Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is very good to see the Labour party in full voice cheering on Jurassic Park. I would stick to the movie.

There is a serious point here. The Government have offered £20 million to the owners of Hatfield colliery to keep it going. We have been prepared to put forward money. Unlike the previous Government, we have been prepared to make ministerial directions, because we have some courage when it comes to these things.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

There is a very strong sense that the Airports Commission began life three years or so ago with a conclusion and then spent £20 million backing up that conclusion. The Prime Minister is going to have to make a decision on the back of those recommendations shortly, but what assurances can he give the million or so Londoners who stand to be affected by Heathrow expansion that he will engage with the real arguments in a way that Sir Howard Davies has not?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me pay tribute to my hon. Friend for how strongly he campaigns on this issue. I know how strongly he cares about it and how strongly his constituents feel about it. The promise I can give him is that this very thorough report, which landed on my desk yesterday afternoon, will be studied properly. This really does matter. If you make some precipitate decision or rule out one particular option, you will actually make the decision you would like to make impossible to achieve because of judicial review. We may not like that in this House, but those are the facts and those are the ones we need to operate on.

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. Part of the reason why ISIL has got hold of so much funding is because it has the oil and also simply took money out of banks in some of the towns it took in northern Iraq. A long-term squeeze must be applied in this case.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for giving way. Does he agree that if we are serious about tackling jihadi terrorism in the middle east, we must take a much tougher line with some key allies, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, which have been fuelling and funding terrorism for decades and, if reports are accurate, continue to do so?

[The Prime Minister]

What I would say to my hon. Friend is that we need to have this very direct conversation with everyone in the middle east about the dangers of sectarianism and of supporting groups because they are Sunni or Shi’a. That is part of the background that has led us to this problem. We need everyone to recognise that, whatever branch of Islam they are from, terrorism breeds further extremism and terrorism and, in the end, comes back and damages their own countries and societies.

It is inevitable that the shadow of the United Kingdom’s last military involvement in Iraq hangs heavy over this Chamber today, but the situation that we face today is very different. We are acting in response to a direct appeal from the sovereign Government of Iraq to help them deal with a mortal terrorist threat. It is a threat to Iraq and a threat to Britain. We are not acting alone, but as part of an international coalition of 60 countries, many of them from the region and all of them committed to rolling back ISIL, however long and difficult the task may be. This is not 2003, but we must not use past mistakes as an excuse for indifference or inaction. We will play our part in destroying these evil extremists. We will support our Muslim friends around the world as they reclaim their religion, and once again our inspirational armed forces will put themselves in harm’s way to keep our people and our country safe. I pay tribute to them for their extraordinary bravery and service, and I commend this motion to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I would say to the hon. Lady, who I know takes a very close interest in these issues in Northern Ireland, that difficult decisions were taken, principally by the previous Government at the time of the various agreements, which involved very difficult choices—hard choices—that had to be made in order to try to build the platform for peace and reconciliation. I am very happy to look at her specific point and see whether there is anything I can do to reassure her in a letter, but I do not want to unpick decisions taken at a difficult time to try to give us the peace that we enjoy today.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Q13. The chief medical officer warned last month that we are misusing antibiotics to such an extent that we risk returning, in just a matter of years, to a 19th-century environment where routine operations carry a grave risk of death. A couple of days ago, the World Health Organisation issued a similar warning, saying that we are hurtling towards the post-antibiotic age. On that basis, it is surely madness to continue to allow so many antibiotics to be used on our factory farms—about half the total use in this country—when we know that that contributes to resistance.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an extremely serious problem, which is global in its nature and could have unbelievably bad consequences in terms of anti-microbial resistance leading to quite minor ailments not being properly treatable. One of the problems is that the way research is done currently by pharmaceutical companies is not necessarily bringing forward new antibiotics in the way that we need or solving this problem. I have met the chief medical officer to discuss this. There are a number of steps that we can take here in the UK and working with other countries, and I hope to say something about it soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously, I will look carefully at the individual case that the hon. Gentleman raised, but this Government are putting £12.7 billion into the NHS. I do not believe that we should say that other organisations cannot help to deliver NHS services. Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridge is now providing much better services because of the changes that we have made. I shall look at what he said about freedom of information requests, but it is important that we have a health service that can access the best of public, private and voluntary.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

It is good news that the Prime Minister has apparently resuscitated plans for a recall Bill, but will he confirm that he intends to push ahead with a genuine system of recall, not fall back on the Deputy Prime Minister’s Bill, which has been widely discredited, is recall in name only, and would not empower voters in any meaningful sense at all.

