"You will recall, Mr Speaker, that on many occasions I have raised the case of John Prior, who is from Moodiesburn in my constituency. He was infected in the ’70s and his files have been lost. To put it bluntly, he is devastated; he says that the report offers him …..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to thank those civil servants—mainly trade unionists—who have had to implement Government policies, particularly in the Department for Work and Pensions, such as referring people to food banks? Perhaps against their own judgment, they have had to implement austerity, which has done …..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"I use this opportunity to apologise to you, Mr Caton, and to my hon. Friend, because I have to leave soon to be at Downing street at 3 o’clock to present a petition with people with learning disabilities about things, such as Winterbourne View home, that ought not to be …..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"I would like to begin by exploding the austerity myth, the so-called “mess Labour left behind”, which is repeated ad nauseam on the Government Benches. The myth is Labour’s excessive public expenditure. The reality is that on the eve of the 2008 international financial crisis, public spending was almost exactly …..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"Given the powers that the Scottish Government already have, has the Secretary of State ever received an apology from them for their failure to spend £34 million on disabled children and their families and instead using it for the gimmick of keeping council tax static?..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"I welcome the debate and have no difficulty in supporting the motion moved by my right hon. and hon. Friends. I think the House is in danger of being a bit hard on itself. Some very good points have been made already. I have to say, as somebody who has …..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"The right hon. Gentleman knows that I supported his Bill all the way. If I may say so, he seems unusually proactive this afternoon, but perhaps if he calms down he will acknowledge that the fact that some people—albeit a minority—tried to talk out his Bill on Third Reading shows …..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"Given the discussions about whether there ought to be debates on this, does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that we have a debate before the Paris conference in order to give strength to our representations?..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"Does the Minister accept that nothing in this decent and honourable document diminishes the standing of local government, given that local authorities deliver more, day by day, to ordinary people than the Scottish Parliament or even this House?..." Tom Clarke - View Speech
"I apologise to the Minister and the House for not being at the earlier part of the debate; I was at a Committee speaking about, among other things, the issue of autism.
As the Minister was referring to the supply chain and jobs that link to the wider oil industry, …..." Tom Clarke - View Speech