Holocaust Memorial Bill: Business of the House

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Programme motion
Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I want the House to know what the Government know, which is that, were there to be many votes, it would squash the time between the remaining stages and Third Reading. That is why I will not take time now; we are using the time that is there. However, I hope that, during the debate, Government can put on the table, first, the specification laid out by the Government and their agency in September 2015, saying what they wanted the memorial to do and to be, and the fact that they wanted the local authorities to support it. Secondly, I hope that the Government put on the table an up-to-date estimate of the capital cost of the memorial and the recurrent costs. As the House will remember, on Second Reading, information was placed in the Library stating that, in the previous 12 months, the cost had gone up from £102 million to £137 million in one year.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I emphasise that this is not the main debate; I understand why the Father of the House wanted to make that point now, but I remind Members that this is the business of the House motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—

“(d) educational purposes and activities related to the memorial and the centre for learning”.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to consider:

Amendment 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—

“(1A) Expenditure incurred under this section must not exceed £50 million.”

Clause 1 stand part.

Amendment 2, in clause 2, page 1, line 18, at end insert

“in so far as those paragraphs relate to a Holocaust Memorial.”

This amendment would provide for restrictions, in relation to certain land under the 1900 Act, to be removed only for activities described in paragraphs (a) to (c) of section 1(1), in relation to a Holocaust Memorial.

Amendment 3, page 1, line 18, at end insert

“subject to the total area used for such activities not exceeding 1,429 square metres (including in that total area any entrance pavilion, courtyard, ramp, associated hard standing, service access, access paths and any areas which are inaccessible to the public or inaccessible without tickets).”

This amendment would limit the area of Victoria Tower Gardens for which restrictions are lifted for the purposes of the construction of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre to 1,429m².

Amendment 5, page 1, line 18, at end insert

“provided that any such activities shall not cause any harm to any other memorial in the land described in section 8(1) of that Act or to the setting of such memorials.”

This amendment would permit works to be carried out on land subject to restrictions under the 1900 Act provided that no harm is caused to other memorials in that area.

Clause 2 stand part.

Clause 3 stand part.

New clause 1—Review of security arrangements—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, prior to the commencement of construction of a Holocaust memorial or learning centre—

(a) carry out a review of proposed security arrangements for the proposed Holocaust memorial or learning centre;

(b) lay before Parliament a report on the outcome and findings of the review of the proposed security arrangements;

(c) by regulations, specify the security arrangements which are to be implemented for the proposed Holocaust memorial or learning centre.

(2) Regulations made under subsection (1)(c) are subject to the affirmative procedure.”

New clause 2—Review of sites—

“The Secretary of State must, prior to a decision being made in relation to the site of a Holocaust Memorial or Learning Centre—

(a) carry out a review of potential sites for a Holocaust memorial or learning centre, which must include—

(i) consideration of the views of professional property consultants,

(ii) consideration of the way in which each site would meet the objectives of the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission Report 2015,

(iii) consideration of the way in which each site would meet the objectives of the Search for a Central London site 2015,

(iv) consideration of estimates of costs for construction for each site, and

(v) a full public consultation on the shortlisted sites;

(b) lay before Parliament a report on the findings of the review.”

This new clause would require the Government to carry out a review of potential sites for a Holocaust Memorial or Learning Centre, and lay a report on its findings, before a decision is made in relation to the final site.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

When someone asked me if there was going to be a general election soon, I thought they must have read the carry-over motion for the Bill and that had misled them into thinking we were about to have an election. Perhaps, by the end of the debate, we will know whether that was right or wrong.

In one of the explanations of the present proposal, to put a box with 23 fins in the middle of Victoria Tower Gardens, a design that was not accepted for Ottawa before it was submitted for London, we were told that people would come out of the experience looking at Parliament—at democracy. In fact, if it happens, they will come out and look at the House of Lords. Although the House of Lords is an important part of our democracy, it is not necessarily democracy itself; it has the remaining hereditary peers, as well as people who are appointed. The House of Lords will have the opportunity to consider the Bill, if it reaches their lordships’ House, and I believe it will pick up the points made in the Select Committee that considered the hybrid Bill in more depth than this House will.

In the specification in September 2015, the Government and their agency made plain they did not want most of the money spent on construction and building; they wanted most of it spent on education. In terms of education about the Holocaust, we are in difficult times. Protests in London mean the existing Holocaust memorial gets covered up for protection and, if the present proposal goes ahead, it will be quite often be closed on security grounds. Other hon. Members will speak to the security considerations that were heard in front of the Select Committee.

