Budget Resolutions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Boris Johnson

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I believe that measures such as a new royal yacht—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Why are people making such a noise when the Foreign Secretary is saying things that might be important? [Interruption.] Order. I would like to hear the Foreign Secretary.

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The new royal yacht is one of a number of measures that I am sure this Government will be able to consider. In the meantime, we have before us a Budget that is helping to create the conditions in which this economy can continue to flourish.

The first of these conditions—

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[Boris Johnson]

I shall give way in a moment or two. I wish to return to the Budget. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order, Mr Gapes.

[Boris Johnson]

I will give way in due course, but I wish to make this point, because I have been asked to return to the Budget. I do so with absolute pleasure, because it is thanks to the careful stewardship of this country’s finances that we are able to deploy not only hard power on the scale that I have mentioned—we are the second biggest military contributor to NATO—but soft power on a scale unmatched by any of our European partners. The BBC, our universities and the British Council, an absolute gem of this country and its culture—an unsung gem, I might add—give the United Kingdom a cultural penumbra across the world that is of massive economic value.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. No, it isn’t. It is the Foreign Secretary’s Select Committee.

[Boris Johnson]

Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you. If I may, I will remind the hon. Lady of my optimism. I urge Labour Members to contain their pessimism. They asked me to name the countries that wish to do free trade deals. There are dozens. They have heard what the United States of America wants to do and that will be hugely in the interests of every part of this country. Right hon. and hon. Members may not know this, but at the moment the United States still has an embargo not only on British beef but on Scottish haggis. I do not know whether Members of the Scottish parties agree with that, but there is no way of liberating the haggis to travel across the Atlantic again unless we do a free trade deal with the United States.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I appreciate the—[Interruption.]

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The Foreign Secretary will give way when he is ready to give way; meanwhile, no shouting.

[Boris Johnson]

I will conclude with these thoughts.

Last Friday, I was in my constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and I am proud to say that I visited a business on a backstreet in Uxbridge that has more or less cornered the market in manufacturing the fancy display cabinets used to sell delicacies such as Toblerone in every airport in Saudi Arabia, and it is expanding. Thanks to the ingenuity and enterprise of that business, if we go to a Saudi Arabian airport and buy a Toblerone, we will buy it over a counter made in Uxbridge.

Given the ingenuity that this nation is showing, I believe—

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Boris Johnson

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I am happy to inform the House that the previous Mayor met the leader of the RMT only once, reportedly called him a gangster and sacked him from the board of Transport for London. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman—and, for all I know, relative—to acknowledge that the reason the Government are bringing forward this serious and, in my view, sensible Bill is that we have too many wildcat strikes, particularly in the transport sector? He began by saying that no other country in Europe would bring forward such proposals. Can I tell him—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman should receive the same courtesy as every other Member of the House while he makes a brief intervention.

[Boris Johnson]

I tell the right hon. Gentleman that not only do many European countries have restrictions and insist on minimum service requirements during strike action, but some countries ban strike action altogether, notably the United States, where 39 out of the 50 states ban mass transit workers from going on strike. He should also know that in Germany, which somebody mentioned earlier, there is a ballot threshold of 75%. These measures are entirely sensible and will prevent the abuse of working people.