Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

My ambition is to reach Question 17 so that the House, Mid Sussex, the nation, the European continent and the world can hear the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames).

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

17. What progress he is making on the dissemination of best practice throughout the NHS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Brevity personified—Sir Nicholas Soames.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

7. What steps his Department is taking to increase language teaching in schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the former president or patron of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, Sir Nicholas Soames.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think, if memory serves me correctly, and after due consultation, that post 16 the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) was at cadet school. I feel sure that I speak for the House in saying that we are all convinced he was a very athletic fellow. I call Sir Nicholas Soames.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Different days, Mr Speaker, I am afraid. May I thank my right hon. Friend for the incredible work and leadership that she has offered, together with officials in her Department, in the reopening of the sixth-form college in Haywards Heath in my constituency? Will she pay tribute to the work of Mid Sussex District Council, whose leadership in this matter has been absolutely exemplary?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We will accommodate the hon. Lady in topical questions if we can.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, there is time for a keen sense of eager anticipation to build up before the hon. Gentleman arrives.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend the Minister pay tribute to the work of Homes England in its support for Mid Sussex District Council in providing the key that will open the development of 4,000 new houses in Burgess Hill? Will he see what further work Homes England, in its very constructive approach, can adopt to deliver more new housing?

Speaker’s Statement

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before we proceed to the urgent questions, I would like to say something that relates to the events that unfolded outside this place yesterday.

In the course of proceedings at various times yesterday, the hon. Members for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) all raised with me their very grave concerns about aggressive, threatening and intimidating behaviour by demonstrators at Abingdon Green and, in many instances, between Parliament and Abingdon Green.

To those points of order, I responded, I hope, sympathetically and as effectively as I could. Colleagues will realise that I had not myself witnessed the behaviour, which was taking place while the House was sitting and I was in the Chair, but I was extremely concerned to learn of those developments. Moreover, it was clear beyond doubt both that there was an intensity of feeling on the matter and that that intensity of feeling was across the House. I undertook to look further into the matter.

Of course I am aware—as colleagues will know, for it has been reported—that a very large number of Members have written to the commissioner of the Metropolitan police. I thank them for doing so. I have myself today written to the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Cressida Dick, in support of those representations, and my letter has been published. We respect the operational freedom of the police, and we absolutely understand that they have difficult judgments to make in balancing the precious right of peaceful protest on the one hand and the right of Members of Parliament, journalists and others to go about their lawful business unimpeded and unthreatened. My sense of the opinion of colleagues, and they have considerable evidence for their view, is that, as things stand, the balance is not right.

I must say to the House that, frankly, it is intolerable if Members of Parliament and journalists go about their business in fear. This situation cannot stand. I have written with force, passion and politeness to the commissioner of the Metropolitan police seeking a review of policy. I hope that that is regarded by colleagues across the House as helpful. I would like to thank all those Members yesterday—on the Floor of the House and in conversations with me—who registered their concerns. I share them, and I will do my best to ensure that those concerns are properly addressed without delay.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I thank you very much for your response and the sense of what you have said, which the whole House will have appreciated? However, will you add to the list not just politicians and journalists but ordinary members of the public, who themselves have been grossly abused just by being present?

[Mr Speaker]

I entirely accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said. In making that powerful point, he prompts me to add a reference to schoolchildren coming on to the estate to visit the education centre, for a wider tour or both. They should not have to witness such insulting and, frankly, toxic behaviour. It is one thing to observe such behaviour, but it is another actually to do something to seek to prevent it, and it is, I think, for the latter that we in this House are looking. I thank the right hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the number of council houses, and indeed any other houses, being built would be greatly improved if the Government insisted on a far higher standard of design and layout? Will he therefore favour, in planning applications for council houses and all other houses, developers who insist in those plans on the highest possible standards for the design and layout of those houses?

[Mr Speaker]

A Chartwell standard, perhaps.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I think the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex enjoyed the reference to cocktails.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I did, Sir.

[Mr Speaker]

And that is demonstrably apparent.

Points of Order

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Government have said, in a more than usually bovine announcement, that they intend to adjourn the House on Thursday. You are the guardian of the rights of Back Benchers. This decision will bring opprobrium on the whole House. There is important Back-Bench business on Monday and Tuesday and questions on local government and health and social care. What advice can you give the Leader of the House to rescind this idiotic and bad new announcement?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who expresses himself with his characteristic clarity but—if I may say so—uncharacteristic force, which the House will have noted. Needless to say, I take what he said and the passion he feels about the matter—as someone who has served in the House without interruption for 35 years—extremely seriously. Standing Order No. 25 provides that motions for the Adjournment of the House for a specified period and moved by a Minister are put forthwith—that is to say, without debate. It would have been possible for the Government to table a Business of the House motion overriding the Standing Order, but they have not done so.

If a Minister moves motion 13 on the Order Paper this evening, the Chair will be obliged to put the question without debate. If the Chair’s opinion on the voices is challenged, a Division would be deferred until tomorrow. As ever, it would be up to Members whether to vote for or against the proposition. Salvation lies in Members’ hands.

I add, merely by way of information and in the name of transparency, that no indication of this intention on the part of the Government was communicated to me in advance. I am not complaining about that; I simply want to make it clear to people who might think, “Oh, the Speaker must have been aware of and in on this”, that that was not and is not the case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and John Bercow

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Oh, TINs! Well, I am sure everybody attending to our proceedings was perfectly well aware of what the right hon. Gentleman had in mind. I am sure I was in a minority of one in not knowing. And what are those pigs I see flying in front of my very eyes?

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

10. What plans he has to increase productivity.