Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and let us be clear that no decision about military action has been taken. It would require another vote of this House. However, if we wanted to see action that was purely about deterring and degrading future chemical weapons use by Syria—that is the only basis on which I would support any action—we would need countries that have the capabilities to take that action, of which the United States and the United Kingdom are two. There are very few other countries that would be able to do that.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

On the matter of international law, did not the world leaders and the UN sign up unanimously in 2005 to the doctrine of the responsibility to protect, which means that if countries default on their responsibility to defend their own citizens, the international community as a whole has a responsibility to do so? Syria has defaulted on its responsibility to protect its own citizens, so surely now the international community and we have a responsibility to undertake what we agreed to do as recently as 2005.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point that relates to what happened in Kosovo and elsewhere, but let me be clear about what we are talking about today: yes it is about that doctrine, but it is also about chemical weapons. It is about a treaty the whole world agreed to almost 100 years ago, after the horrors of the first world war. The question before us is this: is Britain a country that wants to uphold that international taboo against the use of chemical weapons? My argument is that yes, it should be that sort of country.

Afghanistan and EU Council

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What the hon. Gentleman cannot hide from is the fact that the legal advice is absolutely clear—clear from the Government and clear from the European Commission. Of course, his party said it had legal advice, yet it had absolutely none, but the legal advice is clear. If Scotland votes to become independent it will have to queue up behind Serbia, behind Macedonia and behind Kosovo in order to get back into the European Union. That is the truth, inconvenient though it may be for the hon. Gentleman.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the country will not understand if Members of Parliament fail to engage in this Friday’s debate on the need for us to renegotiate our membership of the EU and to let the people decide in a referendum whether they want our membership of Europe on that renegotiated basis? This is not an issue that Parliament and Members of Parliament can run away from.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend, who has a long track record of support for the EU, makes a very sensible point, which is that when it comes to this Bill on Friday, and when it comes to the issue of a referendum, people can either be in favour of holding an in/out referendum or they can be against holding an in/out referendum, but surely they must have an opinion. My hon. Friends and I will be voting for that Bill; we will be voting in the Lobby on Friday. What is Labour going to do? Is it simply going to decide it does not want to talk about this issue? I think the whole country will find that completely feeble.

Bilderberg Conference

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Minister can resume his seat. No one in the House has a better sense of humour than the Minister, but I thought that he realised that I was gently teasing him.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Is it not rather cruel to oblige the Prime Minister to spend a weekend with Lord Mandelson of Foy and the shadow Chancellor? Did anyone at the Bilderberg conference go away any the wiser as to how the Labour party, if it were to win the next general election, would square the circle and manage to tackle the deficit?

[Mr Clarke]

I can only hope that some people did, but Chatham House rules prevent me from offering any further opinion on that question.

Debate on the Address

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I may have got this wrong, but it is my understanding that the Government are introducing two Bills—a paving Bill and a traditional hybrid Bill. Is that my right hon. Friend’s understanding? We will all have to look very closely at the small print of the paving Bill because within it, I think, will be the statutory authority to provide compensation for our constituents who may be affected. So without the paving Bill, our constituents, who may be affected by HS2 for a number of years, will not be able to receive compensation.

[Mrs Gillan]

The devil will be in the detail. The truth of the matter is that until recently there was no talk of a paving Bill, yet the project has been on the stocks for four years. It is a little late to discover that we need a paving Bill. Also, some commentators have already been referring to it as a blank cheque, which is not something anybody on the Conservative Benches wants to see.

I, like you, Mr Speaker, and like colleagues and neighbours both inside and outside the Government, and particularly in Buckinghamshire, have serious misgivings about HS2. The project was produced like a rabbit from a hat by the previous Labour Government. It has already blighted the lives of my constituents and will cause irreparable environmental damage to the Chilterns. It does not represent good value for money and will not bring the exaggerated benefits claimed by its promoters. Increasingly, informed commentators and experts have started to cast doubts on the claim that it will heal the so-called north-south divide, and those doubts are growing.

