Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Walney and Nick Clegg

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I was appalled, and I am sure everybody would be appalled, by the experiences of one of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. In Wales, where the NHS is run by Labour, 33%—a third—of patients wait more than eight weeks to access diagnostic services. In England, only just over 1% of patients wait longer than six weeks for the same services. I think the comparison speaks for itself.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q11. This week marks three years since the bloodshed began in Syria. More than 2.5 million people have fled the country, and the dead can no longer even be counted. We must all bear responsibility for our shameful failure to intervene, but the Government are supposed to be the ones running the country. So what renewed effort will the Deputy Prime Minister’s Government make to end the slaughter before all hope fails?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman knows my own views. I felt that there was a case for intervention at the time when we voted on this. Of course, his party voted against it, but if he now wants to speak to his own party leadership on that matter, he is more than welcome to do so. I agree with him. The humanitarian catastrophe there is on an unimaginable scale, and we must do everything we can to help. That is why—I think I am right in saying—our humanitarian effort there is now the largest that this country has ever delivered. It is also why the Home Secretary and others in Government are now administering, in conjunction with the United Nations, a new programme whereby we allow the most destitute and desperate refugees some refuge in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Walney and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend must be a soothsayer if he can tell what is in a report that has not been published yet. As he knows, the confidential version of the report has been provided to the Prime Minister and me, and we hope to publish the unclassified version shortly, when he will see that options are available to us. I have always argued against the idea that a total, like-for-like, exact replacement of Trident on precisely the same basis is the only option available to us as a country.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

T10. Does “shortly” mean before the summer recess? Given that the Deputy Prime Minister’s report will show that his grand idea of a mini-deterrent was always a complete fantasy, why should anyone take him seriously if he now says that Britain could be adequately protected with a part-time deterrent?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We have another psychic telling us what is in a report that he has not seen yet. We hope that the report will be published shortly; we hope to publish it before the recess, but of course we need to check that the unclassified document is properly vetted in all respects, which is what we are doing at the moment. The simple point is: does the hon. Gentleman believe that a weapons system designed to be fired at the push of a button, at any minute of any hour of any day, 365 days a week, to flatten Moscow in a cold war context, is the only weapons system available to us? That is the question he needs to answer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Walney and Nick Clegg

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, because he himself joined in the discussions, we had months and months of painstaking cross-party discussions about the content of the draft Bill, precisely because, as he quite rightly says, it is best to proceed with these important matters on a cross-party basis. All three parties, again as he knows, had in various shapes or sizes a commitment to a reformed House of Lords. It is something we have been discussing for a very long time as a country—close to a century.

There is an open debate to be had about when something is presented to the people via a referendum—or not. The Lords Committee that recently looked at the issue very clearly said that there should be a referendum if there is a proposal to abolish the House of Lords. That of course is not what we are proposing, because we are proposing to reform the composition of the House of Lords, so I do not share the right hon. Gentleman’s view that a referendum is justified in the way he describes, although I acknowledge that it was in his party’s manifesto at the last general election.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What assessment he has made of the likely effect of bringing forward the annual canvass on levels of electoral fraud.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Walney and Nick Clegg

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady highlights an incredibly important point. It is one of the reasons why the new English baccalaureate places great emphasis on those scientific disciplines; it is why we have protected the science budget, in order to send out a clear signal that we value sciences; and it is why we have placed such an emphasis on STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—because we need more youngsters, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, taking up maths and science courses for our collective future and the country as a whole.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q15. The Deputy Prime Minister says that the Health and Social Care Bill would be going through unamended without the Liberal Democrats, but will he listen to people up and down the country who know the real truth: that the Tories would not be getting their shambolic Bill at all without him and his MPs propping them up?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I said before, I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome legislation that outlaws the practice, indulged in on an industrial scale by his party, of giving sweetheart deals to the private sector.