Philip Davies
Main Page: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)Department Debates - View all Philip Davies's debates with the Leader of the House
(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his offer of help with a subject for the debate on 16 April. I will certainly take it into account. As for his point about passports, I am very sympathetic to it, and I commend the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for her support for De La Rue. Home Office questions will take place on our first day back after the Easter recess, and the hon. Lady may well wish to raise the issue directly then.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
We guard our freedom of speech in the House very dearly, and it is something that you rightly and robustly defend on our behalf, Mr Speaker, but we often do not allow our constituents the same freedoms. Recent court cases have put the whole issue of freedom of speech into the public domain. Ricky Gervais and David Baddiel have joined forces on the issue. Ricky Gervais has said:
“A man has been convicted in a UK court of making a joke that was deemed ‘grossly offensive’. If you don’t believe in a person’s right to say things that you might find ‘grossly offensive’, then you don’t believe in Freedom of Speech.”
May we have a debate about freedom of speech in this country, something that it has long held dear but is in danger of throwing away needlessly?
Andrea Leadsom
I commend my hon. Friend on raising this important issue. We do of course fully support free speech; however, there are limits to it and he will be aware that there are laws around what we are allowed to say. I do not know the circumstances of his specific point, but he might well wish to seek an Adjournment debate to take this up directly with Ministers.