Imprisonment of Catalan Leaders Debate
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Baroness Laing of Elderslie
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Imprisonment of Catalan Leaders
Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The prize for patience and perseverance goes to Tommy Sheppard.
Tommy Sheppard
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. To be clear, the question before us today is not whether we support Catalan independence. It is not even whether an offence was committed under the Spanish constitution. The question is what we think about the jail terms that were issued yesterday to elected politicians. I know what I think. I think that they were barbaric and outrageous and that they diminish how people perceive Spain in the world. I already know of several friends who were planning to visit Spain next year on holiday who are now making alternative arrangements. The question to the Minister is not whether he wants to interfere in internal Spanish matters. The question is what he thinks about it. What do his Government think about it? What relationship will change as a result of what has happened? It is not good enough, Minister, to sit there and say nothing and do nothing. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. It is getting a little bit noisy, and we ought to hear the Minister’s final answer.
Christopher Pincher
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman, with his usual pugnacity, asks what we think of Spanish judges and the sentences that they have handed down. I would gently say that if we start questioning what judges hand down, and if we think that we can think better than them and interfere in their right to hand down justice, as prescribed by their Parliament and their laws, we set in train the sort of barbarity that he was criticising.