Mr Michael Trend: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the presidential elections in Moldova; and whether he has assessed this as a free and fair campaign and vote.
Mr Michael Trend: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the first round of the presidential elections in the Ukraine; and whether he has assessed this as a free and fair campaign and vote.
Mr Michael Trend: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment his Department has made of (a) the political situation in Belarus and (b) whether the forthcoming elections will be free and fair.
Mr Michael Trend: I, too, would like to thank the Minister for providing the opportunity for this important debate. I begin by quoting from a statement made two weeks ago: "China is undergoing a process of deep change. In order to effect this change smoothly and without chaos and violence I believe it is essential that there be more openness and greater freedom of information and proper awareness among the...
Mr Michael Trend: The Minister is going to detail the four priorities that he identified earlier. In the last five minutes, he mentioned human rights briefly, but can he tell me whether the Foreign Office thinks that human rights should be one of the priorities. If it does not think that they are sufficiently important, why not?
Mr Michael Trend: I have a factual question for the Minister. Has a date been set for the visit of the Chinese Premier to London? I do not know if he has already mentioned that, as I was dozing.
Mr Michael Trend: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when his Department last made a statement to the House on the sovereignty of Tibet.
Mr Michael Trend: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the implications for UK aid to Tanzania of Tanzania's decision to purchase an aircraft for its President.
Mr Michael Trend: The Minister said ''often''. Can he give the Committee an idea of the circumstance, real or imaginary, in which compensation would not be paid?
Mr Michael Trend: What the Under-Secretary has been saying presupposes that the courts will be able to sit. Could they be deemed to be an assembly that cannot sit?
Mr Michael Trend: May I make a suggestion? There is a blanket prohibition on assemblies of ''specified kinds'', but the problem would be solved if Parliament were deliberately exempted from being a specified kind of assembly.
Mr Michael Trend: I support what the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Newark said about the amendment. I do not think that the provision is merely otiose: it is potentially pernicious. We have got into a pattern in recent debates of Opposition Members saying that the wording is not precise enough or too vague. They want to know precisely what is meant and think that it is unwise to have a...
Mr Michael Trend: It is a small point, but my hon. Friend should give credit to the Public Administration Committee, on which I have the honour of sitting, for producing a useful draft Bill.
Mr Michael Trend: Has it occurred to my hon. Friend that the provision might be used to continue the regrettable practice of giving some special advisers in Government the power to give orders to civil servants? Perhaps I am the conspiracy theorist here, but if in some ghastly emergency, the Prime Minister says, ''I want one of my people—a party person—at the head of every Department,'' that can clearly be...
Mr Michael Trend: Subsection (2)(n), which we have mentioned before, says ''protecting or restoring the performance of public functions.'' Such provisions always worry me because they mean either nothing or a great deal. It is the subject of our amendments, so what does the Minister think it means? This is the subject of one our proposed amendments. The list seems to be fairly exhaustive, and I cannot think...
Mr Michael Trend: I go further than that. I have not been party to earlier discussions about calming or creating fear. My general view is that fear is caused by ignorance, and the best way to dispel it is to be as open and honest as one can be with the people of this country. This Bill would place enormous powers—in many cases, it confirms existing powers, but some are new—in the hands of the Government....
Mr Michael Trend: I am sorry, I became a bit muddled in the closing passages of the Minister's speech. She has my heartfelt sympathy for her present condition. Was it that she has some sympathy with amendment No. 109, and will look at it again, but has none with amendment No. 97, or the other way round?
Mr Michael Trend: I may be hopelessly out of date, or I may just believe part of the mythology of Government that has never been true, but it was always thought that Cobra would spring into action in the case of national and civil emergency. The Prime Minister has used it in some circumstances. Does it still exist and is it the catch-all committee in which various parties would meet to make decisions in the...
Mr Michael Trend: On Second Reading, one of my right hon. Friends said that Whips whose names we barely know might have the power to make draconian regulations. That is a good point, which should be returned to. I understand that if we were confronted by an emergency, the public might take comfort from seeing the Prime Minister or one of the Secretaries of State, many of whom are recognisable, on television...
Mr Michael Trend: I recognise what the provisions are intended to do. Most human beings would think that the fact that those who drafted the Bill drew up a huge list would suffice. They would think that ''damage to property'' and ''loss of human life'' would catch almost anything going, but there is a terrible temptation among those who draft Bills to say, ''Oh well, just in case there's something that we...
