State Pension Age (Women)
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Johnson(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
This is a crucial debate not least for my constituents Jackie Williams and Debbie Watkins who are active in the WASPI campaign. My right hon. Friend might be pleased to know that the Minister responsible for this issue says the reason she cannot carry out the terms of this motion is that it would be impossible. He and the House might care to know that, as Ros Altmann, she was a very effective advocate on pensions issues when I was the Work and Pensions Secretary, and when we were arguing that the pension protection fund we had introduced should not be applied retrospectively, as she wished, I said it was impossible. Ros said to me, “That word doesn’t—”
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order, Mr Johnson; come on, you are in the next debate as well. In the interests of fairness, we have a very tight time limit and must have short interventions so nobody drops off the list—and I know you would not want to do that to anybody.
Border Checks Summer 2011
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Johnson(13 years ago)
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Alan Johnson
If it is, it will go right back to when Willie Whitelaw was the Home Secretary—[Interruption.] “Ah!” they say. I can tell hon. Members why they say “Ah!”. It is because they do not know—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. People want to listen to interventions, and we certainly want to listen to the answers from Alan Johnson.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) should not stand up for such a long time. If he wishes to intervene, he must rise quickly and then sit down straight away.
Alan Johnson
The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) was not making much impression on me, anyway, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The Home Secretary claimed on Monday that those on the watch list will have been picked up because of e-Borders, but she knows as well as I do that not every country is meticulous at operating e-Borders. It is patchy around the European Union.
Identity Documents Bill
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alan Johnson(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Before the right hon. Member replies, may I remind people that interventions should be very short?
Alan Johnson
I apologise to my right hon. Friend in this broad coalition, but I do not have time to quote the whole speech. Of course he made those points in that very important debate, after which the Tories walked through the Aye Lobby with us. I do not agree that the tests were not met. My point, however, is that the Conservatives are now in government. They can carry out the proposal that was in the Queen’s Speech in 1996 and meet the tests that they set.
That debate took place on 20 December 2004, three years after 9/11 and, unfortunately, seven months before 7/7, and before the airline bomb plot, the liquid bomb plot, and all the other terrorist outrages that we have had to counter. The right hon. Gentleman cannot say that anything has changed in relation to national security except that these problems are more acute. We are at a severe level of readiness. No one on the Government Benches can say, “Well, things have changed since 1996,” or since 2004. They have changed—they have got worse, and that has made the case for ID cards stronger.