Humberstone Heights Golf Course (Leicester)
Debate between Keith Vaz and Baroness Primarolo
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I wish to present a petition on behalf of a number of my constituents concerning the proposals of the city council to close Humberstone Heights golf course in Leicester. Some 1,800 people have signed the petition—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Vaz, but I am having difficult in hearing your presentation of the petition because of the noise in the Chamber. I ask Members to leave quietly. Mr Vaz, may I suggest that you start again with the presentation of your petition?
Keith Vaz
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to present a petition on behalf of a number of residents of Leicester concerning the proposal to close Humberstone Heights golf club in Humberstone. I was there last Saturday and, as you have correctly said, it is much quieter on a golf course than it is in the Chamber of the House of Commons. I accepted a petition that had been led by Mr Mark Boddice, the club captain, Mrs Heather Smith, the lady captain, Mr Raj Kotak, a past captain, Paul Maurice, Alan Taylor, Jay Marsh, Tony Palmer, Ashok Mistry, Mark Smith, Gaz Kilby, Bruce Frazer, Colin McKenzie, Peter Walker, Michael Pearson and Master David Dewbery. It was signed by 1,800 other people who play regularly at Humberstone Heights golf course. I am grateful to so many right hon. and hon. Members, from all parts of the United Kingdom, for staying for the presentation of this petition. Clearly, the Humberstone Heights golf course has achieved great fame beyond Leicester, reaching the very corners of the United Kingdom. I therefore wish to present this petition on their behalf. If people are able to be more involved in leisure, they will have longer and fitter lives.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that Humberstone Heights Golf Course is a popular leisure facility in Leicester and further that the Petitioners believe that the planned closure of the Golf Course will have a detrimental impact on the local community.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Leicester City Council to reconsider their decision to close Humberstone Heights Golf Course, which is an important community facility.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001342]
Petition
Debate between Keith Vaz and Baroness Primarolo
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I wish to present a petition on behalf of a number of my constituents concerning the proposals of the city council to close Humberstone Heights golf course in Leicester. Some 1,800 people have signed the petition—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Vaz, but I am having difficult in hearing your presentation of the petition because of the noise in the Chamber. I ask Members to leave quietly. Mr Vaz, may I suggest that you start again with the presentation of your petition?
Keith Vaz
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to present a petition on behalf of a number of residents of Leicester concerning the proposal to close Humberstone Heights golf club in Humberstone. I was there last Saturday and, as you have correctly said, it is much quieter on a golf course than it is in the Chamber of the House of Commons. I accepted a petition that had been led by Mr Mark Boddice, the club captain, Mrs Heather Smith, the lady captain, Mr Raj Kotak, a past captain, Paul Maurice, Alan Taylor, Jay Marsh, Tony Palmer, Ashok Mistry, Mark Smith, Gaz Kilby, Bruce Frazer, Colin McKenzie, Peter Walker, Michael Pearson and Master David Dewbery. It was signed by 1,800 other people who play regularly at Humberstone Heights golf course. I am grateful to so many right hon. and hon. Members, from all parts of the United Kingdom, for staying for the presentation of this petition. Clearly, the Humberstone Heights golf course has achieved great fame beyond Leicester, reaching the very corners of the United Kingdom. I therefore wish to present this petition on their behalf. If people are able to be more involved in leisure, they will have longer and fitter lives.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that Humberstone Heights Golf Course is a popular leisure facility in Leicester and further that the Petitioners believe that the planned closure of the Golf Course will have a detrimental impact on the local community.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Leicester City Council to reconsider their decision to close Humberstone Heights Golf Course, which is an important community facility.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001342]
Energy Price Freeze
Debate between Keith Vaz and Baroness Primarolo
Madam Deputy Speaker
I have ruled on your point of order, Mr Winnick, so with respect, you cannot come back a second time and put the same one to me.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have just been contacted by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) about a constituent of his who is being removed by the Home Office today. She is on her way to Heathrow airport, her mother having given evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs yesterday.
I am seeking your guidance because I do not know whether it is in order, given that the hon. Gentleman has made this request to me—I understand he has spoken to other members of the Select Committee—for a potential witness to a Select Committee to be removed from the United Kingdom before they have had an opportunity to give evidence, if indeed she is called to give evidence. May I seek your guidance on the rules, so that the Select Committee does not do anything out of order?
Madam Deputy Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman raises an extremely interesting point of order, which poses a number of complicated procedural questions. I hope he will forgive me if I do not rule directly now on his point of order. I need to confer with the Speaker. I will make sure that the right hon. Gentleman gets a reply as quickly as possible, and that the House is informed as well.
Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism
Debate between Keith Vaz and Baroness Primarolo(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Keith Vaz
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but I do not think the Prime Minister would have used the words he did unless he was being very careful, and he certainly would have retracted them after he became Prime Minister had he received more information indicating a problem.
We shall leave that to one side, however, as it is not the subject of the order. I am sure the Prime Minister and everyone else is fully behind the proscription of these two organisations. I was disappointed with the Minister’s response to my intervention. He is an accomplished performer at the Dispatch Box and before the Home Affairs Committee—we will be calling him again for our inquiry into international terrorism and crime—but he did not give us any answers today or take us any further on from what he told us on 4 July 2012. That was the last time such an order was put through the House.