[The Prime Minister]

I fear that it will be difficult to satisfy my hon. Friend on that point. We should proceed by taking the draft clauses as the starting point for what I think would be an excellent reform, which we committed to in our manifesto, and which was committed to in the coalition agreement. If Members of Parliament are in serious breach of standards and judged to be so, they should not have to wait for a general election to receive the verdict of their constituents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not accept that the bedroom tax is a tax—it is about benefit. The fact is that, as a country, we are spending £23 billion on housing benefit. We must have a debate in this country about getting on top of housing benefit—the previous Government said that. Indeed, it featured in the Labour manifesto on which all Labour Members were elected. Since they have moved to the Opposition Benches, they have given up all pretence of responsibility.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Can the Prime Minister reconcile his recent comments on the need to accelerate major infrastructure projects with the Government’s decision to postpone forming a policy on airports until after the next general election? Will he reconsider and bring that review forward?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 13 June.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to the servicemen who have fallen since the House last met, Captain Stephen Healey and Corporal Michael Thacker of 1st Battalion the Royal Welsh and Private Gregg Stone of 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment. They were talented, dedicated soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of our nation. Our deepest condolences are with their families, their friends and their colleagues. We will always remember them.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this House I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I am sure all Members will wish to associate themselves with the Prime Minister’s tribute.

Can the Prime Minister reassure my constituents that for as long as he is the Prime Minister, there will be no policy shift at all in relation to the third runway at Heathrow, and that this Government will focus their attention on improving Heathrow’s hub status by expanding links between London airports and displacing some of the short-haul and less valuable slots elsewhere?

[The Prime Minister]

I know that this is not just a constituency campaign for my hon. Friend but something he feels very powerfully about. I can tell him that the coalition position has not changed, but clearly we must not be blind to two important considerations: how we expand airport capacity overall, and how we ensure that Heathrow operates better and that we welcome people to our country better than we are at the moment. A lot of progress has been made on that agenda, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the extra resources and people that have been put into doing that important job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I went to visit Croydon and met the right hon. Gentleman and a number of people who had seen some shocking things happen in that borough which must not be allowed to happen again, but let me say to him that, even after the changes that we are making in police funding, the police will be able to surge as they did in Croydon, in Tottenham, in Manchester and in Salford. The problem on the night of the riots was that the surge did not take place soon enough, and he confuses the response to the riots in the immediate circumstances with what is happening to police funding. The police have assured me that they will be able to deliver on to the streets of London as many police as they did when they got control of the riots.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Following the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), will the Prime Minister agree to meet organisations such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the National Trust and so on to reassure them and their millions of members that the proposed changes to the planning system do not represent a blank cheque for developers?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to meet anyone to discuss that, and I know that the National Trust has specifically already met the planning Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), and has had many reassurances about what the planning changes mean. Let me just say this again: because we are going to have stronger local plans, that will give local people a greater ability to decide what is in the local plan and what is out of the local plan. At the same time, having a presumption in favour of sustainable development will cut a lot of bureaucracy in our system, but we are not changing the rules for greenbelt, for areas of outstanding natural beauty, for sites of special scientific interest or for all the rest of it. I do think that people need to focus on that, because we need sensible, sustainable development to go ahead without the bureaucracy and the top-down system of today, but with all the reassurances that people need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly congratulate the two local authorities. Tragically, there are not too many Conservative local authorities I can congratulate in Scotland. However, I am happy to congratulate the hon. Gentleman’s. It sounds like an excellent initiative, and I wish everyone taking part the very best of luck.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister confirm that all witnesses to all aspects of the promised inquiry will be required to give evidence under oath?

[The Prime Minister]

As I will explain in a minute, there will be one inquiry but with two parts, and it will be led by a judge, who will be the one who will eventually agree the terms of reference, set out the way it will work and be responsible for calling people under oath.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, may I say how good it is to see the right hon. Gentleman back, well and in his place? As I said last week, youth unemployment is a problem that got worse during the boom years under the previous Government, then got even worse during the recession and is still, yes, a very big problem. I do not believe the future jobs fund is the answer, because it was five times more expensive than other schemes, and in some places such as Birmingham only 3% of the jobs were in the private sector. It was not a good scheme, and it is going to be replaced with better schemes, but everyone in this House needs to work together on how we tackle youth unemployment—a scourge that has got worse over the past 13 years.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister commit to making continued support for the common fisheries policy absolutely conditional on an end to the appalling phenomenon of fish discards?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend will speak for many in this House when he says that the current regime of discarding perfectly healthy fish is not acceptable and needs to change, and now we are in government we have an opportunity to try to work to that end.