For me, HS2 fails on many fronts. It fails on the business case, which is fundamentally flawed, with a cost-benefit ratio that is eroding so rapidly that it is getting to a level at which it would not be regarded as worth while by any normal criteria. The calculations are based on false assumptions, with the forecasting assuming that all time spent on trains is unproductive. It also fails to take into account modern communications and working practices.

HS2 fails to observe environmental protections. The current plans and route design for phase 1, and the business case, are so conditional on speed that they sweep everything else aside. The route does not even try to stick to existing transport corridors but drives a steel arrow into the heart of the Chiltern hills, which were deemed so precious before now as to have been designated an area of outstanding natural beauty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Every Queen’s Speech reflects work in progress, and we continue to make progress in seeking to bring down the cost of living, in welfare and in immigration—net immigration has been cut by a third, the deficit has been cut by a third and £1.25 million new private sector jobs have been created. This Queen’s Speech, in particular, reflects a work in progress because we are starting a parliamentary Session with no fewer than five significant Bills subject to carry-over motions from the previous Session.

In the past few months the Government have sought to act on welfare reform by putting a cap on welfare benefits of £500 a week per family, replacing disability living allowance with the more targeted personal independence payment and introducing universal credit, with the intention of removing any financial disincentive to work. If significant steps have been taken on welfare reform, much more work still needs to be done. I would like to highlight support for a number of measures in the Queen’s Speech.

On immigration, we need to have a responsible debate. It is always a difficult subject to raise. After 30 years in this House, my constituents know where I come from on the issue. During the county council election campaign in north Oxfordshire, I found many people who are concerned about immigration. Many complained that under the previous Government there had been 13 years of open borders. I think that the Government have been absolutely right to implement a number of policy reforms to the immigration system to make it more robust. Those reforms have already seen net immigration cut by a third since the general election.

One can compellingly argue that immigration control is necessary to help preserve the very Britain that immigrants want to move to. We must all recognise that since 2004 nearly half a million non-British people have arrived in Britain—I stress—each year, which means that more people have arrived on these shores as immigrants in a single year since 2004 than in the entire period from the battle of Hastings to the year of my birth, 1950. That was a deliberate policy of the previous Labour Government, not something that happened by accident or was the primary result of obligations to the European Union. The failure to manage immigration properly has threatened the liberal Britain and the very traditions and culture that have made Britain special. Those who are truly tolerant and believe in tolerance are those who believe, as they should do, in controlling immigration.

One thing on which I hope every Member of Parliament would agree is that those who have been found to have no right to be within the jurisdiction should be removed from it as speedily as possible. I was therefore pleased to hear the Home Secretary announce to the House on 26 March that she intended to bring forward an immigration Bill in this Session. She said:

“The final problem I raised is the policy and legal framework within which UKBA has operated. The agency is often caught up in a vicious cycle of complex law and poor enforcement of its own policies, which makes it harder to remove people who are here illegally. That is why I intend to bring forward an immigration Bill in the next Session of Parliament that will address some of these problems.”—[Official Report, 26 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 1501.]

When meeting people in my constituency surgeries, I never cease to be amazed by the number who were, for example, considered not to have refugee status many years ago and who then appealed to the independent immigration appeal tribunal, only then again to be found by an independent judge not to have refugee status. They were found not to be entitled to be in the country, but absolutely nothing has happened and they are still here, and they will doubtless remain here in the hope that if they stay long enough they will be able to assert some claim to family life under European human rights legislation.

Last July the Government introduced tough new rules seeking to protect the public from foreign criminals and immigration offenders who try to hide behind family life as a reason to stay in the UK. The new rules set proportionate requirements that reflect Parliament’s view of the balance between the public interest in deporting a foreign national offender and their rights under article 8 of the European convention on human rights. It appears, however, that some immigration judges are not paying sufficient heed to the new rules, and it is thus right that new primary legislation is introduced to put beyond doubt the correct overall approach to article 8 in immigration cases.

