Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Daniel Kawczynski and Graham Stuart(1 year ago)
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Graham Stuart
As ever, my hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point. Existing assets such as wrecks have so many uses, all of which need to be understood. Our seas look so large, but they have multiple uses for shipping, defence and energy. We are working to ensure that we have a strategic, joined-up energy plan and a spatial strategy so that wrecks, marine protected areas and other interests can all be protected in an integrated manner.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Daniel Kawczynski and Graham Stuart(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)
Driving access for UK exporters to high growth markets worldwide is at the heart of this Department’s work, securing new free trade agreements, removing trade barriers and informing, encouraging, connecting and financing exporters. Ninety per cent of global growth—90%—over the coming years is expected to be outside Europe, so that is why we are hitching UK business to the fastest growing markets and have recently applied to join the CPTPP.
Daniel Kawczynski
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. What action is the UK taking to increase our export footprint in future growth areas such as renewable energy, particularly in countries such as Mongolia?
Graham Stuart
The Department—not only in renewables, but in minerals as well—is running a mining export campaign for Mongolia, supporting UK-based investors and our mining supply chain, using the unique convening power of government to engage with the Mongolian Government and mining businesses. We are supporting UK investment in solar and waste energy plants, and are in discussions with the Mongolian Government on UK participation in infrastructure projects, including renewables, which my hon. Friend mentions, and hydropower. Atop all that is the cherry, in the form of my hon. Friend, who is the Prime Minister’s dynamic and effective trade envoy for the country.
School Funding
Debate between Daniel Kawczynski and Graham Stuart(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I am sure that my hon. Friend knows, from going around schools in his constituency, that when it comes to the sort of equipment that our schools have—whether books or insulation—and the facilities available for children, they are significantly inferior to those in other parts of the United Kingdom. That is simply not fair for the education of our children.
Funding for Local Authorities
Debate between Daniel Kawczynski and Graham Stuart(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to take part in this debate. I apologise for my late appearance.
I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who secured it and, I know, led it off ably. I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley), although I should say to him that I have not ceased my duties as a chairman of the rural fair share campaign but have been joined by another co-chair, along with the hon. Member for Workington (Sir Tony Cunningham). It is a full, cross-party campaign recognising the inequity in funding.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) put his finger on the core point in his passionate speech. The lowest incomes are found in rural areas, so there is a social justice argument along with the data that we rightly focus on. That social justice argument is hard to rebut, and Ministers in successive Governments have hidden behind an obfuscation of numbers and data. As he said, the simple truth is that people on lower incomes are paying a higher level of tax to get a much thinner—I liked that phrase—level of services.
Daniel Kawczynski
My hon. Friend speaks about his group on rural services being all-party. I hope there are more Labour Members in his caucus than there are in the Chamber today.
Mr Stuart
My aim, along with my co-chairmen, is and always has been to try not to have a Labour-urban versus Tory/Lib Dem-rural battle—although that is difficult to avoid—but rather to say that we will get our arguments right. Perhaps that explains the modesty of our requests—too modest, perhaps—but our aim has always been to ensure that a fair-minded Labour Member of Parliament who does not represent a rural area would see the weight of the argument. Having come into politics, as we all do, to try to make a fairer and better society, people should see that we are not making a special, partial interest, but a case grounded in facts that will lead to a more just outcome.