Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. Let us look at what has been happening in Britain this week. The IMF has said that the UK will grow faster than any other G7 country, new jobs are being created at Asda in Birmingham and at Vodafone, and there are the extra apprenticeships in east Lancashire that my hon. Friend mentioned. The trade deficit is falling, and employment is rising. Britain is on its way back.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

During the Committee stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), assured the Committee that those who were refused legal aid could still apply under the new exceptional funding scheme, and described that as “a vital safeguard”. Between April and December 2013, 617 family law applications were made and eight were allowed. What kind of safeguard is that?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very closely at the cases that the right hon. Gentleman has raised, but the key point is that we must ensure that our legal aid system is affordable. When we compare our system with those of similar common-law countries, we see that we are still spending far more per head than, for instance, Australia and New Zealand. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but it is no good for Members of Parliament to come to Parliament every week and vote against every single spending decision, while not recognising that we must get our deficit down in order to help our economy to recover.

Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Absolutely; I am sure that the hon. Gentleman speaks on behalf of everyone in the House, and certainly of all football fans, when he says that it is important to get to the bottom of this. By the way, this is a rather good example of the excellent early work of the National Crime Agency. It was established precisely to look into these complex cases, and it will work across jurisdictions and with different agencies to ensure that any suspicion or hint of corruption in the great game is removed.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware of the case that I am about to raise; it is an urgent matter that I would like him to address. A young constituent of mine fled a violent and abusive relationship in Italy and brought her three and a half-year-old son with her. She is now in Wales, and the High Court has since ruled under The Hague convention that she has to return to Italy on Monday. Will the Deputy Prime Minister use his best endeavours to ensure that the Italian authorities realise that arresting her would be unfair and disproportionate, and that it would be little short of abominable to take that young boy into a care centre pending the outcome of the proceedings?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am aware of the right hon. Gentleman’s interest in this matter. It is a desperately sad case and on a human level I would love to be able to pronounce on it, but as he knows, Ministers cannot comment on or intervene in cases that are or have been before the courts, whether in this country or abroad. However, I am sure that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be able to provide consular assistance to the mother as she pursues her case in Italy, including providing details of English-speaking local lawyers and seeking updates from the local court about progress in the case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do recognise the seriousness of this case, and the Deputy Prime Minister and I actually raised it with President Obama when he visited. I think the point is that it is not so much about the alleged offence, which everyone knows is a very serious offence, and we can understand why the Americans feel so strongly about it. The case is now in front of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who has to consider reports about Gary McKinnon’s health and well-being. It is right that she does that in a proper and effectively—I am sorry to use the word again today—quasi-judicial way.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

In these days of a rush to make savage cuts in public spending, the decimation of the police service and the hammering of individuals because of the withdrawal of legal aid, can I ask the Prime Minister to justify the following expenditure? At the beginning of last month, a serviceman from Northern Ireland asked for a non-urgent pair of boots costing £45. They were dispatched from defence base Bicester by private courier to Northern Ireland, at a cost of £714.80. Is it not time the Prime Minister got a grip of this?

[The Prime Minister]

I know that former Health Ministers wanted to hear the rattle of every bedpan, and maybe I need to see the order of every pair of boots in the military, but I recognise the point the right hon. Gentleman makes. One of the things we are trying to do in the Ministry of Defence is recognise that there is a huge amount of back-office and logistics costs, and we want to make that more efficient so that we can actually spend money on the front line. The example he gives is a good one, and I shall check it out and see if we can save some money.