Theresa Villiers: It is a pleasure to respond to an interesting and well-informed debate. I congratulate, as other hon. Members have done, my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), on securing it and on his thoughtful and insightful speech on his ideas for the route options for HS2. I thank him and other hon. Members for the support that they have expressed for the announcements...
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: ...of Parliament, in Paris of all places, who are now specifically responsible for all French overseas voters. I am not going anything like as far as that, but I want my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the regulations in the way I will set out. It is certainly not that British people living overseas have no interest in taking part in our elections, so the figures I have now quoted twice...
Mark Pawsey: I, too, am a great supporter of the air ambulance service as a charitable institution, and I know about its tremendous work to raise funds in and around the midlands. I share my hon. Friend’s concern that charitable funds are used to pay tax. I am more than happy to join him in his representations. On silo thinking, the RUSI report argues that there must be much greater co-ordination in the...
Kerry McCarthy: ...in some ways they were quite visible. Yet, no one had managed to track them down and arrest them. We know that the LRA has been seen in the DRC and in South Sudan, and there is a real fear that it could be regrouping or that atrocities are being carried out in those areas, too. The UN has also expressed concerns about acts carried out by the Uganda People’s Defence Force. There have been...
Geoffrey Robinson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing up that point. It was the staggering figures about the illicit tobacco trade in Coventry that first prompted me to consider that there could be adverse, unintended consequences to the measure that I am proposing with the good intention of reducing smoking. Let me give the House the figures for the illicit trade in Coventry. My constituency is one...
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I do not think we had a single debate on exports in the whole of the previous Parliament, so this debate is timely and welcome. We, this coalition Government, quite rightly got rid of the regional development agencies that used to be responsible for co-ordinating inward investment and introduced the LEPs. However, the LEPs do...
David Willetts: I apologise, but it has been a crowded debate. We understand the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for more debates on these issues. I was asked about the EU-India free trade agreement, including by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright). The UK has been one of the strongest supporters of the FTA since negotiations started. We believe...
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the merits of instructing HM Revenue and Customs to carry out co-ordinated checks on scrap metal merchants to check (a) any irregularities in cash payments, (b) value added tax registrations and (c) the reconciliation of the quantity of metal reprocessed by a merchant with the sum remitted in value added tax.
Geoffrey Robinson: I am grateful to you, Mrs Riordan, for chairing the debate and to Mr Speaker and his office for agreeing to it. It is a very important debate, in the course of which I may be joined by two other MPs. I think that both were meant to have approached the Chair to say that if time permits—I hope it does—they would like to say a few words. We will of course leave adequate time for the Minister...
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to ensure the effectiveness of measures by the African Union to co-ordinate a regional mission to prevent attacks on civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan by members of the Lord's Resistance Army.
David Lidington: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will attend the Foreign Affairs Council (Foreign Ministers) on 23 May. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the Minister with responsibility for international security strategy, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth) will attend the Foreign Affairs Council (Defence) on 23 May. I will attend the General Affairs Council on...
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I welcome the Minister who will reply to the debate and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) on successfully petitioning the Backbench Business Committee for it to take place. With the events occurring in north Africa, the issue of Sudan has been driven from the news headlines. As it is likely to be the first democratic nation spawned by the...
Rushanara Ali: I should like to thank the Secretary of State for arranging this debate. I also pay tribute to the staff at the Department for International Development, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the humanitarian agencies for their work in this incredibly testing period. We also owe our gratitude to our brave servicemen and women who are engaged in protecting civilians in Libya under UN...
Kelvin Hopkins: ...did not plan to speak myself. However, I have been provoked once again into saying a few words. As I have said time and again in the Chamber, the European Union is not Europe. They are two separate concepts, one of which is a continent of countries that I love very much. I would wish to go nowhere else. Europe is my home-it is where my history is and where my ancestors came from. We are a...
Geoffrey Cox: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir, and to have secured this debate on so important a subject. I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his position-this is my first opportunity to do so on the Floor of the House-and I know he will fill it with considerable distinction. When occasionally I give the odd, not criticism but constructive prod, I hope he will forgive me and...
Edward Davey: The debate has been extremely good; I counted at least 26 Members present during our discussion. We heard passionate defences of the services that many of our constituents enjoy up and down our country, and I want to reply to as much of the debate as possible, although I will be making a statement in the very near future-but not tomorrow; I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull...
Geoffrey Cox: It is a great pleasure to see you preside over this debate, Mr Bone. I am pleased to have secured a debate on such a topical and important subject, and to be able to welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) to his position. It is my first opportunity to do so in this Chamber, and I hope that he is enjoying the multifarious...
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: ...to my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) for securing this important and timely debate on regional spatial strategies. The relevant provisions in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 that established regional spatial strategies were repealed and replaced, from 1 April 2010, by new provisions set out in part 5 of the Local Democracy, Economic...
Lord Myners: My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, on her appointment to government. This must be the first time in many decades-possibly ever-that part of the debate on the humble Address has been led by two people of Cornwall. I also compliment the noble Lord, Lord Henley, on his return to the government Benches. This will be my last contribution from the Opposition Front...
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: As he so often does, my hon. Friend reads my mind; I was coming on to that point. We need to make the global political agreement work. We need to make the judgments of the panel enforceable under the judicial system of Zimbabwe. My hon. Friend is a great constitutional lawyer, so he will know that unless one can obtain enforcement of a judgment, there is not much point-I will not say that...