Flick Drummond: I was very pleased when the Government brought in auto-enrolment for pensions in 2012, as making sure that everyone saves for a pension should prevent pension poverty. What is the rate of take-up of these pensions and what provisions are the Government putting in place to help those on low wages build up a pension pot to help provide a decent income in retirement?
Flick Drummond: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of regulations applying to winemakers.
Flick Drummond: On Sunday, a third of Knesset Members attended a conference calling for the return of settlements to Gaza and to the north of the occupied west bank. Some of those Members have also asked for a voluntary migration of Palestinians from Gaza, with Israel taking over control. Does the Minister agree that that is not in the best interests of Israel and that there should be a return to the...
Flick Drummond: The Foreign Secretary, writing in The Mail on Sunday on 28 January, said how important it is to “allow vital aid to get in to Gaza, where people are starving and disease is spreading.” Indeed, the provision of aid has been a key cornerstone of the UK’s response to the current crisis in Gaza, as the Minister outlined, with £60 million of aid donated since 7 October. In the light of...
Flick Drummond: It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). She spoke wisely on many of the issues, and I suspect the Minister will have listened carefully. I start by thanking all our personnel currently operating in the eastern Mediterranean and east of Suez. Even in peaceful times it is an area that calls for the highest professionalism and alertness. When we are...
Flick Drummond: The hon. Lady makes some great points. The problem with the motion is that it talks about persistent school absences. Persistent school absences relate to children who are already on the school roll, and schools are able to track them. A register of children not in school is purely for home-educated children, and not for those on a school register, which is for children who are persistently...
Flick Drummond: As the Minister stated, the motion conflates two very important but distinct issues. “Absent” and “not in school” sound similar, but if the shadow Minister the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) thinks that absence is all about children being home educated, which is what my private Member’s Bill is about, she has failed to grasp the issue. Both are...
Flick Drummond: I thank the Prime Minister for the update and the continued humanitarian aid to Yemen. I totally agree with the action that he has taken to protect shipping. However, can he tell me what truth there is in the rumours that the Houthis may become a proscribed terrorist organisation, as that would have a major impact on any humanitarian aid sent to Houthi-controlled territories, which includes...
Flick Drummond: The Minister made the very good point that 10,000 people in our prisons are foreign nationals. Why are we not sending them back to their countries and relieving the pressure for our own domestic prisoners?
Flick Drummond: I rise to speak to the three clauses, which I also have deep concerns about. I once asked a prison officer at Winchester prison how many prisoners were truly evil and how many just got it wrong. He said, “About 5% are truly evil.” They are the ones that I am sure we would like to export to a gulag in Siberia and never see again, but I assume we will not use Russian prisons. Any criminal...
Flick Drummond: The hon. Lady is making an excellent point. There is a rise in cuckooing in particular, which is the exploitation of adults. It used to be for drug dealers and so on, but now it is being used for prostitution as well. I just want to add that to the hon. Lady’s excellent comments.
Flick Drummond: Yemen has been close to my heart, as it has been for the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), because we were both born there. I thank the Prime Minister for all the humanitarian aid that is going there. What discussions has he had with the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council? What impact does he think the strikes will have on the fragile peace process?
Flick Drummond: National Security Minister Ben-Gvir issued a call to encourage the migration of Gaza residents as a solution to the crisis. Finance Minister Smotrich called for Palestinians to leave Gaza and make way for Israelis who could “make the desert bloom”. What steps have the UK Government taken to ensure that Palestinians will be able to return to their homes in Gaza as soon as conditions allow,...
Flick Drummond: Happy new year, Mr Speaker. France and Jordan successfully delivered medical aid to Gaza by air last week. Has the Minister considered the viability of the UK air-dropping food and medical supplies to Gaza in the same way?
Flick Drummond: I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for her important urgent question. I hope that food will be taken to the Holy Family church shortly. I thank the Minister for his comments. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is looking after 1.4 million people in its camps, which is more than half the population of Gaza. On my visit to Palestine in May, we heard that...
Flick Drummond: What steps his Department is taking to incentivise pension schemes to invest in the UK.
Flick Drummond: Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker, and to all those in the House. The UK’s pension funds lag behind their counterparts in the USA, Scandinavia and Australia for investing in technology firms. Can my hon. Friend continue his work on reforms and ensure that more pension fund investment stays in the UK, to boost our tech sector?
Flick Drummond: The GCAP is a prestigious project that will offer careers and high-skilled roles to people across the global supply chain for decades. Will my right hon. Friend commit to keeping up the work of the armed forces in their support for technical education in our schools and colleges, which is critical to making these projects a big success?
Flick Drummond: Let me just qualify that: only two public servants, who I did not mention, got fast broadband. The ones I mentioned did not get fast broadband. I was explaining that they were equally important. I did not mention the ones who got fast broadband for obvious reasons—I think they are quite embarrassed about getting fast broadband before their neighbours. There are huge numbers of very...
Flick Drummond: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for securing this incredibly important debate. Like others, getting better broadband for my constituents in has been a key focus of my work since 2019. During covid it became clear how isolated some of my constituents could become. I want to raise awareness of a couple...