When the Government put forward their proposal, the indication was it would cost £25 million from Government and £25 million raised from charitable sources. Since then, my guess is—I hope the Minister will correct me—that £40 million has already been spent without anything being achieved. As the Select Committee set out, the costs go way above the £137 million plus contingencies indicated a year ago. I believe the Government should recognise that they went off on the wrong route when they considered the site options proposed by consultants that were put forward after the consultation starting in September 2015.

When the Government responded to that early in 2016, they did not co-locate the learning centre with the memorial. As Ministers and those advising them know, in the consultation and specification in September 2015, there was no mention of having the memorial close to Parliament at all. Page 10 of the specification document shows a map of what the foundation regards as the acceptable area of central London; it went from the west of Regent’s Park to Spitalfields and down to the Imperial War Museum.

In the eight or nine years since then, the Imperial War Museum has totally reordered and expanded its Holocaust Galleries, the Jewish Museum has closed and the Wiener collection is in some difficulty. If the Government were serious about getting most of the money spent on education, they would have already diverted money to the Wiener collection and the Jewish Museum, and they would have charged up the Holocaust Memorial Trust with money. Last year, the trust had an income of £5,000 and spending of £6,000, which is apparently dedicated on the presumption of getting the Government’s proposal through. If they were serious about education, the Government would not have waited to get some kind of memorial up, and possibly some kind of learning centre associated with it, before they started to get on with the educational work.

When the Holocaust Commission was set up, its purpose was to get education going now. Its work was taken over by the foundation and then pursued by Government Ministers. We have used up eight years because the Government have made mistake after mistake after mistake. The most recent one was to believe that their Bill to overcome the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900 was in some way not hybrid; it clearly was hybrid. The next mistake they made, one they made both before and after, was not to say there had never been a comparison between the present proposal and the best alternative. It took me three years to discover that they had not done that. If I am wrong, the Minister can lay that on the table, and I hope that he will do so now. It is the only time in modern times when the Government have brought forward a proposal without showing why it is better than the alternatives. They commissioned consultants who came forward with 26 schemes, three of which would have been put to the Government. But in a moment not of genius or necessarily of madness, but of peculiarity, those who were making the decision chose not to pay any attention at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

My right hon. Friend is right, and most people will agree with him, even if their job is to stand up and say something different.

I will not spend much time on the planning permission, because it is not the subject of the Bill. When the inspector’s report was received by the Government and considered, this was the conclusion under the signature of the planning casework unit:

“This decision was made by the Minister of State for Housing in line with the published handling arrangements for this case…and signed on his behalf. In particular, those handling arrangements state that:

‘Christopher Pincher MP (the Housing and Planning Minister) will be responsible for exercising the functions of the Secretary of State under sections 70 and 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act’”

and so on. Who here believes that a Minister of State would, on merit, turn down an application by their own Secretary of State? I will give way to anybody who wants to make that suggestion. It is just incredible. It would not happen.

I will now change tone a bit. During the Select Committee hearings, the Government counsel suddenly switched from saying who the lead designer and architect for the proposal was. The Government’s press notice announcing the winner contained 13 references to Sir David Adjaye, now Order of Merit, four references to Ron Arad, and no references to Asa Bruno. Proper tribute has been paid to Asa Bruno. It is true that he was the one who put a number of points to the inspector. He is recognised as a leading designer, and his obituary, which I refreshed my mind on just now, showed that he was a startlingly good person. However, when the Government announced the lead designer and architect for the proposal, they named Sir David Adjaye, who could hardly be mentioned by the promoters at the Select Committee for reasons that I will not go into now. They are well known and in the public domain.

Let us turn to the points that the Government made to the Select Committee after I raised that issue:

“On 24 January, in a debate on the Business of the House (col 439), Sir Peter Bottomley MP referred to the proceedings at the seventh public session of the Holocaust Memorial Bill committee and suggested that counsel for the Promoter may have ‘inadvertently told the committee things that are contradicted by the facts…’ in relation to responsibilities for the design of the Memorial.”

I was then told that what was said was right. I think that that leading counsel, over and over again, was trying to write Sir David Adjaye out because of the embarrassment to Government. If it was Asa Bruno who was responsible for the Ottawa proposal, so be it, but that was not what Government said seven years ago in public.

