Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are committed to doing exactly that, and my hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. I think that proper immigration control and welfare reform are two sides of the same coin, and this Government are committed to controlling immigration properly, but also to putting British people back to work. The two work together.

Today, we have announced that, in terms of the illegal immigration that comes through the student route, more than 450 colleges will no longer be able to sponsor new international students, because they were not properly established to do that. Those colleges could have brought in more than 11,000 students to the UK to study each year. That is just one example of how this Government are living up to their promise to get a grip on immigration.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Q7. Does the Prime Minister agree with the vast majority of people that smoking should be banned in vehicles when children are present, and will he encourage the Government to adopt the contents of my ten-minute rule Bill, which aims to put an end to it?

[The Prime Minister]

I do think the smoking ban is right. I have to admit, as a former smoker, and someone who believes strongly in liberties and who did not support it at the time, that the smoking ban has worked, and I think it is successful. I am much more nervous about going into what people do inside a vehicle. I will look carefully at what the hon. Gentleman says, but we have to have a serious think before we take that step.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has been extremely brave, if I may say so, Mr Speaker. As Parliament is going into recess for six weeks, perhaps that will be long enough for everyone to forget what he has just said. He is right, however, to say that we should focus as well on what is happening in the eurozone—and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I are holding a series of meetings to make sure that we get our response right.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister agree with the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who told “Newsnight” viewers that this scandal was just “a little local difficulty”, so it was okay for the Prime minister to leave the country at the height of the crisis?

[The Prime Minister]

I did not watch “Newsnight”—I do not always catch it—but I think that it is important that the British Prime Minister stands up for British business, British exports and British jobs, and loads up aeroplanes with business men and goes around the world, as I have done, to China, India and Africa. To suggest that because there are issues that you have to answer at home you should cancel a trip like that is talking Britain down, and I think that the Opposition should be better than that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is the choice of the coalition Government to say that we want to reform politics not in a piecemeal fashion, but in a meaningful way. To introduce both the right for people to have a say over the electoral system and to ensure that constituencies are of roughly the same size seems a perfectly sensible way to proceed. That is what we will do, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should be whipping up the dinosaurs in the Labour party in the other place to stop us from doing so.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

3. What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on reform of the Act of Settlement.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

I have had no recent discussions with ministerial colleagues on reforming the Act of Settlement.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am no monarchist, but does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that, if we must have a monarchy, women should have equality with men in succession?

[Mr Harper]

Ministers have already accepted that the provision in the Act of Settlement might well be discriminatory, and I have already confirmed at the Dispatch Box when responding to a previous debate, not that we are doing nothing, but that discussions are under way with other countries of which Her Majesty is Queen. She is not just our Queen, but Queen of 15 other realms, and those matters have to be taken forward together in a careful and considered way. It is not as straightforward as the hon. Gentleman would like to pretend it is.