Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

It is sad that the double act is coming to an end—although my jokes might be more expensive than those of the shadow Leader of the House.

I point out to the hon. Gentleman that part of the Budget debate can of course be about the matters he has raised. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will open tomorrow’s Budget debate, for instance, so the hon. Gentleman will have a further opportunity to raise those matters. He talks about the reality out there. The reality is that there are more people in work than ever before, and that we have the fastest growing of all the major industrialised economies. That, of course, allows us to have strong public services in the future, and without a strong, growing economy, we cannot have the public services the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a debate on election conduct? As the Labour party clearly has nothing positive to offer, I fear that this will be the dirtiest election campaign on record. My right hon. Friend may be aware of some of the disgusting smears and lies that have been put out about our hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) by the Labour candidate. Does my right hon. Friend agree that although it is perfectly reasonable for political parties to point out the threats, as they perceive them, posed by the other parties being elected to government, personal smears, attacks and abuse of individual constituency candidates are not acceptable and bring politics into disrepute? Perhaps a debate next week in advance of the forthcoming general election would allow all the political parties to maintain that they will not tolerate that kind of behaviour.

[Mr Hague]

I cannot offer a debate, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right: we believe in vigorous political debate in our elections, but I have seen comments made about my hon. Friend the Member for Witham that are offensive, malicious and often false, and which will be particularly offensive to women and to people of Asian origin. It is time the Labour party took that in hand in Witham.