Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

The hon. Gentleman should be aware that £500 million has been put towards the city deal in Cardiff, which will be crucial for the electrification of the South Wales Valleys line. We have also done work on the Severn tunnel. Let me say one thing to the hon. Gentleman: I will take no lessons from a party that electrified not a single mile of rail track in Wales in 13 years.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

9. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the date of publication for the Government response to the Hendry review on tidal lagoons.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns)]

I have been in close discussions with Cabinet colleagues about our response to the Hendry review, which we are actively considering. Any potential energy project that can contribute to a clean, secure and diverse energy mix for the UK is worthy of serious consideration. Projects of this scale must also meet the essential requirement of delivering value for money for the taxpayer.

[Neil Parish]

The Henry report very much supports a tidal lagoon in Swansea, which has the second highest rise and fall of tide in the world. We should be harnessing that tide. Does the Secretary of State see that as part of the Conservative manifesto for this general election?

[Alun Cairns]

My hon. Friend is right to recognise that natural resources in Wales can play a significant role in the energy mix of not only Wales but the UK. We would like this type of project to succeed, but of course it needs to be value for money for the taxpayer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

The Minister for the Cabinet Office was asked—

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

1. Whether he plans to implement the proposals made in the “Securing the ballot” review of electoral fraud.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Minister Robin Walker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure which of the two of you is the more offended, but my apologies to the both of you.

[Neil Parish]

In December 2008, I was an election observer in Bangladesh. Because of previous voter fraud, photographs were taken of 80 million people, and people were clearly identifiable from those photographs when they went to vote. Have the Government considered doing that? A democracy needs as many people to vote as possible, but we do not want identity fraud when people vote.

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about international comparisons. Many countries, including Canada, Brazil and Austria, already require photographic ID to vote at polling stations, and such a scheme was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2003. The Government are taking forward pilots to look at electoral identification in the 2018 local government elections, and we are willing to test various forms of identification—photographic and non-photographic—to ensure above all that no one is disenfranchised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

On the contrary, we have kept the cost of special advisers under review and fairly flat. The list of responsibilities has been published recently and the hon. Gentleman will see that that cost is fairly constant.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

6. What steps he is taking to tackle voting fraud.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

The Government are committed to tackling fraud in UK polls. We have already taken steps to improve the security of polls through the introduction of individual electoral registration. We are currently considering the findings and recommendations of the report of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles) into electoral fraud. The Government will provide a full response in due course.

[Neil Parish]

In a democracy, we want as many people to vote and register as possible. In some constituencies, however, there is still too much electoral register fraud. What more can the Minister and Government do about that?

[Chris Skidmore]

For democracy to work for everyone, we need to ensure that it is clear and secure. The Government are determined to ensure that the electoral register is as complete and accurate as possible. We note that the Electoral Commission has also made recommendations about ID in polling stations. We will reflect on the report of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar and respond in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Q2. I very much welcome the statement from the Chancellor on support payments for farmers up to 2020 to give confidence to farming and the countryside. British farmers produce some of the best welfare-friendly and environmentally friendly food in the world. We need to make sure that both farming and the food processing industry are protected in any trade deals we make. I seek that reassurance from my right hon. Friend.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The announcements by the Chancellor, to which I referred in answer to the first question, provided guarantees to the farming industry about the support available to it up to 2020. We need to recognise the significant role that the food and farming industry plays in the United Kingdom, and we will of course look to working with the sector—my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary will be doing this—to see how to develop those industries with a view to the trade deals that will play their part as we look to the future.

ISIL in Syria

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

There is a strong pacifist tradition in this country that often requires courage to hold to. We have seen that in conflicts down the years. I have respect for those who could never support military action in any circumstances, wrong though I believe them sometimes to be. The rest of us have to reach a settled view on whether the proposal before us tonight is right or wrong. My view is that, on balance, it is right.

I come, like many hon. Members, from what one might call the post-Iraq generation. My default position is to apply a healthy dose of scepticism to any request for military intervention. We can all think of a great many reasons—they have been listed on all sides of the House—why not going ahead with an extension of the air campaign is the right thing to do. I entirely concede that it is not without risks. We have to understand, however, the true impact of saying that we will sit this out. If we say that and accept that air attacks have limited Daesh’s ability to operate in mass formations and conduct clear command and control operations and so on, we are, in the words of the Prime Minister, subcontracting our security to our friends

In the past few days, we have seen many of the reasons not to proceed fall away: a unanimous UN resolution; a political and diplomatic process involving key parties is under way; and a greater understanding of what an air campaign is and is not.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend wholeheartedly that we need to take action, however difficult. ISIL wants to destroy everything we believe in through its murderous acts. We need to act and to act now.

[Richard Benyon]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

One of the main arguments put by a number of colleagues—even by the Chairman of the Defence Committee, on which I sit, a few days ago—is that air campaigns are only successful with little green men in battalions moving along the ground underneath the top cover provided by the RAF. In a perfect world, that is how we use air cover. We do not live a perfect world, however. I asked one my constituents––someone who knows a bit about this, General Sir Mike Jackson––whether he could remember any conflict where air power alone made a difference. He thought and said one word: Kosovo. He then started to recite other circumstances in which an air campaign can diminish an enemy, a point very ably made by the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett).

We have now moved on to question the existence of the so-called 70,000 combatants. We can all dance on the head of a pin and say the reason why we cannot support the motion tonight is that they may not all be the kind of people we like, or that they might not immediately be an effective force on the ground. But they are there. They have not signed up to Assad or to the evil death cult we are targeting, and we have to use them. After the failures of the Iraq war, we have at least an independent and analytical organisation, the Joint Intelligence Committee, to provide the details. They are not being provided by politicians or their advisers. We can quibble about who these people are, but broadly speaking, since the Prime Minister mentioned the figure of 70,000 it has more or less stacked up. They are militias, some local, but through the four-year civil war they are still there and we should use them.

Standing by our allies at this time, particularly France, matters. Not stepping up now would give the impression that we are happy to subcontract our security. That would leave Britain’s role in the world in a very different place in the minds of our friends and our enemies. Britain’s place in the world, however, is not reason enough for armed conflict. Reason enough is found by recognising that the threat is right here and right now to the thousands of my constituents who travel to London every day to work or to attend peaceful events such as those that were taking place in the Bataclan theatre or the cafés where lovers and friends met in a way that we would want to see in every town and city in this country. The proposed action is limited, legal and has the authority of the UN. In supporting the motion tonight, we will be taking the fight, with our friends, to the heart of the ground controlled by one of the most hideous death cults of modern times.