Bernard Jenkin: With the greatest respect, what I am hearing from the hon. Gentleman now is that he supports neither the position of the Scottish Parliament nor the position of the Government. He says that we need to win public support, but how much of that has the Labour party got in Scotland? Is this not the problem he has to face: leaving himself with nowhere to stand in Scottish politics and falling...
Bernard Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Bernard Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Bernard Jenkin: Why does the hon. Gentleman think that the gender recognition Bill has been such a protracted dispute in the Scottish Parliament and so divided the Scottish National party?
Bernard Jenkin: As the Opposition spokesman during the passage of the devolution Bills in 1998, I took part in the debate in which the devolution of equality rights was explicitly debated. I pointed out that the “imposition of anti-discrimination laws has to be handled with great care, because it is all too easy to substitute one type of intolerance of minorities for another”.—[Official Report, 31...
Bernard Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many officials from his Department have attended courses on international trade with the World Trade Organisation in each year since 2016; and if she will make a statement.
Bernard Jenkin: How many defence reviews can my right hon. Friend recall that were preceded by fashionable commentators decrying the idea that main battle tanks had any utility in modern warfare? Now that that has been disproved and my right hon. Friend has made a hugely significant move this week by agreeing to send main battle tanks in support of Ukraine’s defence, will he consider sending more if those...
Bernard Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether officials from her Department attended courses on (a) SPS agreements, (b) trade and the environment and (c) agriculture agreements at the World Trade Organisation in each year since the EU referendum in June 2016; and if she will make a statement.
Bernard Jenkin: We need to remember that the ICGS came into being because Members of Parliament were not trusted to adjudicate on these matters. If the Committee is going to look at this, will the hon. Gentleman join me in making an undertaking that in no respect are we going to interfere with the process or the adjudication of cases, but that we are possibly going to look at the governance of the process...
Bernard Jenkin: The former Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), might want to speak before me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but that is at your discretion. Thank you very much for calling me to speak. It is important that the House understands that the Committee on Standards recognises what a huge amount of anxiety and tension the regulation of...
Bernard Jenkin: I will, but I do not want to detain the House for long.
Bernard Jenkin: My hon. Friend touches on a key change, which is that in the serious cases that come to the Committee on Standards, the commissioner will now present her findings, but will not present a conclusion. It will be for the Committee to adjudicate on the conclusion, and then for the subject of the inquiry to appeal that conclusion on various grounds to an Independent Expert Panel. That is a...
Bernard Jenkin: I am grateful for the way in which the Leader of the House has engaged with the matter. The whole House understands that there are what a “Yes Minister” script would describe as “administrative difficulties” with recording ministerial interests in a timely manner. However, surely the objective should be—we had a lot of evidence about this—that a member of the public can find in...
Bernard Jenkin: May I just point out to my right hon. Friend that it was in fact the United Kingdom Parliament that gave Scotland a referendum in 2014—[Interruption.] Oh yes! Does he recall that the SNP then said it was a once-in-a-generation decision? Has he ever known a generation to pass so quickly, in just eight years? Could it be that the SNP prefers campaigning for a referendum it cannot have because...
Bernard Jenkin: I thank my right hon. Friend for making it so clear that it is irrelevant whose missile it was and that the state of affairs is the responsibility of the aggressor: Putin’s Russia. In that context, can he use this incident to amplify to our allies in Europe, and to some of our colleagues in the Government, that Putin’s Russia is not just at war in Ukraine, but at war with us? His hybrid...
Bernard Jenkin: I hope the Minister will also agree that the real problem with the Scottish nationalist party is that it does not want the British Government to have any relationship with the Scottish citizen and that the ability of the British Government to assist in levelling up in Scotland is why they have such resentment on this. It is because there are many people in Scotland who voted to be British...
Bernard Jenkin: I happened to be shadow Transport Secretary when the great John Prescott was Secretary of State for Transport, Environment and the Regions. He said that he was going to do all sorts of things to revive rural buses, but rural bus services still went into decline. Can the hon. Gentleman not move forward and think about the community bus services and the digitised hopper mobile bus services? We...
Bernard Jenkin: It did not work before.
Bernard Jenkin: As a Member of Parliament for a very rural constituency, albeit one in the home counties, I see all too clearly how our system of government tends to focus on the problems and needs of urban society in the UK and tends to neglect rural communities, which are so important to sustaining those urban environments. I therefore welcome the debate, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for...
Bernard Jenkin: I think this counts as an intervention, Madam Deputy Speaker. It should be added to my time. I hope that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) will rise to the occasion. The Ukraine war has exposed how vulnerable the global food supply system is to disruption. We cannot rely on our ability to buy food cheaply on the global market. Given today’s labour shortage in agriculture...
