Edwin Poots: ...of new policies and to allow impacted stakeholders that have not had an opportunity to voice their opinions to be consulted before such duties are put in place. I now move to amendment No 68, which John Blair tabled, requiring the Northern Ireland Executive to establish an independent office of climate change and environmental protection. Establishing an independent office of climate...
Tahir Ali: ..., Hall Green who have expressed serious concern over the affordability of their fuel bills. Many people are now facing a significant cost of living crisis that has been driven, in my view, by two main factors. First, over the last 20 years in the UK, gas prices have nearly tripled; the increase is staggering: 221%. Given the reliance on gas in many households across the country, this...
John Redwood: ...massive private-led investment in proper broadband, which is what we all need. Could the Secretary of State give guidance to the companies doing it that it is not helpful if they bury cables under main roads, requiring the roads to be dug up again every time they want to improve or mend a cable? Could we not do better, either in ducts or by the side of the road?
Andrew Slaughter: ...arguments in Committee, so if there is no movement today, the Opposition will vote against the Bill on Third Reading, as we did on Second Reading. We have issues with part 2 of the Bill, which will mainly be dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) in the debate on the second group of amendments, although I will deal in this group with our concerns...
Jim Fairlie: ...at an appropriate time, when the emergency nature of the current deliberations is behind us, the compensation provisions that are contained in the 2008 act should be revisited to ensure that they remain sufficient for the purposes for which they were intended—for isolated examples of self-isolation. That relates to what John Mason said. I, for one, certainly hope that never again in our...
John Howell: ...of the proceedings, both for the Court and for the respondent Government. The future of the convention system rests on this, as: “The quality of judges and members of the Registry is essential to maintaining the authority of the Court and therefore also for the future of the Convention mechanism.” I emphasise that it is the quality of the judges that is crucial to the future of the...
John Mason: ...I find the Conservative motion interesting in that it seeks more money for local government but does not say where that money should come from. The Labour amendment takes a similar path. One of the main options for raising such money is increasing taxes, which I would be open to, but we understand that the Tories are normally against tax rises. In fact, they usually do a lot of girning and...
John Glen: ...up, refined and adapted very quickly. In order to meet the needs of individuals, the self-employed and businesses up and down the country, £81.2 billion of payments were made across the three main schemes. Although I recognise that there has been an element of fraud, the Government have never been complacent about that. Grants for employees and businesses used data on HMRC systems. The...
Daniel McCrossan: ...I would attend the local school because I was a Catholic or otherwise. I attended the local controlled school. I am a product of the controlled sector and have grown up, my entire life, knowing John or Sarah as John or Sarah; it did not matter what religion they came from. I was lucky to attend a school that naturally integrated children together, who then grew together. I saw the benefits...
Andrew Jones: ...things. I welcome this report by the Transport Committee. It has done a good piece of work. I have to say that it is a Select Committee that I have had quite a bit to do with over the years, but mainly by appearing in front of it, rather than being a member of it. As the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), said, the report, “Rollout and safety of...
John Martin McDonnell: .... We are talking about both laser surgery and lens replacement, in larger numbers every year. It is a growing issue. Thousands upon thousands are receiving refractive surgery, basically from three main companies: Optical Express, Optimax, and Optegra. Tragically, of those thousands, many hundreds are now experiencing serious problems. They have failed to find a solution to their eyesight...
Alison Thewliss: ...Tory Governments in the past, it looks very much as though the reasons for a move back to austerity are ideological rather than economically sound. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) also opposes austerity, although for different reasons. Cutting support too soon poses a big risk to our economy, especially when the UK is facing a 4% expected reduction in GDP owing to...
John Redwood: ...reliable. The hon. Lady must understand that, like me, she is answerable to constituents who will expect the lights to stay on throughout this decade and will expect electricity and gas and other main energy sources to be affordable and available. The danger is that, if we do not do more to expand our capacity of the transition fuels as well as working on improving and increasing...
Jim Shannon: ...setting up the debate. She is part of that strong Stoke team. It is nice to see her in her place and to support her as well. I recently took part in a debate in which the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) talked about creating a more resilient food and drink industry for the United Kingdom. This debate aligns closely with that. We look forward to the Minister’s and shadow...
John Mason: .... We want to give women who have been victims of rape or other violence a better result. If we are moving from three verdicts to two, the question for me is what the two verdicts should be. The main suggestion is that we should drop the not proven verdict, but I suggest that that is not the only option. Perhaps we should consider that the two options could be proven and not proven. If the...
Seema Malhotra: ...Minister has previously stated that we are in a position to be able to change those thresholds—it is not a matter of can’t; it is a matter of won’t. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) said very cleverly: if this is so obvious and the Minister agrees with transparency, why are we not doing it? During covid, we have seen Ministers wasting money on crony personal...
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere: ...to agree with our friends? Would it not have gone without saying for most of our recent history that you could have friends across the divide? No one would have thought it remarkable. In 1644, John Milton wrote: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” I cite the blind sage for two reasons. First, there is a certain...
Lord Wigley: ...That energy is needed to heat our homes, to provide industrial power and to transport food, raw materials, finished products and people, and it has to come from somewhere. Currently, it is provided mainly by oil, gas and electricity; 60% of our energy comes from the direct use of such fossil fuels. The balance of the other 40% of the energy that we consume is in the form of electricity,...
John Swinney: ..., too, is why we have worked as hard as we could to open the scheme as soon as possible after the legislation was passed. The scheme will be delivered by the Scottish Government, which will be the main point of contact for applicants, and by Redress Scotland, which is the new independent body that will make decisions on eligibility and levels of redress payments that are to be offered to...
Owen Thompson: ...of improvement and logic, making it one of the world’s first physical embodiments of this intellectual revolution. As for who this ground-breaking architectural experiment was being made for, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik was Mavisbank’s first resident. He might not be one of the towering names of Scottish history, but he certainly knew many of the big names and played a part in many of...