Tom Randall: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing the debate. It is a welcome debate and an opportunity to discuss those rare diseases that, by their very nature, do not have the large advocacy organisations to speak about them. This week I received a mailshot from one of the UK’s leading cancer charities....
Tom Randall: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure prompt action on missed child maintenance payments to avoid the accrual of large arrears.
Tom Randall: I thank my hon. Friend for his statement, and I add my thanks to the staff who helped to prepare this report. The report acknowledges that the presentation of data has improved, but does my hon. Friend agree that there is much more work for the Government to do in this area, and that that improvement will not only improve confidence in the data itself but is critical to improving confidence...
Tom Randall: May I, first, associate myself with the sympathy expressed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to Sarah Everard’s family at the outset of this debate? When this Bill comes to a vote tomorrow I will be supporting it. I will be supporting a Bill that will ensure stronger sentences for child murderers, rapists, violent offenders, dangerous drivers, child abusers, burglars, drug dealers,...
Tom Randall: The reported proposals in China’s National People’s Congress to change Hong Kong’s electoral system will break the promises that she has made and end democracy in Hong Kong. With almost every prominent leader in Hong Kong’s democracy movement now on trial, in exile or in jail, what steps are the Government taking in multilateral institutions to hold China to account for her actions?
Tom Randall: I read in the newspapers this morning that millions of people are going to sit in front of their television sets this evening, and as I cannot imagine they will be watching anything other than the Parliament channel I would like to take this opportunity to say that this is a good Budget that will help the economy in its long recovery from the strains of the last year. The theme of this...
Tom Randall: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to implement NICE Quality Standard 170 on spondyloarthritis.
Tom Randall: The Fire Safety Bill is a short Bill of seven clauses that amends the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. That order consolidated different pieces of fire safety legislation, and this Bill clarifies that the order applies to a building’s structure, external walls and any common parts. I am sympathetic to the aims of Lords amendment 4, but I am concerned that the fire safety order,...
Tom Randall: I have joined colleagues from both sides of the House and across the east midlands to back the bid for a freeport in the east midlands. The freeport would be the best connected, with air, road and rail connections; would bring international investment to the region; and has the potential to create up to 60,000 skilled new jobs. May we please have parliamentary time to discuss just how...
Tom Randall: This debate is taking place in the long shadow cast by the Grenfell disaster. Anyone who has seen that charred edifice silhouetted against the sky will understand why it is so important that nothing of that kind happens again. At the time of Grenfell, I happened to be living in a block of flats, and came home one evening to find fire watchers in the street patrolling the blocks. Such a sight...
Tom Randall: The Holocaust is not the only example of man’s inhumanity to man. It is not the only genocide, and while it touched every corner of Europe, the United Kingdom was, relatively speaking at least, barely affected. So why remember? It is surely because, as we have already heard so vividly today, it still has the power to shock. The scale is difficult to comprehend. This was not a rampage or a...
Tom Randall: This is a Government who are supporting councils with £10 billion of support, including more than £2 million to Gedling Borough Council here in Nottinghamshire, plus more to help ease financial burdens. This Government’s support for local councils has been unprecedented and generous and helped share the burden they face. Our councils are so often on the frontline when it comes to...
Tom Randall: I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing it, and on his co-chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for justice for Equitable Life policyholders, which I have been happy to join. He very eloquently set out the background to this matter in his opening speech,...
Tom Randall: At six months old, Hurley is one of my youngest constituents, but he has PKU—phenylketonuria—a medical condition where his body cannot process protein, which severely restricts his diet. Most ordinary food will be off limits. There is a treatment available called Kuvan that can be transformative, and it is available in many other European countries but not here. Can we have some...
Tom Randall: There are several amendments to be considered today, but I propose to speak only to Lords amendment 3—the so-called genocide amendment—which I have particularly considered. After Brexit, the country appeared to divide into two camps: those who saw Brexit as a problem to be solved and those who saw it as an opportunity to be embraced. I am firmly in the latter camp. We can now develop our...
Tom Randall: Opposition day debates are allocated to the Opposition by the Government, and in the Opposition’s social media noise, they do not mention that on such days, while matters are debated and discussed, they are not decided on in the same way as they are through the ordinary legislative process. They are not backed up by White Papers or detailed policy, yet the Opposition rely on the public...
Tom Randall: What steps she is taking to ensure that her policies are informed by robust evidence.
Tom Randall: Over the Christmas break, I was disappointed to read comments in The Guardian by Halima Begum of the Runnymede Trust, who ridiculously claimed: “I think the government’s long-term plan is to work up white nationalism for the next elections”. Does my right hon. Friend agree that not only should that insulting thinking have no place in the setting of Government policy, but it should have...
Tom Randall: What steps his Department is taking to increase Covid-19 testing capacity.
Tom Randall: Thanks to sound financial management, Conservative-controlled Nottinghamshire County Council plans to set a balanced budget in the next financial year. That rather contrasts with Labour-controlled Nottingham City Council, which is £1 billion in debt, lost nearly £40 million and 200 jobs after its energy firm Robin Hood Energy collapsed, and set up a Christmas market that closed after one...