Business of the House

Ian Liddell-Grainger Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for selecting a debate for next week that has such widespread support. That is, of course, the virtue of the Backbench Business Committee. I note what he says about Baby Loss Awareness Week, although I am nervous of promising to find time for specific weeks, because it has to fit in with other Government business, but his point is a very important one. I, too, am glad that the motion last night to get Westminster Hall back on 5 October was passed by the House, and that will be an opportunity for Members to raise a much wider range of issues for which time on the Floor of the House is not available. On the issue of local differences, it is up to local councils particularly to ensure that the message gets across in their areas—helped by Members of Parliament, as the hon. Gentleman does so effectively.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con) [V]]

My right hon. Friend, quite rightly, is a stickler for using clear and correct English. Last week in the House, he mourned—and rightly so—the loss of Somerset’s traditional boundaries, but his words were mischievously and dishonestly misinterpreted by the leader of Somerset County Council. My right hon. Friend has now become a victim of fake news, as he is wrongly accused of favouring Somerset County Council’s ridiculous half-baked scheme to form a unitary authority which does not take in Somerset. This silly plan fails to restore the Somerset of King Alfred to the greatness that we want to see. A much better plan for full-scale reform, which would help to reunite our broken county, has been put forward by the district councils. Could we please have a debate in Government time, or a rip—“could do better”—on fake news and on ensuring that the unitary bit, if it goes ahead, is for the district, not the county?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am appalled that fake news should come to this House and this country. I thought that it was something left to our friends across the Atlantic. There is nothing more annoying, when one is driving through God’s own county of Somerset, to see signs that say, “Welcome to Somerset”, when one has been in the county for mile upon mile. They are misleading, mischievous and wrongly placed, and that they were put there to celebrate one of our sovereign’s jubilees is extraordinarily irksome. My hon. Friend makes a good point about how we need to listen to all councils and get all their views, and very often we should listen to my hon. Friend.