The hon. Member for Newark—I was about to call him the Minister for Newark; of course, he ought to have been security Minister at some stage, given his knowledge of the subject, but there is still time, with two years to go—the shadow Minister and I are not suggesting it in this case, but when we proscribe, we ought to put in place a time limit for reviewing the order, not because we would want to de-proscribe as soon as we proscribe, but because it would be right to keep reviewing these organisations, just in case they turn out to be shell organisations. I have mentioned the Tamil Tigers on the two most recent occasions that we have discussed this, although the Minister was not here last time—the Immigration Minister stood in for him. The Tamil Tigers have ceased to exist—everyone in the organisation has ceased to exist—yet they are still proscribed in the United Kingdom.
The Minister invites us to make an application for de-proscription for which there is no timetable. That means, I am afraid, that the matter ends up not in this House, which is responsible for proscription, but in the courts, where organisations are able to spend a lot of money. I think of the People’s Mujahedeen. Like me, Madam Deputy Speaker, you were in the House when that happened, on the Government Benches. A Minister came before the House and said, “We are de-proscribing the People’s Mujahedeen, because they’ve gone to court and won their judicial review.” I do not want these two organisations to do the same thing, which was why I said that the Minister’s answers were unsatisfactory.
The Minister told us one year ago, on 4 July 2012, that there would be a response “in due course”. I have discovered that that is one of the Minister’s favourite sayings—I am going to look in Hansard at how many times he says it; but he was a distinguished lawyer before he came to the House, and “in due course” is something that lawyers tend to say in their arguments. On 22 November 2012, however, the Immigration Minister, who is not a lawyer, used the word “shortly” in the House. “Shortly” clearly means “not next week”, because the response came in March this year.
Indeed, the word “response” also needs to be looked at, because although the Minister said that there had been a response—you were not in the Chair at the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will not draw you into this debate—the Government’s response was to say that the report by the independent reviewer of terrorism, David Anderson, QC, had been “noted”. That is a very odd response from the Government. We are used to them saying, “A Select Committee”—or an independent reviewer—“has made a recommendation, and this is what we think about the subject.” This poor chap went through the preparation of that entire report and then waited a whole year to be told that it had been “noted”. Now we hear from the Minister, in his response to me, that he is going to respond—[Interruption.] I am afraid I have forgotten what he said—it was not “in due course” or “shortly”—and I do not have access to Hansard, so when he winds up, perhaps he can remind me what he said he would do.
When we proscribe, we need to be careful that we do not get organisations that can then de-proscribe. There is no point having someone as distinguished as David Anderson, QC, producing reports—poring over all the detail and providing expertise to the Government—and then the Government not responding. All I say to the Minister is this. He has told us that officials are looking into the matter. Well, hooray for officials—distinguished officials, I am sure. He has told us that they are “actively” considering the matter. What does that mean? Since I last raised the matter in the House on 4 July 2012, have officials “inactively” considered it? We have had activity and officials; what we now have are Ministers—good Ministers, such as the security Minister. He is on top of the brief—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman has been going round this point for nearly five minutes now. Will he please clearly make his point? Then perhaps we can hear what the Minister has to say for himself.
Corporate Structures and Financial Crime
Debate between Keith Vaz and Baroness Primarolo(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker
We will not discuss this now, but I am sure Mr Cunningham will remember it for the future.
Keith Vaz
I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) was going to tell me that the directors of Coventry City were chewing khat. I did not realise that he wanted to make another point.
In conclusion, I say to the Minister: let us look at the proceeds of crime and the way in which financial structures protect them, and let us use effective action through the structures of Government and the financial agencies to try to make sure that the Mr Bigs pay back the money they have stolen.
Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing
Debate between Keith Vaz and Baroness Primarolo(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is an enormous pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Justice Committee. I agree with almost everything he said. Many lawyers are present, which is not unusual in the House of Commons, especially on a subject like this one. It is absolutely the right approach to highlight the importance of investing resources on prevention rather than at what happens at the end of the criminal justice system. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, that means early intervention—something that no Government seem prepared to do because it costs money up front, whereas at the moment, our system pays to keep people in prison at astonishing rates in order to punish them, but they often come out of prison and reoffend.
When the Solicitor-General winds up the debate—I understand that he is the Government’s spokesman at the end—I hope he will tell us whether Lord Justice Leveson is still chairing the Sentencing Council, even though he is also—[Interruption.] I am most grateful; the Solicitor-General no longer has to wait for the winding-up speech. We work quickly together, Madam Deputy Speaker, as he is my neighbour in Leicestershire, so we understand each other quite well.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Telepathy is difficult for Hansard to pick up and it is not easy for other Members in the Chamber. It would help if we made that sequence a little clearer.
The Solicitor-General (Mr Edward Garnier)
To make it clear, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) meant that I, not Lord Justice Leveson, was his parliamentary neighbour. I say that in case that does not appear clearly on the record either.