Business of the House

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

It will be important, as we leave the European Union, that the United Kingdom is even more outward looking on the world than it is already. I am certainly proud of the way in which we use our very generous aid programme to give humanitarian assistance to people in need in parts of central and eastern Africa, and to people both inside Syria and who have taken refuge in neighbouring countries.

On the state pension age increase for women, transition arrangements are already in place and the previous Government committed more than £1 billion to lessen the impact of those changes. No one will see their pension age change more than 18 months compared with the previous timetable. The problem with what the hon. Gentleman seeks is that to reverse the Pensions Act 2011 would cost more than £30 billion, and neither he nor his party has any plan as to how they would find that money.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Six innocent UK military veterans, including Billy Irving, remain in jail in India. The Foreign Secretary has still not met their families. This Government have been in a tizzy over Brexit and have not been focusing on those men, and now this cynical Tory election means that their perilous situation slips even further down the priority list. These military veterans deserve better, so in the time left what are the Government going to do to get Billy and his colleagues home where they belong with their families?

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Lady has raised that case before, so she knows that the Prime Minister has raised the case of the Chennai six with Prime Minister Modi of India; that Foreign Office Ministers and our high commissioner in New Delhi have raised the issue many times with their Indian counterparts; and that representations continue to be made to the Indian high commissioner here in London. The case is with the judicial system in India, which is a mature democracy, and we will continue to make all representations possible on behalf of those men. We are certainly not giving up and it is wrong for the hon. Lady to suggest in any way that we have done so.