Boris Johnson: As I mentioned earlier, we are engaged in a massive programme of improvements and building and rebuilding in our NHS estate. With great respect to my hon. Friend, he is going to have to continue to lobby for this decision. The local NHS bodies will have to make up their minds on it, but I am sure he will continue to make lively representations.
Boris Johnson: As I understand it, the people of the SNP are currently deciding what to do with the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). Heaven forfend that they should change their minds.
Boris Johnson: I know from my own experience of running the city the anguish that that particular tragedy caused and the deep feeling that surrounds it, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising it. Whatever my own views, this is a matter for the independent Metropolitan Police Service, and I am sure that the new commissioner will consider what he has just said.
Boris Johnson: May I say to the hon. Gentleman that after three years of listening to this delirium of monotony from the Scottish nationalists, I really think they need to change the record? What the people of this country want is a focus on the cost of living, on the economy, on schools and on standards in schools—those are the things he should fix, and that is to say nothing of the tragedy of drug...
Boris Johnson: I know the problem of which my hon. Friend speaks very well. There is no single solution to tackling surface water flooding, but she is absolutely right in wanting to put more pressure on Thames Water to try to come up with sustainable solutions. That has to be done working with partners and councils, and with developers as well.
Boris Johnson: I thank you for your guidance, Mr Speaker. I think we can safely say how much we sympathise with the victim and her family. Knife crime is a scourge, and I believe there are many different solutions, but one of them unquestionably is allowing the police to do more stop and search and making sure we have more police out on the street. That is why we have made the massive investments we have,...
Boris Johnson: I have committed to write to the Liaison Committee with further details. A copy of that letter will be placed in the Library of the House.
Boris Johnson: I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave to the right Hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras during Prime Minister’s Questions on 6 July 2022.
Boris Johnson: I refer the Hon. Member to the Official Report, 6 July 2022, col. 11MC. The source was the Dealroom Tech Health Check which is available at https://dealroom.co/blog/uk-tech-health-check-london-tech-we ek-2022. This Government has been creating the right tax environment to promote investment and innovation. That is why we introduced the 130% super-deduction for capital investment and increased...
Boris Johnson: Today is a big day—[Interruption]—as we implement the biggest tax cut for a decade, increasing national insurance thresholds to make tax lower and the tax burden easier. These changes will benefit 30 million people across the UK and I am pleased to say that two of those people—Mandy Banfield and Alan Calzari—are seated in the Public Gallery. A typical worker will now save £330 per...
Boris Johnson: I thank my hon. Friend for what he is doing to campaign for tougher sentences and against knife crime in Milton Keynes. As a result of what the Conservatives have done, adults who are convicted of certain offences involving a knife, including threatening with a knife or a second offence of possession, face a minimum sentence of six months’ imprisonment—and guess who voted against tougher...
Boris Johnson: That individual, the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), no longer has the Conservative Whip. He no longer has a job. As soon as I was made aware of the allegation that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has just read out—the complaint that was made—he lost his status as a Conservative MP. He is now the subject of an independent investigation by the complaints and...
Boris Johnson: I am not going to trivialise what happened. [Interruption.] Yes, Mr Speaker, because very serious complaints have been raised against the right hon. Member for Tamworth and they are now being investigated. It is true that a complaint was raised when he was in the Foreign Office and the matter was resolved. It is absolutely true that it was raised with me. I greatly regret that he continued...
Boris Johnson: I have already said that I regret very much that the right hon. Member for Tamworth continued to hold office after the complaint was made against him in the Foreign Office. It was resolved in the Foreign Office and his apology was accepted, but clearly that was not enough and in hindsight I should have realised that he would not change. However, when it came to Friday last week, and when I...
Boris Johnson: Look, the right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about—[Interruption.] He should hear what his lot say about him. He talks about integrity; he wanted to install the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) into No. 10. That is what he wanted to do—imagine what our country and what the world would be like now. He talks about integrity; he voted 48 times to overturn the will...
Boris Johnson: When times are tough and when the country faces pressures on the economy and pressures on budgets, and when we have the biggest war in Europe for 80 years, that is exactly the moment when we expect a Government to continue with our work, not to walk away, to get on with our job and to focus on the things that matter to the people of this country. So we are not only cutting taxes today, but...
Boris Johnson: The difference between—[Interruption.]
Boris Johnson: The difference between this Government and that Opposition is that we have a plan and they do not, and we are getting on with it. They want to focus on this type of issue; we are going to get on with our jobs. We are going to control prices by not giving in to the union barons; they are paid by the union barons and they are proud of it. We were the first European country to arm the...
Boris Johnson: I thank my hon. Friend very much for all the work that he has done and continues to do for veterans. The Bill will give veterans the certainty that they deserve. We are fulfilling the manifesto pledge to end the cycle of investigations, but at the same time we are making sure that families can get the answers that they need about what happened to their loved ones.
Boris Johnson: Actually, I was just jotting down some notes about the right hon. Gentleman’s question, which I thought was excellent when he was talking about the economy, because that is the issue that the country faces. That is where this Government are introducing, I think, the most important decisions—helping families up and down the country, with £1,200 going into their bank accounts right now;...