I think that almost all my constituents find it particularly offensive that foreign nationals who commit serious crimes are not pretty much automatically deported. Indeed, pressure in prisons such as Bullingdon in north Oxfordshire is made worse by the fact that the prison system is having to accommodate foreign nationals who have completed their terms of imprisonment and who it seems difficult, if not impossible, to deport. Shockingly, at the recent rate of removals it would take some 200 years to remove all those who are illegally present in the United Kingdom, and unless we take serious and sustained action their numbers will probably grow at a faster rate. We can all have debates about the size, scale and purposes of legal migration to the country, but I do not believe that a single Member of this House can justify illegal immigration. Estimates vary, but there are credible estimates that the number of illegal immigrants is as high as 1 million.

I am sure that many of my constituents will also welcome the measure announced in the Queen’s Speech intended to limit the benefits of foreign nationals to stop people from overseas abusing the NHS and the welfare system. The basic point is that migrants should not have access to public services to which they are not entitled. I therefore welcome the proposed legislation on deportation and immigration.

I support the draft care and support Bill, which not surprisingly prompted a considerable number of detailed recommendations in the pre-legislative scrutiny published in mid-March. Most attention has been focused on the costs of nursing home care, but that is only part of what needs to be addressed. I have no doubt that in the debates on Second Reading and in Committee we will need to consider how we secure sustainable funding for the care system as a whole. We must ensure that those involved get appropriate information and advice, and appropriate access to advocacy.

As co-chair of the all-party group on carers, I am glad that the Government are giving recognition to carers, particularly given the increasing number who are having to manage work, their own family’s lives, and caring for frail parents. It is good news that they will receive more help, including, I hope, more access to respite care and training in care techniques. We should never forget that some 1.25 million people, most of them women, spend more than 50 hours each week caring for family members who cannot look after themselves, and the number will rise sharply as our population grows older. We need to ensure that carers do not feel isolated. On the contrary, carers should feel valued and appreciated by us all. They should feel able to have their needs assessed by their local authority and to get help, depending on their means. All carers should feel that they can get information about local groups that can support them and offer guidance on how they can help in caring for loved ones. Somewhere, either in the care and support Bill or the Children and Families Bill, Parliament needs to give consideration to the rights of young carers. Nevertheless, it is important that Parliament will at last be seeking to resolve the challenges of nursing home and residential care home costs, which are of concern to so many.

I have a hospice in my constituency, and I hope that the care and support Bill will ensure that patients at the end of life and their families are able to access the care they need to exercise choice. We must in no way underestimate this Bill, which will be a historic step forward. It will dramatically simplify the current legal framework for care and support, replacing provisions in well over a dozen Acts of Parliament with a single modern statute. It will modernise care and support law so that the whole system is built around people’s needs and what they want to achieve with their lives. It will clarify entitlements to care and support to give people a better understanding of what is on offer, help them to plan for the future, and ensure that they know where to go for help when they need it. Importantly, it will simplify the care and support system to provide the freedom and flexibility needed by care professionals and local authorities to innovate and to achieve better results for those who need the support of social care.

I spoke in the Second Reading debate on the Children and Families Bill, which seeks to improve provision for disabled children and children with special educational needs. I very much hope that during this Session that important Bill will complete its passage through Parliament.

It was clear from this Queen’s Speech that economic recovery is very much at the heart of the Government’s programme. The Queen’s Speech announces no fewer than five separate Bills intended to cut red tape and to reduce the national insurance burden on small businesses, together with other measures. This is very much a pro-business and pro-growth agenda that seeks to give practical help and support to job creators and millions of people working throughout the economy to promote growth. One of the biggest inhibitors to growth is the cost of recruiting new employees, particularly for small businesses. It is very good news that the Government intend to reduce national insurance bills each year by entitling every business and charity to a £2,000 employment allowance from April next year. That will be of particular help to smaller businesses in recruiting more people.

