G20 and Paris Attacks

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. After his uninterrupted 28 years’ service in the House, I feel sure that the hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) can put a question briefly and, very likely, in a single sentence. I call Mr Tredinnick.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister heard anything about the possibility of partition as a settlement, along the lines of Cyprus, leaving an Alawite, five-tribal area in the south and a free Syria in the north?

[The Prime Minister]

I have seen ideas put forward for these sorts of things, but I do not think it is the right idea. The idea of trying to carve up these countries into a sort of “Sunnistan” and a “Shi’astan” would be a great mistake. What we need to do is to build a Syria that can have a Government who represent all of their people as Syrians.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

One of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues raised the issue of family reunion, which we obviously look at in this context. The rules we have are there for a good reason, but I know that the Minister for Immigration has taken careful note of what the hon. Gentleman has said.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the remarks of former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, who has pointed out that the UN camps have hardly any Christians in them because the Islamists have driven them out? Will my right hon. Friend take special steps to address the issue of Christians who are not in the UN camps?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, which is why I pointed out earlier that we will take people who are vulnerable and that could include Yazidis or Christians, who, because of their religious beliefs, have not only been persecuted in Syria but have sometimes found life difficult in the camps as well.

G7

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

One of the most important things is to come back regularly to this House and discuss and debate what we are doing. This latest deployment is in response to a request from the Iraqi Government. These individuals, who are mostly involved in training the Iraqi troops on how to counter IED—improvised explosive device—threats, will save lives, and that is a sensible approach for Britain to take. More broadly, we are the second largest contributor in terms of the airstrikes over Iraq. That has been essential in shrinking the amount of territory that ISIL controls and making sure that the Kurds have been able to maintain their situation in the Kurdish regional authority. There are regular reports back and a clear statement from this Dispatch Box: this is not about trying to re-invade a country; it is about helping the legitimate Government of that country, as recognised by the UN, to do the work that they know is vital.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I went with John Major, when he was Prime Minister, to meet Boris Yeltsin, and I am not at all sure that it is in the British national interest that we are now at loggerheads with Russia given all this trouble in Arabia and with ISIL. Has my right hon. Friend seen the recent remarks by Lord Carrington, Mrs Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary, that Ukraine “was always part of” Russia, that the US

“was crazy to suggest Ukraine could join Nato one day”,

and that

“Henry Kissinger…agrees with him”?

[The Prime Minister]

We have not picked the fight with Russia; Russia has brought this on herself by destabilising and encouraging separatists to take Ukrainian territory. As for whether Ukraine is a country, we should recognise that the Ukrainian people themselves have decided that it is a country; it is recognised by the United Nations. The whole point we have to learn is that redrawing the lines and maps of Europe by force can end in disaster for everyone in Europe, including the people here in this country.

Debate on the Address

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that 67 years ago, Churchill said:

“The Movement for Europe…must be a positive force, deriving its strength from our sense of common spiritual values. It is a dynamic expression of democratic faith based upon moral conceptions and inspired by a sense of mission. In the centre of our movement stands the idea of a Charter of Human Rights, guarded by freedom and sustained by law.”

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is talking about my party in terms that I certainly do not recognise and she has accused us of being a divisive party as far as the Union is concerned. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made it perfectly clear that we are a Conservative and Unionist party and that we intend to retain the Union and to do what we can to do so.

[Emily Thornberry]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says and if he is satisfied with some of the rhetoric from those on the Front Benches, let him be satisfied. It is important to look beyond the rhetoric and see with our very own eyes the real damage being done by what is happening to this country. This is a matter of huge concern and I ask the hon. Gentleman not to be complacent about where we might go if we start to pull apart our Human Rights Act and our place in Europe.

