Iran
Debate between Alistair Burt and Robert Jenrick(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Alistair Burt
My hon. Friend is right in recognising that the United Kingdom’s relationship with the United States is very deep and that, at many levels, contacts are going on all the time right through Government. He can be absolutely assured that those relationships, led by my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Europe and the Americas, ensure that our voice is heard in the United States at the highest levels.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
May I caution my right hon. Friend about seeing this issue purely through the lens of Donald Trump? There are many good friends of the United Kingdom on Capitol Hill, such as Senator John McCain and Congressman Ryan, who have serious and legitimate concerns about this deal, as indeed do friends in Israel and the Gulf states. May I also ask him to consider the comments of Senator McCain over the weekend, which, I think, suggested that there would be more support on Capitol Hill for continuing the deal were the international community to take forward separate and significant activity against Iran’s state sponsorship of terror?
Junior Doctors Contract
Debate between Alistair Burt and Robert Jenrick(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alistair Burt
First, we will avoid the language of “fight” and the sense that this has become an industrial dispute, although there are elements of one, given how the BMA has behaved over the negotiations. As far as the public are concerned, however, this is not an industrial dispute: it concerns them very deeply. They appreciate and value their doctors, they want to have their treatment and they want to be safe. People must talk. The BMA, which withdrew arbitrarily from the negotiations, needs to take up the Secretary of State’s offer and start talking. We all know that ultimately this will be ended by talking. Whether that happens today or after 1 December is entirely up to the BMA. I repeat that the Secretary of State is right to be spending this morning dealing with the potential consequences of the action suggested, and I still wait to hear from any Opposition Member that they reject strike action by doctors.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
When I was a lawyer, I was involved in a number of arbitrations and mediations. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is highly unusual to go straight to arbitration or to ACAS if there have not been normal negotiations? In this case, as with all other negotiations, the best practice is for the parties to get around the table, and, if that fails, then to go to ACAS, but not to waste time in the interim.
Alistair Burt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As the Secretary of State has also made clear, we need to restart the negotiations, which are based on independent recommendations that the BMA looked for and took part in. As he says, the normal procedure is that, if the negotiations do not work, conciliation is available, as the Secretary of State has said. However, we cannot say negotiations have broken down if they are not taking place. I am sure that everyone in the Chamber wants the negotiations to continue and will urge junior doctors in their constituencies to recommend that the BMA restarts them immediately so that we can move this forward and end the threat of strikes that no one wants.