Eric Joyce: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will be very brief and make just one or two points. I can either speak very quickly or stick to the quality. I want to speak about social media and the issues that have arisen in the past couple of days. Yesterday, the Attorney-General general said in answer to a question from my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Justice that he would...
Eric Joyce: I want to speak about corporate governance in the City of London’s largest companies, the FTSE 100 companies. We all have an interest in them, because all our pensions are invested in them. In particular, I want to speak about what I consider to be a serious failure of corporate governance on the part of one company and the non-executive directors who sit on its board. When preparing my...
Eric Joyce: The Attorney-General has rightly concentrated on matters of law but does he agree that equally important, arguably, are matters of technology? If it is not technologically possible to enforce a particular law, there is hardly any point in having that law in the first place.
Eric Joyce: The hon. Gentleman mentioned quality. Does he agree that although we talk about roll-out and the percentage of coverage, we do not talk much about capacity? Of course it is important to talk about rural areas. However, in every constituency across the country, even in much more urban areas, there are people who technically have coverage, but the quality and limited capacity of the access mean...
Eric Joyce: UKPIA, the union Unite and others have pointed out that the carbon price floor will lead to an additional cost across Europe of about £36 per tonne. In the UK, it will be more like £54 per tonne, which in Grangemouth alone could lead to an initial cost of £10 million. That has enormous implications for a unit of that size.
Eric Joyce: My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) said that the industry supports many jobs in Falkirk. He talked about its relevance for the engineering sector, as local colleges, particularly in Falkirk, supply people who are trained specifically for the refinery at Grangemouth. Does the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) agree...
Eric Joyce: Yesterday’s centrefold in The Guardian—if I may call it that, although the term centrefold has been expropriated by a different publication —had a good picture of two artisanal miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo scraping away in what was basically a big hole. They do 24-hour shifts and get paid very little. The picture emphasised how rudimentary mining is in the DRC. Mining...
Eric Joyce: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the effect on consumer confidence of the increase in the standard rate of value added tax since his recent meeting with representatives of the retail industry.
Eric Joyce: Actually, that is a really important point. We often talk about the creation of jobs in developing countries through inward investment and say that it helps families, but in fact, where those jobs are to do with minerals and mainly men are employed, most of the money that those guys earn is spent on the mine sites themselves. The role of women in employment and how money gets passed into...
Eric Joyce: In late January, millions of people around the world were deeply saddened to receive news of the horrific murder of David Kisule, better known as David Kato, the prominent human rights activist best known for his brave campaigning on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. David had been beaten to death in his home near Kampala. The shock at the killing was felt in this House...
Eric Joyce: My hon. Friend makes a strong point. I believe that everyone I have spoken to in all parts of the House would agree with that. It behoves everyone in the media to reflect on the BBC example, and to separate forcing a post-imperialistic, unacceptable perspective on a developing country from what is actually a perfectly reasonable, universally held value. In this case, the judgment was...
Eric Joyce: That is a profound point. To be honest, I did not know that. I knew that Rolling Stone was a new magazine, but I was not aware of that. When I think about it now, it is obvious. That is a potent point. It has struck me as odd that the proper Rolling Stone, the American magazine, does not sue for breach of copyright, but I am not sure whether the copyright laws would apply in Uganda. My hon....
Eric Joyce: Definitely.
Eric Joyce: Today’s announcement of the continuation of bilateral aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo is welcome, but will the Secretary of State continue to press the DRC Government on the importance of transparency in getting UK companies to engage and take risks in that country?
Eric Joyce: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on (a) the number of Burundian opposition leaders in exile and (b) their potential return to Burundi.
Eric Joyce: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had on securing the release of Gilad Shalit.
Eric Joyce: What discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on the level of employee bonuses to be paid by banks based in Scotland.
Eric Joyce: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received on the (a) security of and (b) likely effect on nuclear disarmament of a consignment of partially-enriched uranium abandoned in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Eric Joyce: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) how much his Department spent on agricultural development in Burundi in each of the last five years; (2) what plans his Department has to provide agricultural development assistance to Burundi.
Eric Joyce: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) how much the Government has spent on climate change adaptation for smallholder farmers in Burundi in each of the last five years; and what proportion of total Government expenditure on (a) climate change programmes overseas, (b) climate change adaptation overseas, (c) climate change programmes in developing countries and...