Let me explain to the hon. Gentleman. In Strasbourg, European judges make judgments all the time that essentially quote at length what happens in our Supreme Court. Our Supreme Court applies our Human Rights Act and does so across the board. If the hon. Gentleman were unfortunate enough to be arrested in Europe, he would have the right to a lawyer, which he would not have had if it had not been for the British system, which understands that people have a right to access a lawyer in order for there to be a fair trial. That was an interpretation of human rights that we exported to Strasbourg, and has now been exported right across Europe. It is a two-way street. Of the tens of thousands of cases that went before the Court at Strasbourg, does the hon. Gentleman know how many judgments there were against Britain last year? There were three.

[David Tredinnick]

The hon. Lady tempts me and I crave your indulgence, Mr Speaker. The point is that we are trying to deal with an Act that has proved to be inadequate in dealing with the terrorists that we are trying to get rid of, and we want to bring those decisions back to this country. That is a very laudable objective. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has not set it out in any detail because he wants to give it further thought, but it is widely supported in this country.

[Emily Thornberry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give me a moment in which to answer, because I only have two minutes left? The fact is that within our constitution—our unwritten constitution, which we play with at our jeopardy, if we do not think through what we are doing—we have different pillars. We have the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary, and of course there will always be tension between them. If we all agreed all the time, what would be the point? In what way would we be a democracy? There will be times when we disagree and, in the end, human rights is about protecting minorities. It is about protecting the weak against the strong. Yes, there will be times when people whom we wish to have no truck with at all will rely on basic rights and we must give them to them. That is the British way, and it is one that we are proud of and should remain proud of, and we should never allow it to be undermined.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Tredinnick]

The Queen’s Speech states:

“My Government will bring forward changes to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.”

It would not be done on a whim: that is what the Queen’s Speech says.

[Sir William Cash]

Well said. I entirely concur with my hon. Friend.

On the repeal of the Human Rights Act, when I was shadow Attorney General, I pushed that policy with the help of colleagues in the shadow Cabinet. It remained as a commitment in our manifesto until the coalition of 2010. It was abandoned because of the Liberal Democrats, and now it is to be revived. I offer a word of caution, however, because it is a very important issue. In many respects, it is part of the “who governs?” issue and I strongly suggest adhering to the proposals in the Queen’s Speech. We need a proper discussion. I am clear in my mind, as is Lord Judge and many other distinguished judges, that there are serious problems with the manner of interpretation in the Strasbourg Court and with the use of right to family life as a principle, and how certain people manage to exploit the system, well funded by the human rights lobby, to carry on when they should have packed up a long time ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Speaker. It is my first task to congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) on a very thoughtful and entertaining maiden speech. He reminded us that his constituency occupies one tenth of the land space of Scotland. I thought I had a large constituency, but that is enormous. I think I met him outside the Table Office this morning, and I wish him well. As he—not me—put it, he has broken his political virginity today, or something to that effect, and there is no better way, as he also put it, to do it than in the Queen’s Speech debate. Many congratulations to the hon. Ladies and Gentlemen from the SNP on their stunning victory, and on being present in such numbers this afternoon to support colleagues.

I wanted to comment on the tribal warfare that seems to have broken out in the Chamber at prayer time at 8 o’clock in the morning, when we come in to put prayer cards on seats. I do not know whether I am breaking confidences in telling you this, Mr Speaker, but this morning there was a wild dash to get the seats on the Opposition Front Bench below the gangway and there was some deep unhappiness. Indeed, there were members of the Scottish nationalist party whose seats had hardly touched the green benches at the back before they were clambering to the front.

In case hon. Gentlemen and Ladies think that they have set a precedent, I can assure them that they have not. When we went into opposition in 1997, the Liberals came up with the same scheme. Instead of the embattled hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), it was the embattled former Prime Minister, the then right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, Sir Edward Heath, who found himself being monstered by the newly enlarged Liberal party. You may not be aware of this, Mr Speaker, but I can tell you that it was resolved when Speaker Boothroyd decreed that the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup would retain that seat—you are nodding—and no doubt you are thinking carefully about whether it is necessary to have a protection order on the hon. Member for Bolsover in these extraordinary circumstances.

