Home Affairs

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Julian Huppert

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett). He said a number things that I agree with and made a number of points I disagree with. The idea that we should have a more sensible, rational debate is one I completely support. I cannot let go the comments made by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). The idea that we would say to students that they have to leave the country before they can graduate strikes me as profoundly damaging.

[Mr Frank Field]

rose—

[Dr Huppert]

If the right hon. Gentleman would like to change what he is saying, I would be delighted to hear him clarify his remarks.

[Mr Field]

I will not change what I am saying, but I will say it more slowly and clearly so that the hon. Gentleman actually understands it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) suggested that one way to modify the immigration figures is to take students out of them. One of the problems with doing that is that we have a large number of students coming here. They say they wish to study here, but continue to stay here and work. The change I would like to see is to challenge vice-chancellors to have as many students as they want, provided they undertake, on behalf of the Home Secretary, to ensure that those students fulfil their promise to come here, graduate and leave. The universities do—

Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Julian Huppert

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field]

I will be brief, because I know that others wish to speak.

I thought that I would be addressing the House about an amendment with my name on it, but, for reasons unknown to me, my name was dropped from it. What I wanted to say, however—and it is reinforced by the way in which the Minister has approached the matter—is that while I thought that the original amendment involved an issue that we should consider, I believe that the Minister has dealt with it. The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) and I embarked on this journey together, and my plea to her now is not to press the amendment. The Minister has provided us with an advance which I hope will signal a change in the temper of the abortion debate in the House.

This has been one of those debates in which people emphasise motives and rarely take voting records into account. I put my name to that amendment because in every vote on the subject that has taken place in the 30 years for which I have been in the House, I have voted against wrecking the Abortion Act, and I thought that there was an issue here that should be considered. However, I feel that the Minister has more than met the point, and she has widened the debate about what the inquiry will cover. I hope that the whole House will pay attention to her and to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). Presumably a report will be produced once the consultation has been completed, and perhaps we shall then be able to have a debate opened by Front Benchers in which Back Benchers’ speeches are time-limited.

Despite what has happened today, I think it important for us to try to use this event to make it clear that we will have different debates about abortion in the House of Commons in future, for we should have such debates. We should be more concerned with facts, and less concerned with trying to put our sticky fingers into other people’s souls and pronouncing that they have failed.

[Dr Huppert]

I am delighted to have a chance to speak in the debate. It is tempting to respond to all the comments made by the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries), but I shall avoid doing so. Instead, I shall make just two points.

First, let me quote something that was said by the right hon. Member for Bristol South (Dawn Primarolo) before she became Deputy Speaker. She said of the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire:

“The hon. Lady has asserted many things to be facts that are not… Some of the things that she is saying are not borne out by the evidence.”—[Official Report, 20 May 2008; Vol. 476, c. 263.]

I think that that is extremely true.