Robert Goodwill: I congratulate the Secretary of State on facing up to this vexed issue, and not before time. In terms of the way in which cost is apportioned, does he think that a distinction should be made between the legacy waste from, for example, the nuclear weapons development programme and the waste directly generated by power generation?
Robert Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the Department has (a) undertaken and (b) commissioned hyperbaric chamber tests on live goats in the last five years.
Robert Goodwill: If she will make a statement on the future of the European Union constitutional treaty.
Robert Goodwill: The EU is often critical of other countries that act in an undemocratic way. Given that the constitutional treaty is dead in the water after being torpedoed by France and Holland, what is the justification for the Commission pressing on regardless with the external action service—the EU's diplomatic service, which also has its own embassies—and the External Borders Agency? What is the...
Robert Goodwill: Is my hon. Friend aware that it is not only the Government who are escaping scrutiny? The European Parliament returns on August bank holiday Monday, so there are five weeks when this House cannot scrutinise and comment on what goes on there.
Robert Goodwill: Even if the European Commission decided to take action against the United Kingdom, is it not the case that, by the time that the action got to the court, the EU would have moved anyway and changed the rules?
Robert Goodwill: I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. No doubt the Secretary of State is a reader of the Yorkshire Post and is aware of its campaign for interim payments to be made by the end of the year, rather than February, as announced today. Farmers in the Republic of Ireland have not only received interim payments already, but expect full payment by the end of the year....
Robert Goodwill: Has the Minister made any assessment of the 60-tonne, 25.25 m trucks that have recently been test-driven not only by members of the Select Committee but by officials in his Department? Such trucks are already operating on the roads of three European Union member states. Does he agree that deploying them on specific routes might well reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by road transport?
Robert Goodwill: Surely the best way to help unemployed people aged over 50 is to help them back into work. Does the Minister have any plans to visit Poland and the Czech Republic to see what lessons can be learned from their education and training systems, which have been so successful in equipping people with the skills necessary to take up jobs available in the UK economy?
Robert Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the availability of specialised consultant-led pain clinics in the NHS.
Robert Goodwill: What assessment he has made of the impact of interest rates for consumer credit on low income families.
Robert Goodwill: My constituent Mr. John Barrett of Scarborough was appalled to receive a letter offering him a loan of £7,500 at an annual percentage rate of 44.6 per cent. The suggestion was that he could use the money for a holiday. That generous rate is available only to those in full-time employment. Others, such as Farepak customers who may be on benefits or paid weekly, have to pay rates as high as...
Robert Goodwill: The decision will be met with great dismay in marinas in ports such as Scarborough and Whitby. Does the case not expose the myth of the UK veto on taxation matters? A stealth tax is being imposed on us by the European Commission, against the wishes and the request of the British Government. Who runs Britain?
Robert Goodwill: I heard exactly those words from someone in my constituency who was a victim of the failed Henlys pension scheme. Some people not only paid for many years into that scheme but transferred large lumps of other schemes into it, in some cases only months before it failed. They are advising their relatives and friends not to invest in the future but to spend the money on bricks and mortar, or...
Robert Goodwill: Is the Secretary of State aware that some bus companies are changing their timetables in a way that prevents pensioners from taking up the free travel that is available to them? For example, the 9 o'clock Yorkshire Coastliner service from Scarborough to Malton, York and Leeds now leaves at 8.50 am and pensioners cannot use it without getting a lift down the road to the first stop from which...
Robert Goodwill: The hon. Gentleman talks about reductions in CO2 production; perhaps he should also talk about exports of CO2 production. He mentioned exporting the model of the European scheme, but we are already exporting our emissions to places such as Donetsk in the Ukraine, and to India and China. We should try to move forward internationally rather than regard the European Union as a little fortress,...
Robert Goodwill: Does the Minister think that it is fair that while NHS workers in York are bearing the brunt of the £77 million deficit in north Yorkshire, the nature of the contracts imposed on the PCT by the Government means that the new private Capio hospital in York escapes relatively unscathed?
Robert Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the impact of the introduction of guidelines on deep-fried products in school meals on school children's diets.
Robert Goodwill: Is my hon. Friend aware of the rapidly deteriorating access to NHS dentistry? In many parts of the country, including my constituency, families from the socially excluded sector are unable to get the free treatment that they thought was available on the NHS.
Robert Goodwill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in urban areas when people's benefits are messed up, they often have to have recourse to door-to-door credit salesmen, but in rural areas they cannot even take out expensive credit as a way of making ends meet on a short-term basis?