Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Dominic Grieve
Main Page: Dominic Grieve (Independent - Beaconsfield)Department Debates - View all Dominic Grieve's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Dominic Raab
I feel for anyone in the Thomas Cook scenario—people stranded abroad or people who lost their jobs. I have set out why the Government do not systematically bail out or step in to prop up firms that are unsustainable. I am afraid that if the hon. Lady looks at the figures, she will see that that was not a sustainable route to follow. Of course, if she wants to write to me, we will look at any details she raises, but the bottom line is that the way we create a healthy economy and jobs is by making sure that we have the tax measures in place—by not raising taxes on businesses and by supporting the workers of this country. That is what we are doing.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Ind)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on being at the Dispatch Box as Deputy Prime Minister.
How is it that the Government are allowing special advisers at No. 10 Downing Street, speaking on behalf of the Government, to tell outright lies? My right hon. Friend should be familiar with the fact that on Saturday such a special adviser—whom I believe to be Mr Dominic Cummings—told The Mail on Sunday that a number of hon. Members were in receipt of foreign funding to draft what is known as the Benn Act, something which in itself is totally untrue. Moreover, he went on to say that that was going to be the subject of a Government investigation, which is also completely untrue because, mercifully, this country is not yet run as a police state by Mr Cummings.
Dominic Raab
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend. I was not quite sure what the question there was, but the position of the Government is that advisers advise and Ministers decide. It is right that the legislation that we have rightly dubbed the surrender Act gets the kind of scrutiny that a Government would get—whether it is from the Executive, parliamentary Select Committees in this House or, indeed, the declarations of interest that should come forward in the normal way.