Desmond Swayne: Given the sheer spunk of the contribution that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) has made to television, it would be churlish not to restore the Whip, wouldn’t it?
Desmond Swayne: When will there be clarity for park home owners about exactly what they have to do to get what they have still to receive?
Desmond Swayne: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Desmond Swayne: The hon. Member began his excellent summing up of the debate by quoting, I think, that 126 million women had lost their right to abortion. I do not want to get involved in the detail of US politics, but the reality is that many of those women will retain their rights under state legislation. It was simply a question of the federal right being removed.
Desmond Swayne: Notwithstanding my hon. Friend’s principled view, which I respect, that life begins at conception, she has now addressed the question that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) asked: when do rights come to the child? The answer is: on the basis of viability outside the womb. Whether we have got the dates right or not, I do not know, but that is the answer to his...
Desmond Swayne: I am interested to hear what the hon. Lady thinks the effect would be of having a general right to abortion in statute, because that would not set aside the provisions of the existing statute. Judges would be constrained by statute law. They cannot set it aside. It would merely be gesture politics.
Desmond Swayne: Without an Act.
Desmond Swayne: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Desmond Swayne: The answer to the question that the hon. Lady asked my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) is that we take this caveat to an absolute right because there has to be a balance of rights, and there is another life involved in the question of abortion. That is why we constrain it by the proper means of parliamentary legislation, rather than handing that decision to...
Desmond Swayne: I am confused. The reality is that the conditions under which abortions are permitted are set out in statute law. They would require primary legislation to alter them. The petition appears to wish to hand the decisions to judges by establishing a right that will be interpreted by judges in exactly the way that Roe v. Wade has been reversed by judges. It is much better to stick with the...
Desmond Swayne: What recent discussions he has had with the Church on strengthening its parish ministry.
Desmond Swayne: The Church Times is full of adverts for well-paid jobs at diocesan headquarters, yet clergy are spread ever more thinly across the parishes. It is the wrong priority, is it not?
Desmond Swayne: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what the timetable is for the Government's local government Fair Funding Review.
Desmond Swayne: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), the Chancellor promised a letter on arrangements to be made for park homes. Is there anything you can do, Mr Speaker, to ensure we return to what used to be the normal practice: that when correspondence is referred to, it is placed in the Library of the House? We all...
Desmond Swayne: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the impact of increases in the rate of inflation on the ability of highways authorities to deliver maintenance programmes.
Desmond Swayne: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to announce the allocations from the Adult Social Care Discharge Fund.
Desmond Swayne: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress has been made in implementing the recommendations of the Independent Review of Children's Social Care published in May 2022.
Desmond Swayne: When couriers demand payment of duty on goods from the European Union, with which we have a free trade agreement, are we being ripped off?
Desmond Swayne: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help increase the availability of residential places in social care settings.
Desmond Swayne: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I hate to interrupt this poetry, and it is indeed poetry, but what has it got to do with the amendments before us tonight?