Maria Eagle
Main Page: Maria Eagle (Labour - Liverpool Garston)Department Debates - View all Maria Eagle's debates with the Leader of the House
(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Sir George Young
I agree with my hon. Friend. With the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Whitehall, it is a historic setting, and the presence of a shanty town right in the middle does no credit to the centre of one of the greatest capital cities in the world. As he will know, the Mayor of London is responsible for the green in the middle of the square, and he is in the process of taking action through the courts against those currently occupying it. If he is successful, I hope that the green will be cleared and accessible to more people. Personally, I have no objection to people lobbying and protesting outside the Houses of Parliament, but I think that at the end of the day they should go home.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
In the newspapers this morning, the Minister for Police has been quoted as saying that
“the last government mistakenly believed that the test of an effective police force was how many officers it employed.”
We know that the Budget and spending review will ensure that there are far fewer police on our streets across the nation, but at the recent general election, in Garston and Halewood, my Conservative opponent promised
“more officers on the beat in Liverpool” ,
as did my Lib Dem opponent. The Deputy Prime Minister, who visited on a number of occasions, also said that the Lib Dems would put more police on the streets. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in Government time on the new politics that the governing parties appear to be advocating, and on whether it equates to no more than completely ignoring election promises and treating the electorate like dupes?
Sir George Young
There will be Home Office questions on 28 June. Until the hon. Lady tells the House how the Labour party would have filled the £50 billion gap in the public finances, we will listen with suspicion to her points accusing us of making reductions that the Labour party would not have had to make had it won the election.