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Andrew Slaughter: I understand the frustration that has brought this Bill and previous Bills to the House. I have been a Member for only a few short years, and I am sure that there are Members present who have been trying to make similar changes to legislation for a longer period. This is not the first time that the Government have said that they support such changes, and there appears to be unanimity among...
Ann Widdecombe: I remind the hon. Gentleman of his reply to me. In the Lancashire case, a couple were questioned by the police for an hour and 20 minutes. They had asked the local council whether they could distribute Christian literature alongside the council's literature on civil partnerships. There was an outcry, and Lancashire police stood their ground and said it was a proper intervention. The local...
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, Amendment 27 would remove the link between the salary level and the designation of a local authority post as politically restricted. We certainly support the policy behind the Widdecombe rules, which preserve the visible political impartiality of senior local authority employees. In Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power, our 2008 White Paper, we acknowledged that, with...
Ann Widdecombe: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent representations he has received on the proposed construction of an airport on St. Helena; and if he will make a statement.
Christopher Chope: My hon. Friend is on to a very good point. Indeed, I have made it in relation to my Christchurch constituency. If the Bournemouth Bill were to pass into law, if there were an issue to do with rogue trading and peddling in Bournemouth—which is hotly disputed—that activity might well transfer either to the ancient borough and market town of Christchurch, or to Wimborne, or to Poole. That is...
James Brokenshire: I am delighted by the welcome given by many Members on the Government Benches to this debate. When I was preparing my comments over the weekend, I wondered whether it would be an example of a brave new period of bipartisanship, given that the new immigration Minister, whom I welcome to his position, was making statements in the press following his appointment, such as "On a common sense level...
Ann Widdecombe: ...of the House, which followed that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May)? May I also associate myself with the remarks made by several long-serving Members of the House and say I regret very much that the subject should have been raised in a political context? We had a debate on this subject, and Members on both sides of the House had free votes on it, not long ago....
Ann Widdecombe: I am pleased to see that the Minister agrees. Miss Y does not wish to be named because she is a frail lady of pensionable age who does not want an enormous amount of press publicity flowing around her. Mr. X does not wish to be named because he is working and his employer does not yet know of his difficulties. For understandable reasons, he does not wish his employer to become—possibly...
Ann Widdecombe: There is an immense naivety governing this debate. If we imagine that, by passing the well thought out motion tabled by the Members Estimate Committee, we shall somehow restore public confidence, or that by rejecting the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), we shall continue not to have the confidence of the public, we are living in cloud cuckoo land. One of two...
Hugh Robertson: I welcome you to the Chair, Dr. McCrea. I also welcome the Minister, who is slowly and surely taking his place, and thank him for taking the time to respond to this debate. I intend to conduct this debate in five sections. First, I shall make some introductory remarks about my interest in the case. Secondly, I shall be clear about what we want to achieve this morning. Thirdly, I will sketch...
Don Touhig: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for parliamentary scrutiny of the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals. The committee is commonly known as the HD committee. This powerful, secretive but completely unaccountable committee has caused grave offence to veterans and to what is probably one of the few Muslim countries in the world that wants to...
Ann Widdecombe: We have in this country at present a situation in which it is possible for this to happen to two children of exactly the same age and gestation: one is in a cot with all the resources of medical science being poured in to save it, while the other is quite deliberately being taken from the womb and destroyed. That is moral anarchy. That is a totally unjustifiable state of affairs. What is the...
Tony McNulty: That was perfectly deliberate and nothing to do with the absence at lunch at all, and I stand by that remark entirely. I am grateful to the Welsh guy, as he shall now be known, for his short, pithy, good-humoured and overwhelmingly productive contributions. It is a great credit to his micro-party—[Interruption.] I do not mean on local government in Wales. During our deliberations, the most...
Bob Russell: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the immigration rules in connection with the requirements for indefinite leave to enter and remain in the United Kingdom as a Gurkha discharged from the British Army. The Gurkhas have a unique place in the history of our country and in the hearts of the British people. For around 200 years they, the bravest of the brave, have...
Gerald Howarth: I wish that my hon. Friend would speak more clearly, so that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) could properly understand. Clearly, this is an undisguised attempt at promoting the case for the disestablishment of the Church of England. One of the reasons why this is a serious issue is, as my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) expressed it—he...
Harriet Harman: I thank the right hon. Lady for her congratulations to me on yesterday—and I think that she would have done a much better job for the Opposition than her right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). The right hon. Lady mentioned eating disorders, an important public health issue that particularly affects girls and young women. It is of concern to the Department of Health,...
Keith Vaz: I beg to move That leave be given to bring in a Bill to exclude from the operation of the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 certain matters relating to the selection of candidates by political parties. The United Kingdom is a diverse nation. A snapshot of what it means to be British today would surely provide us with a mosaic reflecting the many...
Ann Widdecombe: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I note that we have about half an hour for Third Reading. Large groups of amendments have already gone completely undebated, and a Minister had to gallop through and not give any rationale for some amendments in order to facilitate debate. On a very major amendment, we did get a vote but had very restricted debate. Other major amendments,...
Jack Straw: .... Fearon —[Interruption.] I was Home Secretary when the Tony Martin case arose. It was a difficult one, although I think that few people argue with the jury's verdict in those exceptional circumstances. I do not regard Mr. Fearon on an equal footing with the judicial Committee of the House of Lords or even with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. I shall now give way to...
Greg Clark: I am pleased to have caught your eye, Sir John, and delighted to participate in this debate on an excellent report and to follow the characteristically forceful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) and the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff), the Chairman of the Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for...