Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Freeman and Chris Heaton-Harris

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As well as providing a £10 billion boost to the economy, which I am surprised to see that the left is not in favour of, and securing 13 million jobs in the EU, this treaty also helps our NHS pioneers and innovators and our UK life science companies generate revenue for this country from our innovations in health care in the world’s biggest health care market.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Is it not the case that free trade agreements have always grown the economies that have contracted within those agreements, and a growing economy can only benefit the NHS in the future?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The truth is that we cannot have a strong economy without a strong NHS, and we cannot have a strong NHS without a strong economy. In a modern society, health and wealth go hand in hand, which is why this treaty, with the safeguards that we have secured, is good for Britain and good for NHS patients.

Eurozone Financial Assistance

Debate between George Freeman and Chris Heaton-Harris

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will say more about the politics later in my speech. In any event, I believe that if either my amendment or the original motion is passed, the House of Commons will be the first member state Parliament to question formally the legality of the stability mechanism.

The remaining part of my amendment involves a fairly academic argument. Does any Member in the House truly believe that, with the Greek economy running out of cash, market fears that the eurozone contagion will spread and reveal itself at the heart of the Spanish and Italian economies, and the continuing problems in Ireland and Portugal, this matter was not going to be up-front and central at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers or the European Council? I should like to think that those problems are not only the first item on the agenda for such meetings, but being discussed every day throughout the Governments of Europe.

Bail-outs have become what they were always going to be: politically toxic, not only for those who provide the cash—the local election results in Bremen at the weekend underlined that—but, much more, for the Governments of the countries receiving the money, who have to introduce economic measures that are politically unpalatable to the people, as so many Spanish socialists found last weekend. Whatever senior advisers of Governments across Europe may think, the markets have already decided—and I consider it to be a matter of fact—that the Greek bail-out has not worked and will be renegotiated.

What I believe my hon. Friend for the Member Rochester and Strood is after is a vote that will prevent us from providing any more money for these bail-outs through the EFSM. Alas, although the UK could vote against any proposal presented—and I should like to think that it would—the simple fact is that because of the disastrous advice given to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and the consequent actions that he took at meetings on 9 and 10 May last year as the previous Government were leaving office, the UK entered the mechanism. Moreover, the Council decides on these matters now, and will do so in the future, by means of qualified majority voting.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that when the Conservatives were last in office they established a firm veto in precisely this context? That veto was given away in 2001 by the Labour party, and the present Government are now being forced to implement a decision that was sneaked through by Labour in the dying days of its Government.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Absolutely—and let me make it perfectly clear that, thanks to what Labour did a year ago as it was leaving office, the EU cannot veto the grant of an EU loan or credit line extended via the European financial stability mechanism.

Onshore Wind Turbines

Debate between George Freeman and Chris Heaton-Harris

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I am sure that Ministers will have heard my hon. Friend’s very sensible plea for areas of scientific interest to be looked after.

I was talking about noise. Some of us just do not believe that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is promoting wind farms, and not inhibiting them, by trying to force new noise criteria on the whole country. It is slightly worrying that the Hayes McKenzie Partnership has been commissioned by DECC to carry out the new noise review that the Minister recently announced. The science around noise seems to be a very moveable feast.

It is my contention that onshore wind diverts valuable resources from other renewables that do work and that people like. In my constituency alone, if we diverted the money that might well be spent on wind power towards other things, such as air source or ground source heat pumps and home insulation, we might well be able to insulate just about every house in the constituency and get people to buy in to this.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important subject. It is important, not least in my constituency, where we are struggling with a tidal wave of applications for both onshore turbines and the infrastructure to support offshore turbines, which are often put forward by speculative developers. There is an issue in that respect about the planning guidance. I agree entirely with him about the importance of securing our short-term energy requirements, but also of setting out a proper scientific framework for measuring the different renewable sources that this country could thrive on. Does he agree with me about the importance of identifying those that this country could lead on in a global context? That may not include wind.

Does my hon. Friend also agree that the Leader of the Opposition’s statement of 2009 in a documentary when he was Climate Change Secretary, in which he said that it should be “socially unacceptable” for people to be against wind turbines in their area, like not wearing their seat belt or driving past a zebra crossing, is an unhelpful position and one that, now that he is Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, he might like to review?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely concur.

I want to wind up by saying—