Julie Kirkbride: Will the Secretary of State reassure my constituent whose relative was murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper many years ago that he will never be let out of prison, because of his heinous crimes?
Julie Kirkbride: In the light of the UK's performance at the winter Olympics, does the Secretary of State wish that we had spent more of our money on elite sporting performance in winter Olympic sports?
Julie Kirkbride: As the Minister will be aware, it is estimated that about £200 billion will need to be invested in energy production in the next decade if the lights are not going to go off. In the light of that figure, does he think that the £800 million-plus profit that British Gas announced today should be used for further investment or cutting bills?
Julie Kirkbride: What recent assessment he has made of progress on loyalist decommissioning.
Julie Kirkbride: The Secretary of State- [ Interruption. ]
Julie Kirkbride: The Secretary of State rightly says that there has been welcome decommissioning by the UDA, but he will also be aware of the worrying number of loyalist dissident assaults, which are up by almost 250 per cent. on the same time last year. What is his Department doing to ensure that the people who orchestrate and authorise such assaults face justice?
Julie Kirkbride: The Government have long had an aspiration for 50 per cent. of young people to go into higher education. Given the right hon. Gentleman's savage cuts in the university sector, can he tell us in what year he expects to meet that 50 per cent. aspiration and what percentage of young people will be going to university next year?
Julie Kirkbride: I would like to present a petition on behalf of 35 home educators in the Bromsgrove constituency, opposed to the proposals in the Badman report. Following is the full text of the petition: [The Petition of persons resident in the Bromsgrove parliamentary constituency, Declares that they are concerned about the recommendations of the Badman Report, which suggests closer monitoring of home...
Julie Kirkbride: As part of the evidence that my hon. Friend is putting forward to the Secretary of State, he might refer to that given to the Select Committee last week by Alistair Buchanan, the chief executive of Ofgem, who clearly described the worrying scenario of the lights going off in the middle of the next decade. He is the man in charge of this policy.
Julie Kirkbride: The Secretary of State is right to say that there are some important issues connected with being fair to consumers given some of the monopolistic powers of the energy generators. Why has he rejected the suggestion of a legal requirement for gas storage, as is the case in other European countries? Some people believe that that allows those countries' markets to behave in a fairer way towards...
Julie Kirkbride: I am sure the Minister saw the story in the newspapers last week of a family in west London who were receiving some £180,000 worth of benefits, most of which formed their housing allowance. The hon. Lady previously had plans to cap the very large sums of rent that were paid to families. Can she explain how such an extraordinary state of affairs came about?
Julie Kirkbride: May we have a debate on the application of Criminal Records Bureau checks and what might be the law of unintended consequences? I have a sad constituency case involving a 13-year-old boy who was found guilty of a sexual offence. As a result his ambition to become a teacher has been completely crushed, because the offence will have to be declared in any application that he makes. However wrong...
Julie Kirkbride: If Labour Members want a lesson in history, they need only look back some five years, when the Government published an energy White Paper on future energy needs and completely dismissed the idea that nuclear power stations should be recommissioned. That was absolutely ridiculous.
Julie Kirkbride: If I remember correctly, back in 1997, the Labour Government had the aspiration of 0.7 per cent. of gross national income being spent on overseas development. Why, therefore, is it in the last year of the Labour Government that they are proposing to put that into legislation?
Julie Kirkbride: The Minister gave the House an interesting answer when he said that services had increased by 50 per cent. So that we can understand that figure, will he say to what extent that represents the normal service on any other working day of the year?
Julie Kirkbride: I suspect that my hon. Friend's constituents, like mine, have been e-mailing him to say that they will be listening to the debate and watching how we vote. Tomorrow, as a result of what the Chief Secretary and others have said, I shall write to all the policyholders of whom I am aware. Does my hon. Friend have any advice or observations that I might put in those letters about how people who...
Julie Kirkbride: Does the Secretary of State not recognise that the probation service is already overstretched and that the cuts are most unwelcome? How does he expect the service to ensure the safety of the public and prevent reoffending by people who have been in prison if it does not have the resources to manage them properly?
Julie Kirkbride: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The House will have heard earlier the disappointing news from Jaguar Land Rover that it is cutting car production along with jobs. Part of Jaguar Land Rover's statement referred to the fact that it is still waiting to secure funding of some hundreds of millions of pounds from the European Investment Bank. That is a matter for negotiation with UK Ministers,...
Julie Kirkbride: How much of the UK's energy production will be sourced from nuclear by 2020?
Julie Kirkbride: Does the Minister agree that one of the biggest and easiest hits that we can make when it comes to our climate change ambitions is tackling domestic carbon emissions? The measures taken in the home are therefore the most important. Why does she not bang heads together, get a smart metering agreement between the various companies, and implement it as soon as possible?