During this Parliament I have spoken about HS2 on numerous occasions, and I do not intend to detain the House by repeating everything I have said. If anyone is interested, they can find it all on my website at www.tonybaldry.co.uk/campaigns/HS2. I note, however, that the Government intend to introduce a paving Bill to secure the authority for departmental expenditure on HS2 phase 2. Those of us who are not convinced that HS2 is necessarily best value for money in transport infrastructure investment will need to be very careful about reading the small print of the paving Bill—the high-speed rail preparation Bill—as I strongly suspect that it will include a parliamentary mechanism that enables compensation to be paid to those affected by HS2, and I think that the Government may well have constructed the legislation so that without the paving Bill it will be difficult for constituents to access compensation. I suspect that many will actually welcome the High Speed 2 hybrid Bill, as it will give those affected by the proposed line the opportunity to petition Parliament and to have their arguments heard in detail by the Select Committee.

Every Queen’s Speech has a number of measures that have not been trailed. One such is the defence reform Bill, which is, as I understand it, intended to enable the Ministry of Defence to change the way it procures and supports defence equipment by reforming Defence Equipment and Support and strengthening procurement arrangements. The Bill will also increase the size and role of our reserve forces. The Bill is of interest to me because in Bicester we have one of the largest defence distribution depots in the country. I would say to Ministers that the quicker they decide to concentrate defence storage and distribution on Bicester, the better it will be for the MOD and for taxpayers. We cannot continue to drift. Deciding whether to focus defence storage on Bicester or on Donnington is not rocket science.

Some may say that this is not a particularly heavy draft legislative programme, but, as I said at the outset, it is important to bear in mind the fact that a number of hefty Bills have been carried over from the previous Parliament: the Children and Families Bill, the Energy Bill, the Finance (No. 2) Bill—that is, last year’s Budget legislation—and the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill.

The House will know that I voted against Second Reading of the other carry-over Bill, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. Like every other Member, I have only one vote, and I have to recognise that on a free vote of the House the Bill secured a majority, but I hope that it may still be possible to secure some further amendments, here or in the other place, in respect of certain conscience clauses so that people can continue to express themselves freely in support of traditional marriage and so that appropriate guidance is given to schools, particularly faith schools, on what they may teach in respect of marriage in a balanced way.

Over the next few days of debate on the Queen’s Speech, I have no doubt that, as has already happened today, some will draw attention to Bills that they consider should have been in the Queen’s Speech. I suspect that there will be a fair amount of comment about our relations with Europe. It is important to put any such comments into context. The Prime Minister has committed to negotiate a new settlement for Britain in the European Union. People questioned whether the Prime Minister would veto an EU treaty; well, the Prime Minister has vetoed an EU treaty. People questioned the Prime Minister’s ability to get the EU budget cut; well, the Prime Minister has succeeded in getting the EU budget cut. Given that previously it had not even been possible to freeze the EU budget, it was a significant achievement for the Prime Minister to secure a cut. People have questioned the Prime Minister’s ability to get powers back from the European Union, but the fact is that he got us out of the EU bail-out mechanism and saved the country millions of pounds. The Prime Minister has said that he is committed to negotiating a new settlement for Britain within the EU, and I have every confidence that that is what he will achieve. It will then be for the British people to judge that settlement in a referendum. There will be a referendum on our membership of the EU—that commitment is absolute.

This is a Government who have in the first few years of this Parliament introduced massive reforms to the NHS, public services and the welfare system. It is right that Ministers and the Government are able to spend time in focusing on ensuring that those reforms are fully and properly implemented. We should continue to support the Chancellor in his determination to continue to tackle the deficit, to sort out the nation’s public finances and to promote enterprise and growth in the economy.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I first met Margaret Thatcher when she was Secretary of State for Education and I was a student at Sussex university who was active in student politics. From that, I became Margaret Thatcher’s personal aide and research assistant in the October 1974 general election. The Conservative party was in opposition and Margaret was a member of the shadow Cabinet as shadow housing and planning Minister. In those days, Members of Parliament did not have numbers of research assistants—they had just a single House of Commons secretary—so the core campaign team in Finchley was small: Mrs Thatcher’s secretary, Alison Ward, now Lady Wakeham, her agent and me. What struck me first about working for Margaret Thatcher was her prodigious work ethic, her indefatigable determination to analyse and understand any brief that she was given and the considerable attention she paid to the last detail. I think that that was helped by the combination of her training both as a research chemist and, for a while, an extremely able junior at the tax Bar.

