Ed Vaizey: ...I agree. I have ensured that key executives from Openreach are within 50 yards of the hon. Gentleman, to take up his constituency case the minute this debate finishes. It has been a bit of a broadband day for me. I started in the television studios of “Rip Off Britain”, with the great Angela Rippon, Gloria Hunniford and Julia Somerville, talking about broadband speeds, where, to my...
Mr Michael Jopling: I agree with the remarks of the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells). I especially agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) said in his outstandingly clear speech. The House is beginning to realise what a contentious issue this is and always has been. Various arguments are deployed. There are those who say that there should be more,...
Mr Nigel Spearing: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Skipton and Rippon (Mr. Curry). Although I disagree with him, perhaps fundamentally, on many of these issues, he at least has the ability and knowledge always to talk about them interestingly. That illustrates one of the problems which confronts the House. We have an important international treaty and a Committee stage which involve the...
Mr George Foulkes: On behalf of the Opposition, I put on record our disappointment at the lack of involvement, and indeed lack of presence, of a Foreign Office Minister. Some of us remember with fondness the way in which the right hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind) led the debates, when he was a Foreign Office Minister, with a panache that is now sadly and sorely missing. The...
Mr David Mitchell: ...to the fact that there will be a work load involved. It is a matter for the House authorities, not for me. Several hon. Members stressed the importance of the Committee getting out into Kent and other parts of the country. My experience with the Joint Consultative Committee, which has met in Kent, is that that is the most effective way to get to know what is going on. My hon. Friend the...
Mr William Waldegrave: I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman had an opportunity to address the House. Islington and the other rate-limited authorities should have responded to rate capping by reducing that sort of waste. Instead, they have been demanding the return of the block grant which, they say, we have "stolen" from them. That argument is spurious, and they know it. The Labour party started to cut the...
