BBC Funding

Debate between Nadine Dorries and Edward Leigh

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I do not set the budgets for the BBC’s investigative programmes; the BBC does.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Reform is clearly needed. It is absurd in the modern world that people can be criminalised for not paying a licence fee just for an entertainment channel. However, the devil is in the detail. I represent a rural constituency where many smaller villages and hamlets cannot get superfast broadband. If we are to base public policy on the fact that everyone can stream programmes, can we ensure that they actually can stream programmes before any final decisions are made or reforms are implemented?

[Ms Dorries]

There is no policy; we are just starting a discussion and a debate. This is not based on whether people can achieve streaming or not, but 100% of households achieving superfast broadband or gigabit broadband is the objective.

Sergei Magnitsky

Debate between Nadine Dorries and Edward Leigh

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am not a member of the all-party group, and I have never spoken in this place about anything to do with Russia. However, I recently chaired a meeting at which Sergei Magnitsky’s former employer spoke, in detail and with emotion and depth, about Sergei’s life and death. It was impossible not to be moved, which is why I have come to speak in the debate today and to make a case for our Government to support the motion. That man died in the most horrific circumstances and he was the most principled of people. Sergei Magnitsky was killed by corrupt officials because he was a principled man who exposed officials as thieves, when a huge amount of money to be paid in tax to the Russian state disappeared overnight. Overnight, those officials, politicians, police officers and tax inspectors suddenly became very rich individuals indeed. That is the simple, tragic background to what we are discussing today, but the ramifications reach far further.

A ruling elite has sprung out of the chaos in Russia during the 1990s, and it preaches to the masses nationalism and pride in a powerful Russian state. At the same time, this ruling elite is weakening its own country through corruption, nepotism and greed. That contradiction is not for us in this House to solve. It is not our affair; we have no powers over Russian business. Proud Russian people, furthermore, do not take kindly to foreign interventions into their domestic affairs. The British Council would be able to inform us about that.

The British Government and this House, however, have influence over who enters this country and who crosses our borders, and over our domestic affairs, particularly in respect of foreign visitors. We do not have an entirely open border policy for Russian citizens. Indeed, I have been told that the visa regime between the two countries can make for an incredibly tiresome process. On rare occasions, we reserve the right to say to particular citizens of the Russian Federation that they are not welcome in the UK and we can deny them a visa.

Is there any greater indication that someone’s presence in the UK is not welcome or desired in this country than the fact that we are dealing with thieves, murderers, torturers and corrupt individuals? Yet, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) said, the fact that these people can just pop into our country to do a bit of Christmas shopping is distasteful in the extreme. At the very least, we need to put some process in place to make sure that they are refused entry at the border.

On Sunday, Vladimir Putin was elected President of the Russian Federation for a third term. Mr Putin is known and recognised for his patriotic pride, and the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) spoke about how Putin often displays this in taking off his shirt, attending ice hockey events or throwing in curling events to show us what a big proud man he is. He resents interference in Russian politics from anywhere outside Russia, which makes it ironic that the Russian ambassador thinks that this matter is unique to Russia. These Russians feel that they can interfere in what happens in our politics by trying to prevent this debate from taking place.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Did the Russian ambassador write to you to try to prevent this debate?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful for that point of order. I hope that the clock will be held so that the time available to the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) will not be reduced.

I can tell the House that I received a letter from the Russian ambassador, drawing my attention to what he regarded as the errors contained in the motion and the merit of what he thought to be that fact—I emphasise that this was what he thought to be that fact—being communicated to the sponsors of the debate. I replied to the ambassador, noting his letter and underlining to him that he must not expect me, as an impartial Speaker, to comment on the contents of either the letter or the motion. I reminded him of the date of the debate, and indicated that if he wished to communicate his views in writing to the sponsors of the debate, it was open to him to do so. I hope that my meaning was clear—that this House debates what it wants to debate and that if other people wish to send letters, they can send letters, but it is not the responsibility of the Speaker to act as a post person.

Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Nadine Dorries and Edward Leigh

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nadine Dorries]

No, I will carry on for a bit longer.

I want to talk about the difference between consultation and counselling. I doubt very much whether the constituents of the hon. Member for Streatham had counselling; I think they probably had consultation. There is a big difference. Every woman who turns up at an abortion clinic has a consultation, but that is about the medical process—the side effects and what is going to happen. Every e-mail that we receive from women on this subject involves a consultation. This is how the law stands today; my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) might want to listen to this, as most of the way through she has been nodding in agreement with the adverse comments.

When a woman turns up at an abortion clinic, the clinic does not offer counselling. It does offer consultation, but the woman has to ask for counselling; it is not offered. She has to ask—or the doctor in the clinic has to see that a woman is in a particular position, or be alarmed enough by her state to offer counselling. I want to make the point very clear: counselling is not offered, but has to be asked for. [Interruption.] Someone says from a sedentary position that it is, but if it is, the centre is operating outside the guidelines, because counselling is not offered.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am sure that many abortion providers do their level best to give advice, but that is not the point being made. Surely in any field of endeavour it is not appropriate for the provider of a service to give the so-called independent advice. That is the key point—and, frankly, the only point.

[Nadine Dorries]

As I have said to many people, I will come on to the financial situation and the reasons for it.

To recap, the amendment proposes that abortion clinics make an offer of counselling, which they do not make because under the guidelines they have no provision to make it—the woman has to ask for it.

Last week, The British Journal of Psychiatry reported that women who abort are twice as likely to suffer from mental health problems.