I am going to go on fighting this, but not so long this evening, because my colleagues have more to say. I say to those watching the proceedings, “Look into the details of what has happened.” I commend to them early-day motions 711, tabled on 1 May, and 775, tabled on 21 May. In particular, the latter “regrets that the promoter” —that is, the Government—

“has failed to understand the justified requests for a detailed comparison of the present unsatisfactory scheme with the alternatives studied by the Government’s consultants; further regrets the continuing lack of updated costings for capital and recurrent costs; disagrees with the suggestion that planning permission and all other necessary consents were obtained in the usual way; regrets there is no known plan to spend more available resources on education rather than on construction; further regrets that known and growing security restrictions are not being adequately addressed; and believes the promoter is not meeting its obligation to achieve an appropriate memorial at a justified cost in a suitable location, associated with opportunities to learn and to understand the Holocaust and to reduce the likelihood of a repeat of the atrocities of the Holocaust.”

I end with words from the Holocaust survivors who gave evidence at the Committee, who said, in summary, that the proposal is too big for the gardens and too small for its purpose.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Wera Hobhouse.

Business of the House

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before we proceed may I, on behalf of Mr Speaker, thank the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House, and all other Members who have expressed their sympathy to him on the loss of his father? Lord Hoyle, Doug Hoyle, was a dedicated parliamentarian, an inspirational, kind and amusing gentleman, and a very proud father. He will be very greatly missed, and I am sure the whole House will join me in sending our sympathy to Mr Speaker and his family. Our thoughts will be with them as they make arrangements for Lord Hoyle’s funeral.

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

We will remember Doug Hoyle’s smile, we will remember him with a smile, and I remember that he got elected eight months before I did.

Questions on the Cass report in this House were followed yesterday by those in the other place, and the Lords Minister said that he would respond to a number of points in writing. If information is given by the Minister that was not given to this House, could it be put in a written statement or put in the Library? Many of the points, especially those made by Baroness Hayter, were important. We need an inquiry into how things got into the state that had to be exposed by the four-year review by Dr Hilary Cass, for which we all thank her.

One thing that has not yet happened, but may happen in the next week or two, is the publication of the report from the Select Committee on the Holocaust Memorial Bill through its hybrid procedure. It is coming later than we anticipated, and may contain some interesting recommendations or decisions. Will the Government say, as soon as possible, whether they intend to go on trying to ram this proposal through? They have already spent more than £30 million achieving nothing in the last eight and a half years, so will they have a roundtable and consider spending £20 million getting a memorial up in the next two years, during the lifetime of some of the holocaust survivors, and moving the learning centre to the Imperial War Museum?

Business of the House

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I will write: “Today I dealt with a point of order that was, in fact, a point of order.” The hon. Gentleman rightly corrected what he had said before, and hopefully that means he will receive even more applications for Backbench Business debates. I thank him.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my question to the Leader of the House about the announcement of the winning designer of the holocaust memorial project, I referred to the year 2016, but I should have referred to 2017 or 2018. I am sorry to have to correct the record.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Once again, this is getting very exciting. I have taken two genuine points of order, including that one from the Father of the House. I am grateful to him for correcting the record, and I understand the importance of the points that he has made.

Long-term Plan for Housing

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Before talking about the general policy, may I mention one small point? In paragraph 22 of his statement, the Minister talks about energy efficiency in heritage buildings. In Ambrose Place in Worthing—including at the house of one of my neighbours, where Harold Pinter lived—people are being told that they can have only secondary glazing, not double glazing, because it is in a conservation area. I hope that the Minister will talk with experts and say that double glazing is acceptable in reasonable circumstances, when people want to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

On the general point, the Minister mentions the green belt. According to one calculation, there are 16 green belts in England, none of which is in East Sussex or West Sussex. I interpret his words as meaning “green gaps”: an expression used by the Secretary of State when he commented on the problems of Worthing, where every single bit of grass—the vineyards, the golf courses and the green fields—between Worthing and its neighbours to the west is subject to a planning application. It is important that the inspectors in his Department do not come along, as they did over the land north of Goring station, to Chatsmore Farm and the Goring Gap and say that even if Worthing built on every bit of lawn in town, it would not meet the full target, and yet give permission to build on that farm, which distinguishes Worthing from its neighbours.