Working for Margaret and producing research briefings for her, I knew that I had to be ready and able to deal with any of the supplementary questions that she might ask—or, at the very least, know who could provide those detailed answers. The simple fact was that at any meeting—I suspect that this was the case throughout her time as leader of the party and as Prime Minister—Margaret was always the best-prepared person in the room, because invariably she had taken the time and effort to ensure that she was the best briefed.

When writing speeches for Margaret in the October 1974 general election, we used two books for primary source material. The first, which has already been mentioned, was F. A. Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty”, and the other was a book written and published in the 1930s called “A Time for Greatness”. To my shame, I cannot now remember the author’s name, but I well recall that Margaret’s reflection of these two books was along these lines: if the state takes all in taxation and spends all, we all become slaves of the state.

Margaret Thatcher was also incredibly kind, particularly to those who worked for her. Of course, she revelled in the Iron Lady sobriquet given to her by the Russians and others—it was a badge of respect for her steadfastness and determination—but there was also a much softer and more caring side to her. Perhaps I can give one example with which I think every Member could empathise. One of my intake, Patrick Nicholls, was a very effective junior Minister, but had had to resign from office following a road traffic offence. Not surprisingly, he was cross with himself and very frustrated, and thought he had let people down.

One evening, Patrick had a telephone call from his Whip, telling him to be in the Division Lobby at five to 10, shortly before the 10 o’clock vote. Patrick asked why and was told simply to be there. Patrick arrived, as instructed, at five to 10, and shortly afterwards Margaret Thatcher walked in, put her arm through his and said, “How are things going, Patrick? How are you?” As the Division bell rang and as the Lobby filled with parliamentary colleagues, the Prime Minister slowly walked through the Lobby, arm in arm with Patrick, chatting to him all the way—a kind and clear gesture of support for someone who had been a hard-working junior Minister and who continued to be an extremely hard-working and loyal Back Bencher.

Margaret also had a great sense of humour. In the 1983 general election, another of our intake, Jeremy Hanley, won Richmond with a majority of just 74 votes. The day after the general election, Margaret, the Prime Minister, telephoned Jeremy to congratulate him on winning Richmond. The Conservative vote in the constituency had been about 21,000. The conversation went like this. Jeremy: “Thank you very much, Prime Minister, for getting me the 74 votes that I needed.” Prime Minister: “Jeremy, I got you the 21,000 votes—you just got the 74.” Indeed, I often think there were two Margaret Thatchers: the real Margaret Thatcher for those who knew and worked with her and the caricature Margaret Thatcher of some press commentators, satirists and political opponents.

During the winter of 1974-75, I gave some help to Airey Neave in the Conservative leadership campaign. When Margaret became leader of the Conservative party, I joined her private office for a while as the personal link between her and the Britain in Europe campaign that was going on as a consequence of the EU referendum. I therefore had a good opportunity to see how Margaret worked, in the early part of her leadership, with parliamentary colleagues and advisers. Yes, Margaret Thatcher was certainly a person of robust views. She liked a good discussion—robust argument, even—but she was always willing to listen and heed the views of others. There were, I suspect, countless occasions when having heard the arguments—having heard the advice of Willie Whitelaw, or, on more personal matters, heeded the good counsel of Denis—Margaret would accept other people’s contributions and advice, perhaps saying something like, “All right, we’ll do it your way, but you had better get it right.”

It is also a caricature to portray Margaret Thatcher as simply anti-European. I have in my desk at home the originals of a number of speeches that she gave in her constituency and elsewhere during the 1975 EU referendum campaign—speeches clearly amended and corrected in her own very distinctive cursive handwriting. Margaret campaigned wholeheartedly for a “yes to Europe” result in the referendum. As those speeches demonstrate, she clearly believed in a strong Europe being a counterweight to the then Soviet Union and a strong partner to the United States. She clearly undoubtedly believed in a Europe of nation states. She strongly believed in ensuring the speediest possible creation of the European single market and was always extremely frustrated by other member states that sought to frustrate the further creation of a single market for their own particular nationalist interests.

