Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Lindsay Hoyle(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Some of the most successful small and medium-sized businesses, which truly think long term, are owned by families, so why does the Secretary of State think that it will help his long-term growth mission for the Government to start taxing those businesses when they get passed on to the next generation?
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
One of the ingredients for a successful high street is having a post office in the mix. The Government have inherited a network of 11,500 post offices, and that number has been stable since 2010. Will the Minister commit to supporting high streets by maintaining the scale of the post office network in this Parliament?
Council Tax
Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Lindsay Hoyle(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Mr Speaker
Unfortunately, it is not for the Opposition to answer the questions—they are in opposition.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
The Chancellor and the International Monetary Fund are known to favour ending council tax and replacing it with a wider property tax. The Welsh Labour Government tried to revalue all the properties in Wales for council tax purposes. Can the Government rule out doing either of those things?
Gaza and Lebanon
Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Lindsay Hoyle(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Palestinians face a devastating humanitarian crisis. The UK must continue to play a leading role in alleviating that suffering. There are still hostages in Gaza, including the British citizen Emily Damari. Can the Minister update the House on efforts to secure her release and the release of other hostages who are in such awful jeopardy?
The previous Government trebled our Gaza aid commitment and facilitated aid flows by land, sea, and air. Will the Minister confirm that those efforts continue? Can the Minister give us an update on the implementation of the Colonna recommendations on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency?
Turning to Lebanon, British nationals are urged to follow the UK travel advice. Clearly, resolution 1701 has not been implemented. Hezbollah has mobilised south of the Litani river and fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel. What steps are the Government taking with the UN to secure implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701 and get Hezbollah to pull back?
Just as aid workers are not a target, UN peacekeepers cannot be a target. Does the Minister agree with Israel’s assessment that Hezbollah has built thousands of tunnel shafts next to the chapter 6 UNIFIL peacekeepers? Has that put their mission in such grave danger that the UN must now review its mandate?
This is a grave situation. There is no equivalence between Iran’s terrorist proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, and the state of Israel. Israel has a right to defend itself against an existential threat. But too many innocent civilians are losing their lives or seeing their lives irreparably changed. The UK must continue to support them with humanitarian aid.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Lindsay Hoyle(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
May I start by congratulating the Minister on his appointment? I know how hard he worked on this brief in opposition. He will know that the longer those Russian sanctions are in place, the more creative Russia becomes at circumventing them. What steps do he and the Foreign Secretary plan to take to end the UK’s indirect import of Russian crude oil via the three refineries at Jamnagar, Vadinar and New Mangalore? Did the Foreign Secretary discuss that issue when he travelled to see our Commonwealth friends in India last week?