Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman might like to see the report, published yesterday by the Procedure Committee, on parliamentary questions. I shall certainly draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary, who is diligent in attending to his parliamentary duties, the issue of the outstanding parliamentary questions, particularly the eight in the hon. Gentleman’s name, and see whether we can get some prompt responses.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

In the context of next Thursday’s foreign affairs debate, will my right hon. Friend table a motion that clearly sets out our obligations under international law to intervene where appropriate to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity? Surely, when the Foreign Secretary and others approach those matters in the UN Security Council, they are entitled to know that they have the unequivocal and total support of this House in ensuring that the UK upholds the best principles of international law; and, so that we do not have any confusion or ambiguity about that, please could the House have an opportunity to make clear our voice by way of a motion, a debate and a vote?

[Sir George Young]

I take note of what my hon. Friend says. The current proposal is to have a general debate, as we have had on previous occasions, on the situation in north Africa and the middle east, but I will certainly pass on to my ministerial colleagues his suggestion that we go a bit further than that and include a substantive motion.

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, our response was partly because of the question that he put some time ago, asking for a debate in Government time on the middle east. The Government have reserved the right to have debates on general subjects, notwithstanding the fact that the Backbench Business Committee has access to much of the time. We have used that freedom, as we had a debate on the strategic defence review back in October, and I would not rule out using it again if the need arose.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will have seen early-day motion 1518 about the terrible murder in Pakistan of Shahbaz Bhatti.

[That this House condemns the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistani Minister for Minorities, who was the only Christian in the cabinet; notes that this comes only days after the government of Pakistan's retention of a minorities representative in the new cabinet and the Ministry for Minorities Affairs as an independent ministry; recognises the significant advances made in the interests of minority rights and interfaith dialogue by the Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti through this ministry; expresses concern at the ongoing misuse of the provisions of section 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code, known as the blasphemy laws, and the threats posed to all who challenge this legislation; and urges the government of Pakistan to reconsider reviewing the blasphemy laws as a matter of urgency.]

As this is the mother of Parliaments, may we take the matter one step further? May we consider having, somewhere in the precincts of the Palace of Westminster, a memorial on which, by resolution of the House, we could put the names of those parliamentarians and politicians who are murdered simply for seeking to uphold democratic principles and democratic values elsewhere in the world?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend refers to a callous murder of a democratically elected Government Minister, and the Foreign Secretary made a statement condemning the action of the extremists involved. I am interested in my hon. Friend’s proposal, which, in the first instance, he might like to put to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Essentially, however, the matter would be one for the House rather than the Government.

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Whenever possible, we try to give notice of a statement on the Order Paper, so that when Members come in, they can see that the Government are planning to make a statement. That is not always possible, but I wholly agree that the House should be informed at least at the same time as the press of any statements that the Government plan to make.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House arrange for a clear statement to be made on ministerial collective responsibility? I appreciate that established conventions might need to be varied to accommodate a coalition Government, with the coalition partners voting differently in certain circumstances, but it surely cannot be right for Ministers, including the Chief Secretary to the Treasury today, to agonise publicly in newspapers about whether they are going to support the Government in the Division Lobby.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue. It is within his memory and mine that when we had a single-party Government in the 1970s collective responsibility was suspended during the referendum on whether we should stay in the European Community, so there are precedents within single-party Governments for suspending collective responsibility. We have a coalition Government, so some of the normal conventions are not strictly applicable. I draw his attention to section 21 of the coalition agreement, which says in respect of the incident to which I think he is referring, that

“arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote.”

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Let me reassure the right hon. Gentleman that when the Prime Minister is in China he will raise the serious issue of China’s human rights record. That issue will not go by default.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend encourage the Foreign Secretary to make a statement on his visit to Israel and the occupied territories when he returns next week? Many of us are beginning to doubt whether we will live to see a two-state solution and it would be good to hear the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of what is happening in Israel and Palestine.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this serious issue. If my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is not able to make a statement, there are Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions next Tuesday, which would be an appropriate time for my hon. Friend to press him on that matter.

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. At its heart is the balance between security and dignity to which she has referred. Transport questions took place earlier today, so the opportunity may not occur again for three or four weeks, but in the meantime I will write to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and see whether he can shed some light on when the outcome of the consultation will be known.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the timetabling of Bills? In the present Parliament, should it not be much more transparent? If the Government and the Opposition, through the usual channels, agree on periods for timetabling, should that not appear on the Order Paper as a matter of public record?

I am sure that the Government and the Opposition agreed on the amount of time to be allotted to the Committee and Report stages of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, but the Opposition have spent more time drifting through the Division Lobbies than diligently debating the detail of the Bill on the Floor of the House, and have then complained—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure that what the hon. Gentleman is saying is learned, but I am afraid it is a disquisition. What I want is a one-sentence question to the Leader of the House.

[Tony Baldry]

My one-sentence question occurred at the beginning of my disquisition, Mr Speaker, and I am sure that the Leader of the House got the drift of it.

