Northern Ireland: Political Process

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Field of Birkenhead

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

We will leave it at that.

Bill Presented

European Union (Citizens’ Rights) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Frank Field presented a Bill to safeguard rights of European Union citizens in the United Kingdom after exit day; to make provision for arrangements to be made with other European Economic Area countries and Switzerland to maintain the rights of British citizens in those countries after exit day; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 383).

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

If tomorrow is anything like today, I will get it all through.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

You may say that. I cannot possibly comment.

Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Field of Birkenhead

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I have to stop the hon. Gentleman because a point of order is a short point, not a speech, and we are about to have a debate on the very matter he is raising. I appreciate that he wants to raise this as a point of order, but, as I said in answer to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) not a minute ago, what a Minister says in this place, and of course that includes the Prime Minister, is a matter for them. Whether or not a fact is correct is a matter for debate, and I am quite sure the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) will have an opportunity, hopefully within the next couple of hours, to make his points of debate in the Chamber, and they will be listened to by the Minister on duty.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We hope to get on to the debate, and we will all be noting whether the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) stays in his place, even if called last in the debate, to register his views.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Just as what Ministers say is not a matter for me, nor is it a matter for me whether the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) stays in his place.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Field of Birkenhead

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to seek your advice. How might I ask the Secretary of State to come before the House on Monday to respond to the unanimous recommendation we have made to the Government to begin the reform of universal credit, so that some of our constituents might have slightly better Christmases than they would otherwise?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point. I understand why he wishes the Secretary of State to come to the House, but the Minister has just been before the House, addressing those very points. I am quite sure that the Secretary of State will note what has been said in the House this afternoon and that he will note the request from the right hon. Gentleman.

[Frank Field]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister of State, bless him—[Laughter.] No, seriously, because he is an incredibly good guy. He made his speech before we had made a collective decision. We are in a new position now. The whole House has unanimously asked the Government to move, and that is what I want the Secretary of State to address on Monday.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making his point. He knows, of course, that it is not a matter for me, but the Minister is, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, sitting at the Dispatch Box and I am quite sure that he and the Secretary of State will pay attention to the points that the right hon Gentleman and all hon. Members have made this afternoon.

We now come to the Back-Bench debate on defence aerospace industrial strategy. Come on: everybody leaving, leave quickly. It is not fair. There is little time left.

Assisted Suicide

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Field of Birkenhead

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Field]

I certainly agree with all those points. Sadly, we do not live in the garden of Eden; we have been expelled. Perhaps one day we will reach that garden, but so far, we are on the outside.

[Mrs Laing]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has enlivened the debate, but does he agree that although some people will always do the wrong thing—there will always be such a minority—it is always up to the House and Parliament to create laws that allow the vast majority of people to do what is right?

[Mr Field]

That is precisely the situation that we have, and that situation has been clarified and developed further by the DPP; that is why we are, totally correctly, praising him in this debate. However, to think that the world is populated by people of great charity who think only of the person on the receiving end is to mislead ourselves, look foolish before our electors, and do vulnerable people harm.

I disagree with the second point that my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse made; I do not believe that we are autonomous. I find it amazing that those who are clearly on the centre left should have an individualistic view about human life. We are dependent on one another, and one person’s actions can affect another person. One might have a slightly different view if there had not been a whole series of reports about the horrors done to old people in hospitals and euphemistically named care homes. We tut, nod the reports through the House, and do damn all about them. We as a nation allow very nasty things to happen to many of our vulnerable constituents, and we do nothing, or very little, to prevent them.

Today’s debate, if I have understood it, is not really about the motion, or how it was seconded; it is about the amendment that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford, tabled, not because hon. Members wanted to talk about euthanasia, but because they believed that the amendment would be seen as a staging post on the way to gaining that objective. Although we are now confused about what we are supposed to be debating and what we are voting on, I hope that the House will agree with what the outside world thinks the debate is about, and what I read the motion on the Order Paper as being about.