Ironically, I think that this is where her frustration may have started with some of the workings of the European Union. Prior to the Single European Act in the mid-1980s, every EU member state had, in effect, a veto on any issue of any importance. This meant that the EU Commission or the President of the Council of Ministers, when wishing to get business through had, importantly, to negotiate with and square any member states that they thought would veto a particular proposal. That meant that any single member state could veto advances in the single market. It was therefore decided, in the Single European Act, to move to a system of weighted qualified majority voting. This, overnight, fundamentally changed the way in which the Council of Ministers and the Commission worked, because now all they needed to do was to secure the support of sufficient member states to get a majority vote. They would therefore start with the member states they considered the most supportive of a proposal and work on them until they got a qualified majority, and if, at the end, there were some member states on the other side of the argument, they were not necessarily particularly concerned. This change meant that while Margaret had succeeded in making the single market work much better, she was no longer able as easily to threaten to exercise a UK veto, and I think in time she found that very frustrating.

I felt enormously privileged to have been appointed even a junior Minister in a Government led by Margaret Thatcher. I was sent to the Department of Energy to help support John Wakeham with electricity privatisation. With the clarity and grip that she had had way back when I first worked for her in 1974, she explained clearly and succinctly exactly what she expected the Department to achieve in respect of not just electricity privatisation, but the future of the coal industry and nuclear power.

Now, there are those who say that Margaret was divisive. To them I would simply observe that Margaret Thatcher was a democrat, and a democrat who won three general elections in a row with increased majorities. I was elected in 1983 when Margaret secured a majority of 144 in the Commons. I do not think any of us who were elected in June 1983 were in any doubt that we owed our election to Margaret Thatcher and the affection in which she was held by huge numbers of voters. This, for me, is best recalled in a single soundbite in Banbury market. One of the television stations had come to do some vox pop on the election in Banbury. They went up to a chap who ran the fruit and veg stall. “What do you think about the general election?” they asked. “I don’t know much about politics,” said the guy, “but this I do know: No. 10—Maggie’s den.”

It was very cruel that Margaret Thatcher should have been so unwell for the last years of her life. I first realised that something was not quite right a number of years ago when Margaret was speaking at a fundraising dinner for Somerville college. Lady Thatcher, as she then was, was making a bravura speech, clearly setting out the thoughts and principles that had guided her throughout public life, but she was finding it difficult to bring the speech to a conclusion. I suspect that those of us there who knew her must have suspected that all was not well, and so it sadly proved to be. In passing, it is important to recall how proud Margaret was of having been made an honorary fellow of Somerville, the college which had set her on the path to becoming the UK’s first woman Prime Minister, and also how sad she was that she was never awarded an honorary degree by Oxford.

It is all ancient history and in many ways water under the bridge, but as an Oxfordshire MP I always thought it reflected badly on the image and reputation of Oxford university that it had not felt able to recognise Margaret’s unquestionable and outstanding achievements in politics and public life. Somerville established a number of fellowships in law and chemistry in honour of Margaret Thatcher, and I suspect that if anyone wanted to make a bequest in Margaret’s memory, Somerville is one of the institutions that she would want to see flourish.

Margaret is now at peace and, I am confident, reunited with Denis who, notwithstanding the Private Eye caricature, was a man of good counsel and sound judgment, and a towering column of support and strength for Margaret, a thoroughly decent man. If I were allowed just one image or one memory of Margaret, it would be standing in the Winter Gardens in Blackpool in the 1980 Conservative party conference, listening to her conference speech when she said electrically,

“I have only one thing to say. You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

It is hardly a surprise that Baroness Thatcher was careless over the soup being poured over Lord Howe, given that she was perfectly prepared to send him out to the wicket with a broken bat.

