Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Friday 1st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman seeks to take me down a route on which I am not entirely sure that I am anxious to follow him, which is that if there is one clause, paragraph or line in a Bill with which one agrees, one must support the entire Bill even if one disagrees with the rest of it.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that the Bill has only four clauses, will the hon. Gentleman explain which clause he disagrees with?

[Philip Davies]

As ever, I want to make some progress, and it could be argued that I am being thwarted in so doing. I do not want to be distracted today. I want to get on with it, as I always do, and I hope that I will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. But to return to the thrust of the argument that because I agree with virtually all the speech of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish and some parts of the Bill, I must therefore support every Bill that has some parts with which I agree, that is not a view that I share. I agree with some parts of most Bills. An MEP once said to me that it is like having a cup of tea with some poison in it. Most of the tea might be fine, but no one would want to drink it. It is the little bit of poison that one must look for in legislation, not the general thrust.