Government Announcements

Debate between Simon Hoare and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I think the word the Leader of the House was looking for was “sorry”. There is much in this place which, as we know, is complicated and arcane, but the ministerial code is crystal clear on this point. The job of the Leader of the House is to represent this place and Back Benchers of all parties around the Cabinet table to make sure that this place hears things of such vital importance first. As important as public transport is, may I suggest that the defence of the realm is a little more important than the Government’s buses Bill, which will have no Divisions this evening? Will the Leader of the House please tell us why she thinks No. 10 is getting this so wrong and what she is doing to try to put it right?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call Simon Hoare.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Given the seriousness of the issues—the defence of the realm is the first duty of Government, as we know—is there any merit in you, sir, considering suspending the House to allow those who are to be called to speak on behalf of their respective parties at least the courtesy that has clearly been extended to industry leaders and journalists? I believe that there is a precedent for that.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Stuart Anderson.

Defence and Security

Debate between Simon Hoare and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Can I say to those who were late, please do not embarrass the Chair by standing?

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Almost on that point, Mr Speaker, what an abdication of responsibility and duty it is that not a single member of the Reform party is able to ask a question of the Prime Minister this afternoon on these precious issues of defence and security. They are treated with a very different level of seriousness by Members on the Conservative and Government Benches.

Many have asked the Prime Minister about the use of Russian frozen assets. Anybody who has studied the issue with regard to Libya will know just how complicated international law and convention has made the defrosting of frozen assets so that they can be put to proper use. In his discussions in Washington and with the other European leaders, can the Prime Minister press for urgent, collaborative and international reform of those rules, so that those frozen assets can be used to help the Ukrainians and their military to defeat Russian aggression?

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Debate between Simon Hoare and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I have a point of order—from the shadow Minister’s good friend, of course.

[Simon Hoare]

This point of order is spontaneous, unlike that intervention. [Interruption.] I am Mr Spontaneity.

Mr Speaker, you are entirely right that many right hon. and hon. Members read their speeches almost verbatim, but surely it is just rude and discourteous to the House for the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) to read a supposedly spontaneous intervention as if it had just come into her mind. She managed to find a typewriter and a printer in order to write down two pages of intervention.

[Mr Speaker]

As I expected, spontaneity did not make it a point of order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We do not have much trade with the Chagos islands.

[Simon Hoare]

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the devastating effect of this policy and to highlight the incredible rounding-up exercise on the Treasury account books of the contribution that it will make to NHS expenditure. With the Labour party having a serious foothold in rural constituencies for the first time since 1945, does she not find this rather inept politics, which is perhaps not surprising from such a London-centric Front Bench? The policy shows a wilful ignorance of rural life and a deliberate attempt not to understand the pressures and is, in essence, selling those rural Labour MPs down the river.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hoare and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We still have other questions.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The Anglo-Irish agreement is absolutely vital, and the meeting between the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach is to be welcomed. Prime Ministers’ diaries become very full; will the Secretary of State use his good offices to ensure that that dialogue between Taoiseach and Prime Minister continues to build on that relationship to see it flourish still further?