When I made my maiden speech in this Chamber, a little over two decades ago, Margaret Thatcher had been elevated to the other place but Thatcherism was still wreaking, and had wrought for the previous decade, the most heinous social, economic and spiritual damage upon this country, upon my constituency and upon my constituents. Our local hospitals were running on empty. Patients were staying on trolleys in corridors. I tremble to think what the death rate among pensioners would have been this winter if that version of Thatcherism had been fully up and running this year. Our schools, parents, teachers, governors, even pupils, seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising in order to be able to provide basic materials such as paper and pencils. The plaster on our classroom walls was kept in place by pupils’ art work and miles and miles of sellotape. Our school libraries were dominated by empty shelves and very few books; the books that were there were held together by the ubiquitous sellotape, and off-cuts from teachers’ wallpaper were used to bind those volumes so that they could at least hang together.

By far the most dramatic and heinous demonstration of Thatcherism was certainly seen not only in London, but across the whole country in metropolitan areas where every single night, every single shop doorway became the bedroom, the living room and the bathroom for the homeless. They grew in their thousands, and many of those homeless people had been thrown out on to the streets as a result of the closure of the long-term mental hospitals. We were told it was going to be called —it was called—“care in the community”, but what it was in effect was no care in the community at all.

I was interested to hear about Baroness Thatcher’s willingness to invite those who had nowhere to go for Christmas; it is a pity that she did not start building more and more social housing, after she entered into the right to buy, so that there might have been fewer homeless people than there were. As a friend of mine said, during her era, London became a city that Hogarth would have recognised—and, indeed, he would.

In coming to the basis of Thatcherism, I come to the spiritual part of what I regard as the desperately wrong track down which Thatcherism took this country. We were told that everything I had been taught to regard as a vice—and I still regard them as vices—was, in fact, under Thatcherism, a virtue: greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees, all these were the way forward. We have heard much, and will continue to hear over next week, about the barriers that were broken down by Thatcherism, the establishment that was destroyed.

What we have heard, with the words circling around like stars, is that Thatcher created an aspirational society. It aspired for things. One former Prime Minister who had himself been elevated to the House of Lords, spoke about selling off the family silver and people knowing in those years the price of everything and the value of nothing. What concerns me is that I am beginning to see what might be the re-emergence of that total traducing of what I regard as the spiritual basis of this country where we do care about society, where we do believe in communities, where we do not leave people and walk by on the other side. That is not happening now, but if we go back to the heyday of that era, I fear that we will see replicated yet again the extraordinary human damage from which we as a nation have suffered and the talent that has been totally wasted because of the inability genuinely to see the individual value of every single human being.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) referred to the fact that although she had differed from Lady Thatcher in her policies, she felt duty bound to come here to pay tribute to the first woman Prime Minister this country had produced. I am of a generation that was raised by women, as the men had all gone to war to defend our freedoms. They did not just run a Government; they ran a country. The women whom I knew, who raised me and millions of people like me, who ran our factories and our businesses, and who put out the fires when the bombs dropped, would not have recognised their definition of womanliness as incorporating an iconic model of Margaret Thatcher. To pay tribute to the first Prime Minister denoted by female gender, okay; but a woman? Not on my terms.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The conventions of the House in respect of those rare occasions on which the House chooses to make tributes to a person who is deceased are well established. This is not, and has never been, a general debate on the memory of the person who is deceased, but an opportunity for tributes. It is not an opportunity for hon. Members to denigrate the memory of the person .

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. I am grateful to him for his—I use the term advisedly —attempted point of order. Let me be explicit for the benefit both of the hon. Gentleman and of the House. All hon. and right hon. Members take responsibility for what they say in this place. The responsibility of the Chair is to ensure that nothing unparliamentary occurs. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman, for the avoidance of doubt, that nothing unparliamentary has occurred. We are debating a motion that says that this House has considered the matter of tributes to the Baroness Thatcher. That is what we are doing, and nothing has got in the way of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

Let me start by wishing the right hon. Lady well with the important job that the Prime Minister has asked her to do on complaints in the NHS. I know that she has the respect and support of the whole House.

