Licensing of Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill - adjourned debate on 2nd reading [2 February] – Daniel Zeichner.
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to support the growth and development of the bikeshare sector.
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his answer of 22 November 2017 to Question 112924 on Bicycles: Hire Services, what progress he has made on developing a consistent national standard for bike-share schemes.
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the quality of service provided by bikeshare operators.
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on patient access to short-shelf life medicines.
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the total value of rebates to be paid under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme 2014.
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on how money raised from rebates paid under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme 2014 has been used; and if he will make a statement.
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reasons rebates paid by manufacturers under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme 2014 are not ring-fenced for the use of medicines; and if he will make a statement.
Daniel Zeichner: On behalf of the Petitions Committee I thank all Members who made contributions today. It has been a civilised debate. The Minister reflected that the turnout in the Chamber was a decent one, but I have to say that I expected rather more Members—in fact, I expected a rank of Vote Leave supporters on the Government Benches to explain and defend their actions. I quite understand why they...
Daniel Zeichner: I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 223729 relating to rescinding Article 50 if the Vote Leave campaign broke electoral laws. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. The petition raises an issue that is clearly timely, lively and of huge interest, because almost 200,000 people have signed it in less than three months, including more than 1,000 people...
Daniel Zeichner: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As I rather thought, almost immediately we start getting pulled into the legal arguments. His point is a reasonable one, but of course there are arguments back and forth, and many of these things remain to be tested in court, as is so often the case. However, he might make that case. The point that I am making, and this is a theme that...
Daniel Zeichner: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I very much agree; in fact, I will come on to that point a bit later. It is a very important point and, of course, it would have been helpful for all of us if the Government had pursued that option to make things clearer, so that we could all have made a sensible decision. However, another theme of my speech is the lack of clarity...
Daniel Zeichner: I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s observation. I do not think anyone would dispute the layers of complexity and difficulty, and the greater difficulty presented by social media. For some of us who have been grappling with electoral law over many years, social media makes it a whole lot more difficult, and I suspect we all know that we will need to update our procedures to try to cope...
Daniel Zeichner: My hon. Friend jumps ahead a little, but entirely correctly, to my conclusions. Over the next few minutes, I will show some of the inconsistencies and the need to update our rules and laws, and I very much hope that the Minister will listen closely. Returning to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s conclusion, that was an extraordinarily strong statement, which frankly...
Daniel Zeichner: I very much agree with my hon. Friend and near neighbour. There are so many aspects of the matter that could be explored today, some of which I suspect others will choose to pursue. Returning to the general proposition about how these issues should be dealt with, some look to the Venice Commission for guidance. The commission’s guidelines on constitutional referendums, to which the UK...
Daniel Zeichner: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making those points. I quite understand that there is another, more attractive option coming up soon in the other Chamber, and I will be in no way offended if he leaves. On his point about whether there can be an independent arbiter, I am slightly dubious. We are all sufficiently experienced, even in local contests, to know that that would be a difficult...
Daniel Zeichner: I thank my hon. Friend for her suggestion. I am just remembering some bleary-eyed politicians trying to recalibrate in the middle of the night, and I am wondering how quickly such a briefing note could be produced accurately. This is a theme of what I have been saying, but I am not sure that one can design legal systems to cope with all these things. In the end, these are political judgments,...
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many valid British national (overseas) passports were in issue on 31 December in each year since 1987.
Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans his Department has to set up a New Homes Ombudsman to monitor and regulate new housing standards.