General Practices (Coventry)
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Jim Fitzpatrick(10 years ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. It being Five o’clock and there being a total lack of Whips in the Chamber—
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempt to be helpful, but I will invite the Minister to move that the House do now adjourn, after which he may recommence his speech.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Dr Poulter.)
Business without Debate
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Jim Fitzpatrick
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am very grateful for the opportunity to ask your advice on the issue of the objection raised by the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) to the Wild Animals in Circuses Bill. The Prime Minister is on the record as supporting this Bill, which was published by the Government and which I have adopted. At my meeting with the relevant Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Wednesday night, the Minister told me the Government were supporting my Bill. However, the Deputy Chief Whip, I am advised, has asked the hon. Member for Romford to object to the Bill. So with the Government and the Prime Minister saying one thing officially and the Deputy Chief Whip, on behalf of the Government on the Treasury Bench, saying and doing something completely to the contrary, how can I clarify what the Government’s position is on a Bill that has all-party support—not just cross-party support—in time for next Friday’s opportunity for it to progress further?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
I appreciate the point the hon. Gentleman has made, and he has put it on the record. The only matter for the Chair is the right of the hon. Member for Romford to say whatever he likes in this Chamber. I am here to protect the hon. Member’s right to do so, and he has every right to say what he has said this afternoon. The other points the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) has very passionately made will, I am sure, be noted by those whom he wishes to note them.
European Union (Referendum) Bill
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Jim Fitzpatrick(10 years, 12 months ago)
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Jim Fitzpatrick
I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly and I will agree about amendment 5, as we did on the wording of amendment 17. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South intend to introduce a private Member’s Bill to make voting compulsory in this country? My impression is that what he wants broadcasters and print media to produce would completely turn off the British people by forcing politics down their throats. If anything is guaranteed to ensure that people do not vote in the referendum, it is this amendment.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention introduces an interesting question that is not absolutely pertinent to the amendments, but I am sure that Mr Gapes will stick carefully to his amendments.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Jim Fitzpatrick(14 years ago)
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Jim Fitzpatrick
Does the hon. Lady support—I fully presume that she does—the building of the big society, as outlined by her right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench? Is not the Select Committee’s suggestion that the boundary commissions should have this arrangement for people to make representations an acknowledgement that the elimination of public inquiries is creating a vacuum and depriving citizens of the opportunity to make such representations, and therefore totally contradicts the big society in preventing expressions of disappointment or concern about the proposals from being heard?
Mrs Laing
The hon. Gentleman is, as ever, very clever in the way that he puts his point, but this has nothing to do with the big society. I take his point that the boundary commissions must be seen to be operating fairly, but I argue strongly that there is no need for them to take year after year, spending more and more taxpayers’ money, listening to political parties making points that are cleverly disguised as being about ancient boundaries, communities and so on, when in fact they are about the perceived electoral advantage or disadvantage of each particular political party. Anyone involved in politics knows perfectly well that that happens. At a time when we should be spending money on the real big society issues of which the hon. Gentleman is only too well aware, we should not be spending enormous amounts of taxpayers’ money on keeping the boundary commissions doing that year after year.