Robert Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department What projections he has made of the prison population in the next 12 months; and what steps he is taking to ensure projected numbers are accommodated.
Robert Goodwill: About 2,000 current and former employees of Scarborough bus and coach builder Henlys stand to receive only a third of their expected pensions after the company ceased trading, with a pension deficit of £80 million. Workers within three years of retirement would normally have qualified for the Government's financial assistance scheme, but no insolvency event has occurred. Is the Minister...
Robert Goodwill: Does my hon. Friend agree that although the people who he listed will not be involved in the negotiations, member states that are completely land-locked will be? Does he think that fishing will be their priority in the negotiations?
Robert Goodwill: I commence by saying a few words about Lawrie Quinn, my predecessor. Mr. Quinn was a very hard-working MP. As Hansard shows, he regularly attended these annual fisheries debates. When my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) visited the constituency, he witnessed real anger in the fishing community. Some of the anger was directed at the Member of Parliament, but I...
Robert Goodwill: Indeed. England got nothing. Mr. Locker sold four vessels. One went to Northern Ireland—surprise, surprise!—and three went to Scotland. That enabled him to reduce his borrowing and to keep going. As I said earlier, there is no point in having a cod recovery plan if there is no industry in England left to capitalise on it. Skippers and fishermen in Whitby feel that the science that is...
Robert Goodwill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the two Shetland-based fishermen who pleaded guilty to landing illegally 7,600 tonnes of fish in Denmark without declaring it to fisheries officials, fixing log sheets and making £3.4 million in the process could be described as being involved in black fish?
Robert Goodwill: The Government seem to be content that an increasing number of convicted criminals are escaping a custodial sentence. As he embarks on what may well be his final full year in office, is the Prime Minister bothered that a pensioner with a minimal amount of unpaid council tax is more likely to go to jail than some muggers?
Robert Goodwill: Is it not true that wind power needs back-up for when the wind is not blowing? Denmark relies heavily on wind power and when the wind stops blowing, the Danes have to switch on the cable from Germany. Some of the German power comes from nuclear generators, but much of it is generated by burning lignite—brown coal.
Robert Goodwill: I am grateful to the Liberal Democrats for scheduling this debate, which has given the Government and the official Opposition a good opportunity to make a compelling case for a return to two-party politics. With the benefit of hindsight, when the good Lord decided where to allocate the world's hydrocarbon reserves, it was a bad day for Him and not the best decision that He might have made....
Robert Goodwill: I am grateful for that question. I was in Canada in the summer with the all-party group on nuclear energy. We spoke to Canada's uranium mining industry, which assured us that it has 80 years-worth of supply. However, it also pointed out that there is no incentive to look for further uranium, given the existing supply, and that many modern reactors can also burn thorium, which there is more...
Robert Goodwill: That is true. At the Hartlepool nuclear station, there is an energy centre where children can go to learn about nuclear energy, and the same is true at Sellafield. I am sorry to say that organisations such as Greenpeace do themselves few favours in the way that they inform people; in fact, I think they are more in the business of scaremongering than peddling information.
Robert Goodwill: I am grateful for that intervention. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats have being listening too much to Greenpeace and its scaremongering. The worst things in the ghost ships were asbestos, which is found in many buildings around this city and can be dealt with competently, and some PCBs in the electrical wiring. No. 3 on the list of toxic products in the ghost ships was fuel oil. Casting my mind...
Robert Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the future of the Wylfa nuclear power station.
Robert Goodwill: This is almost a case of déjà vu, because before I elected to this Parliament I was a Member of the European Parliament, where I got off on things like this. I took through some of the Euro IV legislation and the legislation on motor cycle emissions, N1 vehicles—vans—and small spark-ignition engines, such as those in lawn mowers and chain saws. I was pleased that we managed to save the...
Robert Goodwill: Has the Department analysed the effectiveness of the current compensation scheme? I read yesterday that three years after the Prestige disaster, only 15 per cent. of the money that could have been allocated has been, because of the difficulty of ascertaining the long-term environmental impact. In the short term, that means that much important environmental work in Galicia has not taken place.
Robert Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his policy is on whether cluster munitions should be subject to similar restrictions to those imposed on land mines under the Ottawa Accord.
Robert Goodwill: It must be true that none of the funds has been deployed wrongly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs this year, because no farmers have received their cheques. No fraud is taking place this year because so far no money has been given to our hard-pressed farmers.
Robert Goodwill: I was fascinated to hear the Economic Secretary say that he believes in the EU. I know that it is in vogue to take direction from an overarching authority, but the EU is something in which I believe, in so far as it exists, but I do not believe that it has a coherent system of financial accountability. I must declare an interest—as someone who farms modestly in Yorkshire, I am eligible for...
Robert Goodwill: I endorse my hon. Friend's comments. Whistleblowers have a sad record in the EU. Paul Van Buitenen, who exposed the fraud that brought down the Santer Commission, was sacked by Commissioner Kinnock, now the noble Lord Kinnock. Incidentally, Mrs. Cresson, who was criticised for giving money to her dentist and whose pension was suspended, is now on half-pension, we are told. Marta Andreasen,...
Robert Goodwill: If he will make a statement on his Department's plans to reduce the number of people claiming incapacity benefit.