This has been a wide-ranging Queen’s Speech. It was a great occasion for Conservative colleagues to be back in power with a majority, and to hear Her Majesty the Queen give a speech that was straight out of our manifesto instead of being one that had been adulterated by the Liberal party. I absolutely support the set-in-stone blocks on increases in income tax, VAT and national insurance, which make it absolutely clear where we are for business—hon. Ladies and Gentlemen from north of the border may like to mark that. I welcome the referendum on Europe, and the powers to take over failing schools and to create more academies.

I am also delighted with our commitment of £8 billion to the NHS, meeting the NHS five-year plan. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) spoke about foxes earlier. I welcome the fact that we really shot the Labour fox during the campaign. It is very important politically that we did that. However, I am concerned, having served on the Health Committee in the previous Parliament, and having been involved in health for so long in this House, that we are not really addressing the issue of reducing demand for the health service. If I may advertise the fact, I have tabled early-day motion No. 1, encouraging the Government to tackle the obesity crisis in this country, and early-day motion No. 2 asks the Government to look at the quality of food in hospitals, some of which is really not up to standard.

It may surprise the hon. Ladies and Gentlemen from the Scottish nationalist party that I have been, in this House, passionate about healthcare in Scotland. I was in the House before devolution. I flew, at my own expense, to Glasgow to the opening of the Homeopathic hospital—the Glasgow Centre for Integrative Care as it is now—in 1999. I feel passionately about a wider choice in healthcare in Scotland, but since devolution I cannot table a question on Scottish healthcare. Scottish Members, on the other hand, are able to comment on our affairs in England. I offer that as an illustration of the frustration felt by English Members about the imbalance and why we have to tackle the West Lothian question, as it has been called for years.

In the last Parliament, the Health Committee produced a report called “Managing the care of people with long-term conditions”, which was published when I was acting Chair of the Committee. I commend it to the Scottish National Members, because it deals with the issues of multimorbidity polypharmacy, when people suffering from many diseases are prescribed many medications. That is a particular problem for people in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland. So we do take an interest in Scottish affairs.

I represent a seat in the middle of England. It is not a traditional shire seat and it was held by Labour until 1974. It was won for the Conservatives by my predecessor, Sir Adam Butler, a very distinguished man. It is extraordinary how we have transformed the economy in my constituency. I was saddened by the speech from the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), because in my area I see thousands of new jobs. We cut unemployment—that is those on jobseeker’s allowance and universal credit—by 40% generally and by 45% for 18 to 25-year-olds in one year, so there is something stirring in the heart of England.

I am delighted that the Queen’s Speech contains measures to push High Speed 2 north. I served on the Committee that considered the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996—High Speed 1—which enabled the building of the line from St Pancras to the Dover portal. It took as long as it would take to walk, at a leisurely pace, from London to Madrid and back to complete the consideration of that Bill. We sat for three days a week for over a year, and it was the last railway Bill. I am sure that extending High Speed 2 north is the right thing to do, as is bringing the northern cities together to create this great hub. The fact that our Chancellor—the man with the moneybags—represents Tatton is very helpful to those in the north.

As I have said, I take an interest in Scotland. I am related by marriage to a family in Scotland, one of whose members made the last speech in the Scottish Parliament against the Union some time ago—not the current Parliament, but the one that finished in about 1704. Scottish Members face a huge problem. Scotland already has some tax-raising and fiscal powers that it has not used. If we are to give it a whole lot more, which is part of the agreement, that is fair enough, but if they are used there will be the equivalent of a white flight of resources—businesses and clever people—south of the border. I predict that if the Scottish nationalist party—[Interruption.] Forgive me, I mean the Scottish National party. I am in the flow of my speech and I am trying to be polite, not insulting. If the SNP increases taxes dramatically, I predict that in 10 years’ time it will lose to the Conservative party in Scotland because a Labour recovery is not likely. If Scotland increases taxes and its economy is completely out of line with that in England, the SNP will lose to our party. I just issue that word of warning.

