Business of the House

Debate between David T C Davies and David Lidington

Thursday 9th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

It is right that we should have a public memorial to those, both military and civilian, who served so valiantly in Afghanistan and Iraq, and also that we should learn the lessons from both those conflicts. The forthcoming debate on the Select Committee report on the Chilcot inquiry will clearly relate primarily to Iraq, but I would have thought that the lessons to be learned from that conflict and the Afghanistan conflict could be debated during that time.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the efficiency with which we prosecute white collar crime? We are very good at chasing benefit cheats, and rightly so, but I do not believe that we are doing enough to investigate what my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) calls the sharp-suited spivs who get away with misappropriating millions of pounds, sometimes involving public money.

[Mr Lidington]

I can assure my hon. Friend that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which is an independent prosecuting authority, takes this matter very seriously and has secured a big increase in the amount of money recovered for the Treasury through compliance activities, but I am sure that there is always more to be done.

Business of the House

Debate between David T C Davies and David Lidington

Thursday 27th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I will do my best to accommodate the hon. Gentleman’s Committee in respect of the business on 17 November, although he will appreciate that I cannot give a firm promise today.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about universal credit, it is being phased in precisely to try to identify any potential flaws and to minimise the risk of teething troubles. I will report his concern to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, but we have to remember that universal credit not only is a much simpler method of administering a complex and old system of welfare support for people in need, but has so far demonstrated that it is pretty effective in helping to get people who are able to work back to work, and in providing support for people who need it.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the use to which these premises are put, following reports that, outrageously, a Member of the House of Lords presided over an event at which Israel was compared to the Islamic State and the Jews were even blamed for their own genocide? May we discuss that and whether we should issue an apology for these outrageous comments to the Israeli Government and the Jewish people?

[Mr Lidington]

I read the newspaper reports of the event in question, and I confess that I was genuinely horrified by the speech that was reported. I do not want to treat every newspaper article as gospel, but I think we should all be very concerned about what happened. Since this event appears to have been organised by a leading member of the Liberal Democrats, I hope that the leader of the party launches an immediate and thorough investigation, so that we can get to the truth and any appropriate disciplinary action can be taken.

EU-Turkey Agreement

Debate between David T C Davies and David Lidington

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

No, no. I am afraid I must urge my hon. Friend to intensify his study of the European treaties and, particularly, the European directives. The treaties make it quite clear that each and every aspect of an accession negotiation, including arrangements for controls on migration, must be agreed unanimously. Every member state, including the United Kingdom, has a veto on every aspect of an accession negotiation. He is making a mistake in imagining that things will happen in the way he describes.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that the majority of those coming into Europe from Turkey are men, and that the majority of them are coming from countries other than Syria that have a very poor human rights record in regard to women? How can we be certain that the mass migration into Europe will not have an impact on women’s rights, which have been hard fought for on this continent?

[Mr Lidington]

We have a genuine humanitarian crisis in Syria that has displaced about 11 million people, either within Syria or to neighbouring countries. That is now being exploited by people traffickers—on that point, my hon. Friend is correct. They are trying to encourage people of other nationalities to come in and claim refugee status on the back of genuine refugee claims and genuine refugee need. That reinforces the importance of having a robust system of processing individual claims, so that we can distinguish between people who have a well-founded fear of persecution and those who are trying to move for economic reasons. The reason that the United Kingdom is giving help to Frontex and the European Asylum Support Office is precisely to strengthen the capacity of the Greek system in particular to carry out those processes and to distinguish between genuine refugees and those who are trying to move for other reasons.

Europe: Renegotiation

Debate between David T C Davies and David Lidington

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The Prime Minister is very clear that he believes that serious reforms are essential if the British people are to believe that their future lies in membership of the European Union.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

If we vote to leave the European Union, how long will a legally binding exit take—days, weeks, months or years?

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend is understandably inviting me to speculate about a post-referendum outcome when the Government are focused on what happens during a referendum. I suggest that he might like to study article 50 of the treaty on European Union, particularly subsections (2) and (3), which will give him a lot more detail on the matter.