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Donate to our crowdfunderMr Roger Knapman: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 6 December.
Mr Roger Knapman: In the course of her busy day, will my right hon. Friend consider a recent report that appeared in Pravda and was reprinted this morning in the Financial Times, which states that over the past nine years my right hon. Friend has lifted the country out of its depressed state, privatised ailing industries and sacked incompetent people? Does she agree that the journalists of Pravda are more...
Mr Roger Knapman: I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the debate on 9 February, when the motion before the House was: That this House approves in principle the holding of an experiment in the public broadcasting of its proceedings by television; and believes that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the implementation of such an experiment". I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to...
Mr Roger Knapman: When my hon. and learned Friend next meets the Director of Public Prosecutions, will he consider operating a policy against Scottish Labour Members, who are rarely in the Chamber?
Mr Roger Knapman: You, Madam Deputy Speaker, know how keen the competition is to participate in local government finance debates, so I thank you for calling me. I have listened with some interest to hon. Members who represent Bradford constituencies and who are suddenly taking a keen interest in local government finance. They have seen fit to sign early-day motion 1502, which suggests that 9,000 employees are...
Mr Roger Knapman: I agree that that is not a reasonable way of carrying on, but I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree that it is a typical way for them to carry on, although the marches and protests of eight or 10 years ago were much larger than anything that we have seen recently, including the little demonstration organised in Bradford. One can understand why the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr....
Mr Roger Knapman: My hon. Friend is right. Many businesses in northern constituencies will benefit considerably. Perhaps my hon. Friend should give way to the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) if he wishes to intervene. It may be that that is the very point that he wishes to make.
Mr Roger Knapman: As the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) has insisted upon duplicating his Adjournment debate speech of 26 May, some of us must take the Beeching axe to our own remarks. It may interest hon. Members to know that, back at the time of privatisation, London, Midland and Scottish and London and North-Eastern Region were respectively the second and third biggest companies in the world....
Mr Roger Knapman: In fact there were not just four railway companies at the time of nationalisation. The then Minister of Transport, Mr. Barnes, said: On the assumption that the Bill receives Royal Assent in this Session … there will be transferred to public ownership some 60 railway undertakings".—[Official Report, 5 May 1947; Vol. 437, c. 36.]
Mr Roger Knapman: Can the Minister confirm that the decision to close Berkeley power station, which is in my constituency, was made on financial grounds, and certainly not on safety grounds?
Mr Roger Knapman: Will my right hon. Friend find time during the course of the next week for a debate on the role of the trade unions in a modern society and on whether they should seek to dominate British political parties? Does my right hon. Friend agree that such a debate would give some of us a chance to advise the Transport and General Workers' Union whether to back the dream ticket in the forthcoming...
Mr Roger Knapman: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to privatise railway termini. I am much encouraged in this respect by the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who recently said: We will privatise what we consider is sensible to privatise and what is ready to privatise. It would seem that with British Steel and the water and electricity industries next in line...
Mr Roger Knapman: To ask the Minister for the Arts what cultural activities he attended during his recent visit to the Soviet Union; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Roger Knapman: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply and for his initiative, because cultural exchanges between the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom are a good way of reducing tension. However, is my right hon. Friend confident that there is a satisfactory balance in exchanges between the Soviet Union and Britain?
Mr Roger Knapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received seeking further action to combat bullying in the Army.
Mr Roger Knapman: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and for the steps that he has taken to date. Will he say what are the costs involved and how many allegations of bullying have been made?
Mr Roger Knapman: As I represent the Stroud constituency, in which almost exactly half the farmers are in the Severn vale, which is almost entirely grassland, and the other half are in the Cotswolds, which are almost entirely arable, I have good reason to be very grateful for my right hon. Friend's balanced statement. Does he feel that the combination of his set-aside proposals with the likelihood of lower...
Mr Roger Knapman: Will my right hon. Friend find time during the next week, or before the summer recess, for an additional Opposition day, bearing in mind the almost total lack of interest in yesterday's debate, with only 12 Labour Members of Parliament being present for the wind-up after the Rowntree debate and even fewer than that for the wind-up after the following debate?
Mr Roger Knapman: If the Common Market is so much in favour of reciprocity, why did the Director General of Fair Trading say yesterday with regard to Rowntree that the extent to which Swiss companies are or are not vulnerable to similar bids from overseas was irrelevant?
Mr Roger Knapman: Some months ago, the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) made allegations in this House concerning the late Captain Nairac, whose family lives in my constituency. Did my right hon. Friend notice today that the hon. Gentleman has again named people—