It is also important to follow up the Minister’s words about intense development in the centre of villages, towns and cities, so that there are homes in high-density accommodation that elderly people can choose to live in, so that their family homes can be freed for families. The idea that most of the development on our green fields is for families is for the birds—it is for people on their second or third homes. I think people who are my sort of age ought to have the choice to live securely in high-thermal efficiency apartments, with services that do not require cars, and where they can live more easily and happily.

Autumn Statement

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The Citizens Advice office covering my constituency will be grateful for that fact that the local housing allowance has been changed. The people who supply drink, and drinkers, will be pleased that alcohol duty is being frozen, at least for the time being. That will help drinkers, and will also not increase inflation.

I am glad that the Chancellor pointed out to the shadow Chancellor that the only time the Labour Government did really well was when they obeyed the Conservative rules between 1998 and 1999, before they let go of the valves and drove the economy to the point at which, when we took over, they were spending £4 for every £3 of Government revenue.

May I now ask the Chancellor to respond, not today but in time, to an injustice done to 500,000 pensioners overseas? Anne Puckridge, who was born five years before the Chancellor’s father, served in intelligence in the Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force during the war, and retired to Calgary on a pension of £72 a week. It is still £72, instead of £156. That is an injustice which needs attention, and I hope Anne Puckridge will get it and we will have proposals that will enable us to change this bad situation.

Points of Order

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In but 10 minutes time, we will move on to consideration of the Holocaust Memorial Bill. It is very important in my view that the Minister and the House should have available on the Table the “National Memorial and Learning Centre: Search for a Central London site” document issued by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation in September 2015. May I ask you to convey that to those on the Treasury Bench so that that document is available to Ministers and the House?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am grateful to the Father of the House for his point of order and for giving me notice of it. I have paid careful attention to the point that he made. I can assure him that the Vote Office has printed from the internet and prepared copies of the document that he mentions. I entirely agree with him that it is important that the House be well educated on the facts of the matter that we are about to discuss, so I have myself obtained some copies. I will give one forthwith to the Whip to give to the Minister, and one to the Labour Whip to give to the shadow Minister. I hope that the Father of the House will thus be satisfied that the document that he considers very important is fully available. I do not have copies here for everyone, but they are available in the Vote Office.

Infected Blood Inquiry

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister coming to make an oral statement. We know that both he and the Leader of the House have been deeply involved in this issue over the months and years.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) is the most powerful advocate trying to hold Government to account and to get them to come forward. I think she will want to write—and I will happily join her—a whole series of detailed questions to the Minister, some of which he may be able to answer now. For others, he may have to say what conditions need to be met for them to be answered.

One important thing to my mind is allowing those who are not yet registered as possibly entitled to compensation to preregister, so that, when the Government come out with their response to Sir Brain Langstaff’s report, they will be able to take that up fast and make up any missing medical records, which will be a problem for some people who have been infected or affected.

The all-party parliamentary group welcomed the Government accepting the first point of Sir Robert Francis’s report about the moral case. I thank the Government for that. We are also grateful that Sir Robert is going to be invited to help Sue Gray to take forward the work she is doing. We should not underestimate the amount of work.

As and when people get compensation, are they going to be protected from the scams and so-called financial advisers who may not protect their income and use of that money? Can the Minister consider whether he can answer whether inheritance tax will not be applied to someone’s payments if the household is within the inheritance tax limit?

Holocaust Memorial Day

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It may or may not be known to the House—it is known to the Government—that permission has been given to appeal the planning approval for the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens. I think we need to be careful about how we speak about it. I did not want to interrupt the exceptionally good speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on a very important subject.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, which of course is not a point for the Chair, but which might well be important as a point of information for hon. Members participating in the debate. I suppose that, to some extent, planning appeals are sub judice and we must be careful about what we say here in the Chamber.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what I consider to be properly a point of order. The Secretary of State has most courteously explained to the House that the statement that is now forthcoming is market sensitive. I have had a chance to glance at it and I understand that it is indeed market sensitive, so I can understand, and I think the whole House will now understand, why the Secretary of State issued it at the point that he did.

I have to say to the House that there seems to have been some delay in the Vote Office and in the workings of the House, and for that, on behalf of the House authorities, I apologise to Members and to the Secretary of State. I thank the Opposition Whips for giving me a copy, since nobody else did—

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am still finishing my response to the point of order, Sir Peter.

