Foreign Affairs Committee
Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Simon Hoare
Simon Hoare
I take what my right hon. Friend says with great seriousness. He is a former member of the Cabinet and, more importantly, a former Government Chief Whip. I concur with him up to a point. If this motion sought to tilt the balance of a Select Committee’s membership in favour of the Government and against the Opposition, I would be with him entirely, but it does not do that. This motion maintains the balance between, for want of a better phrase, Executive Members and Opposition Members, and that is entirely as it should be. However, if I am correct in my assessment—I am perfectly prepared to accept that I am not—in practical, political terms, the badges and colours of separate parties are left at the door of a Select Committee meeting and picked up again when Members leave. I am not sure that this motion does anything other than pursue an agenda of vindictiveness.
Ian Austin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I hope it will allow me to reassure the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) that my views on foreign policy have not changed at all. The values that inform my work on the Committee have not altered in the slightest since I was selected by the Labour party to be a member of it. The arguments I put forward and the way that I scrutinise Ministers have not changed at all. I am absolutely clear that I stand up for the mainstream, decent values of the Labour party that I have stood up for all my life. That is the work I bring to the Committee, and I hope that that reassures the right hon. Gentleman.
Minors Entering the UK: 1948 to 1971
Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Simon Hoare(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Simon Hoare
The hon. Lady keeps saying an awful lot of stuff from a sedentary position. Does my hon. Friend accept that the rewriting of history on such a sensitive issue is unhelpful to both sides of the debate and to moving this thing forward? For perfectly legitimate reasons at the time, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) referred not only to having a hostile environment but to seeking to flush out illegal migration. “Illegal” is the key word.