(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and for what she is saying in her speech. She talks about serious violence not being just a London issue; it might not be very well known but throughout Norfolk and Norwich we have seen the biggest surge in violent crime in the entire country in the past couple of years. There has been a fifteenfold increase in knife crime and a 70% increase in gun crime. In the midst of this perfect storm and this rising tide of despair and woe is increasing youth homelessness, more children in care, more children permanently excluded from school and community policing completely and utterly cut—Norfolk was the first county police force in the country to do that. Some £30 million has been cut from the police budget in Norfolk—
Order. If you want to speak, I can put you on the list. Short interventions, please; it will help the House.
(7 years ago)
Commons ChamberOn a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Although I accept that this debate on Yemen is worthy and important, the two debates that come afterwards—one of which, on RBS and the Global Restructuring Group, I am sponsoring—are also critical. A lot of people on both sides of the House want to speak in the debate that I am sponsoring, and the guillotine as it is today will leave insufficient time to give the subject the due and proper attention. With that in mind, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am prepared to pull my debate if you can speak to the Leader of the House to secure more substantial time for it.
May I say that I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman? The debate in his name that we were going to come on to is very well subscribed, and I would not want to have to curtail it because I think there is a lot to be said. I think the suggestion being offered to the House is the right one, and I will of course speak to the Leader of the House about it. More to the point, however, I have already spoken to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, who has assured me that he will make bringing this debate back to the House a priority. I think everybody recognises that we would not want to curtail such an important debate, given the limited amount of time left, so we will absolutely speak to whoever we need to in order to make sure that time for the debate is provided. I thank the hon. Gentleman.