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I say very gently to the hon. Lady that the cuts imposed by the Government—to use her words—are necessary because of the deficit that we inherited from the previous Labour Government, who had pencilled in 20% cuts. Until Labour Members are much more open than they have been to date about how they would deal with the deficit, they have no credibility whatsoever on financial issues.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The cull of quangos is welcome in enhancing accountability, but the corollary is that that accountability must go to Secretaries of State and Departments. Will my right hon. Friend instruct the Table Office and the departmental parliamentary Clerks to be more welcoming on the tabling of written questions to Departments? There should be a general principle that if a Department spends money on it, we should be able to ask questions about it.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which relates to the announcement in the written ministerial statement that Ministers will have direct responsibility for a number of issues that were previously covered by quangos. It follows from that that there should be a change in process at the Table Office to recognise the changes announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

As the hon. Lady knows, the Department for International Development budget is protected, so any work in the third world funded by that Department will not be affected by any decisions in the CSR. I will certainly bring to the attention of the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary the concerns about the impacts of decisions taken in this country. There might be an opportunity to ventilate those issues at greater length in the debate announced for Thursday 14 October.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Yesterday, the Northern Ireland Secretary said that every Cabinet Minister had found a number of prawns stuffed behind the radiator. Will the Leader of the House encourage the commissioning, printing and publishing of a Command Paper to be put in the Library that sets out in full detail all the prawn sandwiches that previous Cabinet Ministers left stuffed behind their respective departmental radiators—from the lunacy of the Building Schools for the Future programme, where £250 million of expenditure was incurred without a single brick being laid, to the staggering £38 billion overdraft, completely unfunded, left at the Ministry of Defence?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend made good progress in his question in producing the list that he has asked the Government to provide. It is certainly the case that a number of Secretaries of State found unfunded commitments when they took office. When we come to the comprehensive spending review, we will have an opportunity to reveal in more detail just how those unfunded commitments are to be dealt with. The Labour party was committed to some 20% of cuts if it had come into government, so it would be helpful if we heard from Labour Members at some point exactly how they would have balanced the books if they had won the election.

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

On the hon. Lady’s first point, she wanted a statement to the House, but she has one. She wanted an oral statement. She will know that today we are debating the Academies Bill, and we already have one oral statement on Equitable Life. The more oral statements that the Government provide, the less time there is to debate important issues. However, I will see that the substantive issue that she mentioned is raised with the appropriate Minister, and that she gets a response.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking to the House that when the Chilcot inquiry issues its report, there will be a full day’s debate on it? Those of us who voted against the Iraq war did so because we always believed it to be contrary to international law and illegal. The only reasonable inference that one can draw from all the evidence that has emerged is that Blair took Britain to war on the basis of a lie.

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful plea for a debate on the Chilcot inquiry. When the report is published, it would be appropriate to have a debate on it, in which hon. Members who took a different view from him at the time could share their views, and in which the House could debate the matter in a proper manner.

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Again, I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has been unsuccessful in the ballot, but he may have an opportunity on the last Tuesday before the recess to raise his concern. The Government take seriously our responsibilities under the military covenant. The issue that he raises may fall within that, and I will share his concerns with the Defence Secretary.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the House of Commons Library? I understand that it intends to stock only one copy of Lord Mandelson’s new book, which I suspect will have to be chained to the wall. Many colleagues on both sides of the House will want to know which members of the Cabinet of the previous Labour Government thought which other members of the previous Labour Government were mad, bad and dangerous, so will my right hon. Friend ensure that the Library has a sufficiency of copies of the book so that we can all read it before the recess?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are of course trying to cut the cost of politics, and I am not sure whether buying many copies of Lord Mandelson’s book is compatible with that policy. I was interested to read today in The Guardian, which costs a lot less than Lord Mandelson’s book, this paragraph:

“Darling told…Brown…he was being ‘ludicrously over-optimistic, not only about growth prospects, but also about Britain’s ability to support such a large and expanding deficit’”.

I entirely agree that all Members of the House should be aware of that and other relevant paragraphs.

Business of the House

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman raises a serious issue and I think it best that he comes along on 21 June and puts the question to Ministers from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The September G8 in Canada will pay particular attention to how the international community takes forward the millennium development goals. Between now and the rise of the House for the summer recess, will my right hon. Friend try to make time for a general debate on international development so that both sides of the House can reinforce the need for the international community to take forward the MDGs, as set out in early-day motion 179?

[That this House recognises the important contribution and commitment the UK has made to the progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); welcomes the Government’s commitment to spend 0.7 per cent. of gross national income on overseas aid and to enshrine this commitment in law; further recognises that development benefits often remain out of reach of those who are poorest, most marginalised and affected by conflict; acknowledges that many of the MDGs are off track, especially those relating to maternal, infant and child health; further acknowledges the importance of the G8, G20 and MDG Review in mobilising the international community to achieve the MDGs; and trusts that the Government will show strong international leadership in encouraging others in the international community to work towards an MDGs’ rescue plan with clear political and financial commitments, and with every G8 country providing solid national commitments and timetables.]

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend makes a forceful case. I will see whether between now and the summer recess we can arrange a debate along the lines he has proposed.