I understand the concerns among the disabled community about the implementation of this measure, but we are making substantial resource available for local authorities to assist with the difficult specific cases, among which I expect the disabled to be included.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Can there be any justification for treating tenants on housing benefit in social housing differently from tenants on housing benefit in the private rented sector, and how can it possibly lie in the mouth of those who changed the law on housing benefit for those in the private rented sector to complain when we extend exactly the same provisions to those on housing benefit in social housing? Have I missed something?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend highlights very well the total incoherence of Labour’s position. It is even harder to justify maintaining a subsidy for spare rooms given the country’s financial condition and the need to reduce the deficit and restore financial budgetary discipline.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (Inquiry)

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is why we asked the Law Commission, as I said in my statement, to consider sweeping away the council’s current rules and putting proper rules in their place.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Is there not always a role for concerned community oversight? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that members of local health and wellbeing boards, members of HealthWatch and constituency members of Parliament should always be welcome visitors at their local hospitals?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Members of scrutiny councils or any of the other bodies he mentioned should be able to walk the wards and have a look around, and that is vital. It is worth looking in detail at the report’s findings on scrutiny committees and the rest of it. It has some pretty good recommendations on how they need on occasion to sharpen their act.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

5. What his policy is on the cyber-security partnership.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

8. What his policy is on the cyber-security partnership.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)]

On 25 January, the Foreign Secretary signed the World Economic Forum’s new set of principles on cyber-resilience. The UK was the first country to join that cyber-security partnership, alongside more than 70 companies and Government bodies across 15 sectors and 25 countries. That is an important step in demonstrating our leadership role on the international stage in combating cyber-threats.

[Miss Smith]

I very much welcome Lancaster university’s report, which I have seen. It does show the university’s place as an academic centre of excellence for cyber-security. That research gives us valuable insights into how business is responding. I understand that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will be supporting a further small and medium-sized enterprise conference with Lancaster university. The Government are bringing forward a cross-government cyber-security awareness campaign, which is aimed at SMEs. I ought to quote from the report, because I agree with its statement that small businesses should be able to

“embrace technology and prosper without exposing themselves to unwanted business risks.”

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Cyber-security should be a growth area for UK industry. Will my hon. Friend tell the House what she is doing to help promote cyber-security for the UK industrial sector?

[Miss Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about this. When we published the cyber-security strategy we made it clear that there are important opportunities for UK businesses. Our country has long-standing expertise in cyber-security, which makes us well placed to capitalise on the commercial opportunities on offer, both domestically and overseas. I can confirm to him that we have put in place measures to help promote UK products abroad, particularly through setting up a cyber-growth partnership.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will make a little more progress and then give way.

The palace has, of course, been actively involved in the process from the beginning, and both the Church of England and the Catholic Church have been kept informed throughout.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am very grateful. There have been misinformed suggestions in some newspapers that the Church of England is in some way opposed to this Bill. May I make it clear and put it on the record that the Church of England has absolutely no objection to it whatsoever?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting that on the record. Later in my remarks I will repeat verbatim the form that that support from the Church of England took.

Algeria

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), has spoken to Kenny MacAskill on several occasions and I spoke to the Scottish First Minister yesterday. It is important that we work together closely on this matter and we will try to keep the hon. Gentleman updated on all the information.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

This terrorist atrocity was obviously some time in the planning. The terrorists needed to acquire weapons, quartermasters and so on. Does that not emphasise the need for us to work collaboratively with our friends in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to share intelligence to try to ensure that such groups have the greatest possible difficulty in accessing weaponry and that, as far as is possible, they are denied access to the international banking system? The international community is quite rightly imposing sanctions on countries such as Iran, but we also need to do everything we can, through the intelligence services and otherwise, to frustrate such non-state actors in trying to perpetrate acts of hostility against us and others.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We have to do everything we can with our partners, through security and intelligence co-operation, to provide as little space as possible for terrorist organisations, whether in the banking system or in the availability of safe havens. That is what is so concerning about what has happened in west Africa, where parts of Mali have become a safe haven for these terrorists. He is absolutely right in what he says.