I am not keen on the proposed reduction in the number of Members of Parliament from 650 to 600. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) has already said that Parliament has changed dramatically. He has served here for more than 30 years and I have served for 28 years. That was before we had computers and mobile phones, and we used to have to stop on the motorway to make calls. Our job has become more complicated and we are more like social workers. I do not relish the idea of representing more people. The current number is about right and we should think very carefully about any change.

I have been thinking about the points my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) made on foreign affairs. At the end of the cold war, in the 1987 and 1992 Parliaments, some of us spent a lot of time building relations with Russia. Judging by what I hear, I do not think we have any understanding of how closely aligned Russia feels with Ukraine, which was always administered by Moscow. However difficult it appears, it is not sensible to have Russia offside.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Inquiry)

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There are two answers. The first relates to the contracts that are signed in the first place; every trust board needs to read the report and think about how it will put in place those contracts. The second is to make sure that when there are failures, proper action is taken. That is what needs to happen.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister ensure that the chief inspector of hospitals has access to all the information that he or she needs from the General Medical Council and all the other bodies? Does he agree that wards for the elderly in particular need regular inspections by nurses?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. My view—we can debate this over the coming weeks—is that quite a lot of transparent information is available in the NHS, but it is not properly acted on. What we need from the chief inspector of hospitals is a sense that, as in schools, you consider the data, walk the wards, look at the quality of care with a professional team and then reach a judgment. People do not necessarily need all the data; they need a judgment. They need to know whether the hospital is okay, whether it is clean and whether it cares for people. That is what is required.

House of Lords Reform Bill

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady knows, there are issues to do with the recall of MPs who are guilty of wrongdoing; there are ongoing cross-party talks on party funding; and we are committed to taking measures to tighten up lobbying activity and make it more transparent. Those are all important issues and I hope that she will not lightly dismiss the progress that we will seek to make on them. There is also a bigger quasi-constitutional issue, namely: how do we, as we rebuild our shattered economy—which, in my view, suffered from excessive over-centralisation in the way in which economic decisions were taken in the past—also breathe life into local communities and local authorities so that they can play a role in rebuilding and rebalancing our over-centralised British economy?

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Surely it would be better for my right hon. Friend’s reputation if he accepted the Steel Bill, which has widespread support in the Lords, and maybe made some modest amendments to it.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I sought to explain earlier, the Steel Bill would do three things. It would stop future crooks from sitting in the House of Lords; it would stop people who had never turned up to the House of Lords from sitting, but pretty well all of them turn up at one point or another; and it would offer voluntary retirement, which so far has not been taken up by more than two or three peers. If we look at the detail rather than declare that the Bill is a great alternative to an elected House of Lords, we see that it does not really stand up to scrutiny. It would not make much of a difference. Call me old-fashioned, but my view is that if we are going to reform the House of Lords, we should do it properly once and for all and ensure that it has democracy at its heart.

House of Lords Reform Bill

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think that a referendum is not justified in this instance, for the following reasons: first, unlike other issues that are a source of great disagreement here, all three main parties are committed to delivering House of Lords reform, by way of their own manifestos, which they put to the British people at the last election, the one before that, and the one before that; secondly, it would be very expensive—£80 million—for something on which we are all supposed to agree; and thirdly, it would detract attention from the much more important referendum taking place in this Parliament: the referendum on the future of the United Kingdom.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen the Bill in the name of his right hon. Friend Lord Steel, the House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill, which addresses the issue of over-membership in the other place and has widespread support there?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course I have examined that Bill and discussed it with Lord Steel extensively. Any reasonable person who subjected it to any scrutiny would conclude that it would not deal with the practical issues to which I have alluded—the House of Lords getting bigger and bigger—because voluntary resignation or the kicking out of convicted criminals simply will not deal with the unsustainable trajectory of the size of the House of Lords.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

I will come to that at the end of my remarks, if I may.

