Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He does not need to invite me on Southern rail; I was on Southern last night—indeed, I am a regular traveller on Southern and on South West Trains. He makes an important point and one of the things I find frustrating is that I personally believe we should be tighter on the statistics around delays to services as well, because they can get away with being a few minutes late and that will not show up in the statistics. So the right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and he and I will continue to argue for better services on behalf of our constituents. I am sure his comments will be listened to.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the Prime Minister’s very sensible proposals this week about the importance of immigrants learning English, which is certainly an issue in Bradford among many Muslim women, to help them integrate into British society? In such a debate, perhaps we could discuss who should pay for these English lessons, because many of my constituents think it should not be the taxpayer who foots the bill; it should be the people themselves. If I decide to go and live in Spain, I would not expect the Spanish Government to teach me Spanish.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes his point eloquently, but the key to this is that it is absolutely essential that people who come to live and work in this country speak English, and our communities have ended up more divided than they should be because of the fact that so many people who come here cannot speak English. That really has to change.