I think there are some points in the statement that the Secretary of State will wish to clarify. I am not putting a time constraint on him, as I normally would, for finishing his Second Reading speech, because in addition to that speech it would be appropriate for him to take two or three questions on his written statement.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The written statement has the number HCWS228; an online search brings up one with a similar number from January 2015. Could the House authorities see whether they can get the statement online so that those Members who are participating virtually also have the chance to read it?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point of order and I reiterate it. I wonder whether the House authorities have done that—I do not know but I ask them to do so immediately.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Would it be within the Standing Orders of this House for the Government, if they chose to, to propose a carry-over motion, so that the Bill would not be lost as this Session comes to an end and the Government could then improve the amendment, which keeps coming back, quite rightly, from the House of Lords?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. As ever, his experience shows in the idea that has occurred to him. I do not know whether that idea has occurred to the Government. I do not know whether, if it has occurred to the Government, they have decided to pursue it or not. Actually, I do know that: if the idea has occurred to the Government, they have decided not to pursue it. Therefore, it is not a matter for me to decide what ought to happen, nor a matter for the Chair. It is up to the Government to decide how they take this matter past this rather difficult and unusual point, where the other place has sent a Bill back on several occasions. I expect that, like me, the hon. Gentleman eagerly anticipates the outcome of this Division and then we shall see what will happen next.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 4L.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. If he were seeking to further the exchanges that took place during Scottish questions, his point would not, strictly speaking, be a point of order for the Chair, but I appreciate that he is asking a serious question about a serious matter. I can point him in the direction of the Public Accounts Committee, which is concerned with the regularity of spending; the Scottish Affairs Committee, which deals with non-devolved Scottish matters; and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which is concerned with the operation of the devolution settlement. In pursuing the question that he raised, he might wish to take the matter up with the Chairman of one or other—or, indeed, all—of those three Select Committees.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

On a point of order, I am grateful for your clarification of the situation on the Fire Safety Bill, which is what I suspected it might be. It is obvious that the House of Commons has the opportunity of a carry-over motion only when dealing with business that is in front of it, and the other place has procedures that are similar but not exactly the same. There seems to be no precedent for what happens to a Bill that has been in both Houses, and that may be something that could properly be considered by the Speakers or the Procedure Committees of each House. In this particular case, as a carry-over motion is not possible, were the House of Lords to go on sending back helpful amendments and this Bill were to fail, if it were re-presented with the problem of the future burdens for leaseholders solved, it could pass both Houses within a day.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The Father of the House raises a most interesting point. He is right in saying that if the Bill were now to fail, a similar Bill with similar purposes could be brought forward by the Government in the next Session of Parliament. As to whether it could pass quickly through both Houses, or either House, is, as ever, a matter for Members of this House and, indeed, of the other place. If Members choose to make very short contributions and allow a Bill to pass through quickly, and if the Government choose to put all stages of a Bill in one day before this House and, indeed, the other place, the House of Commons as a whole and the Government could make those decisions, and it is not for me to anticipate what might happen. I thank the Father of the House for his second interesting point of order.

I am obliged to suspend the House for three minutes to allow arrangements to be made for the next item of business.

National Trust: 125th Anniversary

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has been here longer than anybody else. He knows that the Minister has to finish responding to the first intervention before he can take a second.

[Nigel Huddleston]

It is nice to see even the Father of the House making procedural errors; it gives us all a bit of confidence.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) knows, we had a debate about this issue in Westminster Hall not so long ago. I think it would be unfair to characterise the National Trust as being preoccupied by some of the matters that he mentioned. The trust knows that some of the issues that it has talked about are a matter of public debate, and it is very important that it listens to its members, to Members of Parliament and to our constituents’ concerns. When the National Trust focuses on its core role, it does an excellent job, but it is sensitive and aware that it has —unintentionally, perhaps—caused offence to Members of this House and our constituents with some of the comments that it has made recently.

Equitable Life Policyholders: Compensation

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to correct an oversight. When I intervened on the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), I should have declared that I have a small Equitable Life policy.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his correction of the record.

Pensions Uprating (UK Pensioners Living Overseas)

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Baroness Laing of Elderslie

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The logic, I think, is that if a reciprocal agreement may be done at no cost, there would be no reciprocal agreements anywhere.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I cannot answer that because it is not a point of order. It is a point of debate, and the Minister is being brief because he has the leave of the House to speak again.