The Bill misses the opportunity to propose an elegant solution that might have resolved effectively the four main domestic constitutional uncertainties that have plagued our whole political arena for the past three decades. I hope that when it is in Committee and in the other place we might be able to make some progress in that regard. With a federal UK parliament and four elected national parliaments, we could have not only maintained the monarchy, strengthened the Union, and resolved questions over the legitimacy of an unreformed House of Lords, but given independent and equal representation to citizens in England as well as in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

As many Members have said, the British constitution has been one of the success stories of modern politics. It has kept this country together, united under a common Crown and a common Parliament, for over 300 years—not for us the coups, revolutions and counter-revolutions that have plagued many of our European partners over that period. So successful has it been that we Britons had perhaps stopped thinking about some of its great successes. Until 15 years ago, nobody in this House or beyond gave much thought to constitutional issues; we knew instinctively that we had a British constitution that worked well for the whole of these islands. I am afraid that that was destroyed in 1999 when we got rid of the traditional House of Lords, removing much of the genuinely independent hereditary element and created hundreds of new life peers. Shamefully, this process has continued even under the coalition Government, with some 120 new life peers being created. That is unacceptable.

[David Tredinnick]

I hear what my hon. Friend is saying, but surely he must recognise that a lot of those who are made peers are experts in their own fields; it is not just a case of Lord Winston and one other.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I much enjoyed the contribution of the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd). I too am a party loyalist, but there is one small difference between us: in my 25 years in the House, I have never voted against my party’s main business. I am proud of that record, and to illustrate the importance of loyalty, I should like to share with the House an exchange of letters between the person whom I used to call “my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley”—in other words, Mrs Thatcher, as she then was—and my party association chairman, who had the temerity to write to her, on 5 April 1990, complaining about the community charge. On 18 April she wrote back, very commendably, saying:

“I entirely agree with you that splits within the Party only damage ourselves. It is essential that all”—

the word “all” is underlined—

“members of the Party should direct their fire at the real enemy: the Socialists. To do otherwise is… to assist our opponents.”

This is not just a Government Bill; it is a fundamental constitutional Bill. I have underlined the first three words in the next sentence of my speech three times: “I am against an elected Lords.” We have not heard much in this debate about the great history of building up the House of Commons through the 1832 and 1869 Great Reform Bills, although the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) did talk about that. We cannot have it both ways. We either have an appointed other place over which the Commons has influence, or we have an elected other place, which will, in the end, compete with us. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), who served in the Army as I did, knows about mission creep. We are going to have Lords creep. The new versions of the Lords will come a-leaping. They will want more power. That is very worrying.

The list system is the worst possible system. How can any of us stand up and talk with a straight face about getting rid of patronage and bringing in a list system? Opposition Members have spoken eloquently about the evils of that, but when we couple it with the absurd proposition of an elected House with 15-year terms, we see that this entire proposal presents an opportunity to get elected and then go and live in the south of France. Those elected would never need to come back, because they will never stand for election again. This is a recipe for lazy peers. Why should anybody want to turn up for that length of time? There is no accountability either.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The average term of office in the current House of Lords is 26 years.

[David Tredinnick]

Well, I am grateful for that intervention.

There is another Bill that solves about half of these problems. I mentioned it in an earlier intervention. It is Lord Steel’s Bill. He is a Liberal Lord, and his Bill give peers the opportunity to retire if they want, which will reduce the numbers. If they do not turn up, they get disqualified. On the criminals issue, the bad guys would be disqualified, too. That Bill therefore deals with at least a third of the problems with this Bill.

I say to those who are dissatisfied with the way in which we get our peers that I personally do not object to former senior politicians going to the Lords, as I think they make an important contribution. If the regional balance is wrong, we do not have to turn the Lords upside down; we could have regional commissions, perhaps, or a debate about allocating peers.

As for the insulting notion that the experts in the Lords are not important, anyone who has attended a debate on health issues in which peers such as Lord Winston or Lord Walton participated will have listened in awe—and the same applies to those with military experience, as has been said. Listening to a Lords debate can be an awesome experience.

