Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts
Tuesday 24th May 2011

(13 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Edward Leigh Portrait Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
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Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of us who have to support his and the Government’s measures night after night cannot understand why, when the country is in such crisis, he is prepared to invoke the Parliament Act and gridlock essential legislation in the other place? Will he invoke the Tory principle of gradualism, ditch those radical proposals and come back with something much more modest?

Nick Clegg Portrait The Deputy Prime Minister
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I do not know what could be more gradualist than a proposal that would start in 2015 and not be complete until 2025. Many of the options for transition that we set out in the White Paper could not reasonably be accused of going too fast. We totally accept that a change on this scale, given that it has been discussed for more than 100 years, needs to be done carefully and incrementally.