Former Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham ( 1 May 1997 – 6 Nov 2019)
Did you mean since able?
Sarah Dyke: ...growth in public spending totally fails to recognise the pressures that the country is facing. The Budget is so short-sighted. I agree with the former Liberal Democrat leader and Business Secretary Vince Cable who said that the Budget leaves a “booby trap” as it fails to recognise the pressures that an ageing population will place on our public services. Like many rural counties,...
Sarah Dyke: ...growth in public spending totally fails to recognise the pressures that the country is facing. The Budget is so short-sighted. I agree with the former Liberal Democrat leader and Business Secretary Vince Cable who said that the Budget leaves a “booby trap” as it fails to recognise the pressures that an ageing population will place on our public services. Like many rural counties,...
Keith Brown: ...We have done far more to remove ring fencing and to support local government than Labour has ever done. Alex Cole-Hamilton spoke about selling off the sea bed cheaply. His is the party that, under Vince Cable, sold off the Royal Mail for billions of pounds less than its market value. We are still paying for that. I will not mention what Ed Davey has done in relation to the Post Office, or...
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride: ...to drive positive change across Britain’s industrial landscape. An industrial strategy can play a crucial role in supporting the broader fabric of British society. Under the coalition Government, Vince Cable continued some of the work that new Labour had put in motion, but this was jettisoned after the 2015 general election. As my noble friend Lady Donaghy said, in 2017 Theresa May’s...
Kerry McCarthy: ...about the UK’s relationship with China back in 2013, when he was Prime Minister. There was quite a bit of fanfare at the time because during the coalition years, the then Business Secretary Vince Cable and the then Foreign Secretary William Hague launched a business and human rights action plan that was supposed to mean that the two things were not separate and that when we were doing...
John Mason: ...or output per job, only London and the south-east are above the UK average. Scotland comes third but is still below the UK average while being ahead of every other part of the UK. I am reminded of Vince Cable’s words in December 2013, when he said: “One of the big problems that we have at the moment … is that London is becoming a kind of giant suction machine, draining the life out...
Lord Frost: ...claim quite the same experience of the noble Lord’s time as Prime Minister as others who have spoken so far today. I was, for part of the time, a humble bureaucrat in the system, working for Vince Cable on EU trade agreements—so we are none of us perfect—and then as head of the Scotch Whisky Association. I must say that, while I was doing that job, his Government either froze or cut...
Munira Wilson: ...learning, but it may show a lack of interest from the public in this mechanism for financing it. That is why the commission on lifelong learning set up by my predecessor as the MP for Twickenham, Vince Cable, recognised that grant funding would have to be part of the mix of funding adult education. Liberal Democrats have built on its proposals to create a skills wallet, giving every adult...
Munira Wilson: ...scheme is not wanting to take on debt. Seeing as talking about our predecessors is in vogue, I will say that was the conclusion my predecessor, the former Member of Parliament for Twickenham, Sir Vince Cable, came to in 2019 when he commissioned an expert panel of university, college and adult education leaders to explore alternatives for financing lifelong learning. They found that most...
Baroness Northover: ...amusing. So, when the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, asks for a strategy—promised since 2014—I hope the answer will not be “soon” or “in due course”. I might say this, might I not? But when Vince Cable put in place an industrial strategy which emphasised and, more to the point, supported the UK’s biomedical sector, having analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the UK’s...
...potential.” That was a statement from Liberal Democrat minister Michael Moore. Secondly: “We have more offshore wind power than the rest of the world combined”. That was from Lib Dem leader Vince Cable. If it is the case that Alex Cole-Hamilton is so distressed by the use of that figure by Scottish Government ministers, perhaps, in the interests of completeness, he would also refer...
Baroness Kramer: ..., focuses on growth and, importantly, sustainable growth. I say that to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, as I know that is her concern. We have done it in the past by working with businesses. Vince Cable’s industrial strategy, the creation of catapults and a huge focus on innovation made such a marked difference, as did Ed Davey’s use of contracts for difference to unleash private...
Margaret Hodge: ...abysmal right across the piece. That particularly goes for Companies House. The first conviction it achieved was against Kevin Brewer, a man in his mid-60s who formed a company and stated that Vince Cable, then Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, was a director and shareholder. He formed another company and put Baroness Neville-Rolfe and the right hon. Member for...
Margaret Hodge: ... Brewer—the Minister will probably remember the case. This was a man in his 60s who deliberately set about showing the flaws in the system in Companies House. He set up a company called John Vincent Cable Services Ltd, when Vince Cable ran the Department that the Minister is now in. He did that in 2013. He then wrote to Vince Cable to tell him what he had done. In 2016, he used the names...
John Mason: ...and taxpayers, and the inability of most parts of the UK, including Scotland, to compete with London and the south-east. I see that our Liberal Democrat friends have left the chamber, but, as Vince Cable said in 2013, London is like a black hole, “draining the life out of the rest of the country”.
Baroness Walmsley: ...industry, jobs and profitability. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, mentioned that they were not on the Liberal Democrat manifesto in 2010, but I am pleased that they were finally introduced under Vince Cable, a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Business. He supported them very enthusiastically. Even the DCMS does not seem to know much about them. That department recently published a...
Lord Callanan: ...Hague Code of Conduct, has been UK Government policy for many years and was reaffirmed in the written statement to Parliament by the then Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skill, Dr Vince Cable, on the 25th March 2014. In addition, the Government’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy presented to Parliament by my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime...
Greg Hands: ...Collins); he spoke in favour of the deal, and I agree with him that we would not sign up to the provisions that are included in the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement. Turning to the Lib Dems, Vince Cable was all in favour of these deals when he was in the coalition Government and the Minister for Trade, and he was actually in favour of ISDS proposals as well. There are specific...
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted: ...We will invest record sums in Research and Development and create an Advanced Research and Invention Agency to help ensure that the breakthroughs of the future happen in the UK.” I think we have Vince Cable to thank for helping life sciences into that position. If we can see economic advantages of frontier and improved technology in health, including in related industrial aspects, then...
Greg Hands: ...against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria, known as the consolidated criteria, first introduced by Robin Cook in 2002 under the last Labour Government and updated by Vince Cable in 2014. The consolidated criteria provide a thorough risk assessment framework for evaluating export licence applications and require us to think hard about the impact of providing...