We are being told that because Lords reform was in the parties’ manifestos, this Bill has to go through, but we barely touched on the issue in our manifesto. It merely said that we must find some form of consensus. The Steel Bill presents the ideal way to achieve consensus, and therefore to get us out of this corner.

Many years ago, I served on the Anglo-Irish parliamentary forum. I remember talking, in County Tipperary or somewhere else, to Irish Members who suffered two-Member constituencies. Did they like it? They hated it, because they were always campaigning against each other through the whole term. Nothing got done and constituency interests were not paramount.

Let me say a few words about the veiled threat from my new-found Liberal hon. Friends, who occupy what used to be our other Front Bench before it was taken over by them. I forget after which election that happened, but perhaps we will get that Bench back at some point in the future. I say to them, “Please don’t threaten us over the boundary changes that we need. We gave you the AV referendum and it was a straight fight.”

Finally, we must think about the new constituencies—with seven Members and larger than a country, as a colleague put it. Do we really want to superimpose that in our areas? I do not think so. We already have MEPs covering similarly vast areas.

As a party loyalist, I hate doing this—I really do—but I cannot support this Bill. I do not think it is in our national interest or Parliament’s interests, and it is certainly not in my party’s interests.

Public Disorder

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me make a couple of points to the right hon. Gentleman, who I know served in the Home Office. First of all, sometimes the need for wider commissions of inquiry has come about because the House of Commons Select Committees could not get to the bottom of an issue; we are not even at that point yet. Secondly, these events are still continuing, so to start talking about what sort of inquiry there should be now is, I think, wrong. The third point that I would make is this: of course one should not jump to conclusions, but I think everyone is clear on the differences between what we have seen in the last three days and what we saw in 1981. This was not political protest, or a riot about protest or politics—it was common or garden thieving, robbing and looting, and we do not need an inquiry to tell us that.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that following the G10 demonstrations in London, and the unfortunate death that occurred, many police officers have been reluctant to use force? If they do use force, what reassurances can he give them?

[The Prime Minister]

The reassurance that I can give is that we will put the resources into the police force to make sure we have the trained officers we need.

Libya and the Middle East

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend reassure the House that he has learned the lessons from the failure of the last Labour Government to plan effectively for what happens after regime change?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes the important point that we now need to plan for every eventuality. That is why I mentioned in my statement the importance of planning for a potential humanitarian crisis. We also need to plan for what might happen should the regime fall, or—something we do not want to happen—should it embed itself for a long time, resulting effectively in civil war in Libya. We have to prepare for every eventuality and work with the international community to ensure that we are ready for them.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right to mention the tragic accident at the New Zealand mine. What has happened is immensely sad. I spoke to the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, this morning and I know that the thoughts of the whole House will be with the 29 miners who lost their lives and with their families—particularly Peter Rodger from Perth and Malcolm Campbell from St Andrews. I know that our high commission and the consular officials are in touch with their families and doing everything to help at what must be an impossibly difficult time.

The hon. Gentleman has been a long-standing campaigner on the issue of tips and has done some excellent work on it. It is right that tips should be distributed to staff and should not be used to top up the minimum wage. They should not be diverted in any way. The law is very clear: tips must not be used to back up the minimum wage and enforcement officers should take action to ensure that that does not happen. The hon. Gentleman should meet Business, Innovation and Skills Ministers and they can look at the important code of practice that was produced and ensure that the hospitality industry is meeting it.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend take steps to sort out the mess in Parliament square, particularly ahead of 29 April? Does he think that it is reasonable that visitors to London from home and abroad should be faced with a no-go area surrounded by a campsite?

[The Prime Minister]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I will always defend the right to protest and the right to protest peacefully. It seems to me entirely fair that people should protest, but I have never seen why they are able to sleep in Parliament square. I have had many discussions with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, the Mayor of London and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I think 29 April is too far a deadline by which to get this problem sorted out.