other country, on behalf of those who they believe...
Liam Fox: I want to say at the outset that I completely agree with the need to set ethical frameworks in all our overseas dealings, including trade. In so far as these amendments deal with China, I also completely agree that the treatment of the Uyghurs is a violation of historic proportions that should be condemned whether or not it meets the very high legal test of genocide. We should be willing to...