Mark Pritchard: ...-be investors and businesses. They can now avoid, hopefully, being targeted and potentially exploited by the hostile states and entities hidden behind the respectable veil of supposedly legitimate mergers and acquisitions that take place in the City every day—strategic partnerships, joint ventures and major investments. The Bill also rightly responds to the huge advances in technology,...
Mark Pritchard: ...deal is currently being done with Wolverhampton city council, which covers an urban area. Does he agree that there should be a full consultation with the people of Telford & Wrekin before any such merger? I represent a semi-rural borough, not an urban area.
Mark Pritchard: ...at Sapphire House in Telford, the neighbouring constituency to mine. The DLO work force have given many years of service and commitment to the armed forces and this country. I question whether the merger of the Defence Procurement Agency and the DLO is right, but if I put that aside and accepted that it is, I would still ask whether now is the right time. Given our deployments around the...
Mark Pritchard: .... Of course, the Minister will know that an announcement was made this week that might see 400 job losses at the DLO. Notwithstanding the points made on both sides of the House about whether the merger of the Defence Procurement Agency and the DLO is right or wrong—and I question whether it is right—one must ask whether the timing is right. The Secretary of State said earlier that the...
Mark Pritchard: Part of the Government's explanation of the reason for police mergers is that they will increase resilience and improve counter-terrorism and co-ordination between police force areas, so why are five special branch officers being removed from the important port of Holyhead, which has the fourth highest footfall in the country?
Mark Pritchard: ...of those people travel through my constituency in Shropshire? If so, can she tell the Committee why five special branch officers have been told that they will be made redundant, especially as the mergers were supposed to enhance the way in which we deal with the threat of terrorism?
Mark Pritchard: .... Member for Telford (David Wright), I know that in a letter dated 17 October 2004 the then Under-Secretary of State for Health said that there would be no reduction in services as a result of the merger. Clearly, reductions are on the way.