Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Mark Francois(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I appreciate that two hon. Members are rising to ask questions, but perhaps they have forgotten that they have already had that opportunity; each asked a question earlier this afternoon. I know the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) got away with two questions, but I often make an exception for him due to his longevity in this place.
Madam Deputy Speaker
It is being suggested to me that I should use the word “seniority”, and that does have a better ring to it—I mean the hon. Member for Huddersfield’s seniority in this place.
Migration and Economic Development Partnership
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Mark Francois(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
We all know that the Home Secretary’s instincts on this are right. However, the wider Government promised to stop the boats and clearly we have not stopped them yet, so I fully support her decision to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, as I think will most people in this country. Given legal procedural issues and judicial recesses, it could take months for the case to reach the Supreme Court, let alone for a judgment to be handed down. In the meantime, the boats will keep coming, now probably all summer.
May I ask the Home Secretary two questions? First, with her extensive legal experience, can anything be practicably done to expedite the Supreme Court’s decision in this case? Secondly, was my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) right that the only way we will ultimately solve the problem is to achieve a derogation from the ECHR?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before the Home Secretary answers those two questions, I have been very lenient to the right hon. Gentleman but that does not set a precedent. Each Member who asks a question gets one question. On this occasion I will allow the Home Secretary to answer both questions, but I am not creating a precedent. One question, and we do not need an opening preamble either—just a question.
Sir Richard Shepherd
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Mark Francois(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for introducing so ably this very important debate, which has been graced by a number of wonderful tributes to Sir Richard Shepherd that I cannot hope to match. All I would say is that in my 20 years in the House—I am one of the most junior Members to contribute this evening—I came to regard Richard Shepherd as a man of infinite principle combined with charm and good humour. That is not a bad thing to say about any Member of Parliament from any party in the House. He never wavered in his belief that one day the United Kingdom would become master again of its own destiny. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone will understand what I am about to say: if Richard Shepherd had been here on 29 March 2019, he would have been a Spartan too.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
No one has yet mentioned Richard Shepherd’s passionate defence of the rights of this place and the Members of this place. I well remember, before the days when we had automatic timetable motions—new Members will not be able to imagine that there could have been such days, when we did not have timetable motions and the Government had to introduce a so-called guillotine motion if they wanted to curtail the debate on any Bill or, indeed, any matter—that Richard Shepherd used to sit there, on the second Bench below the Gangway, and oppose and speak against and vote against and force a vote upon every single guillotine motion that the Government brought in. That had quite an effect. It was hard to believe then that he was in fact such a charming, passionate gentleman.