Contributions
812 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARD Public Procurementrose —13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementWe have a lot of time and a thin House. I presume that the United States is also a signatory to the same trade treaties, yet it has the “buy American” legislation, which is very…13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementThe right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right on that, but very often the primes get the contract and subcontract to the SMEs and put on a huge on-cost and profit margin. Those…13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementSome underlying reasons for the PPE failures were the lack of industrial capacity, the complete inability to communicate with industrial capacity, and the endless reliance on…13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementI would like to make a couple of observations before I get on to the main thrust of my argument. First, I regard the regulations as a great missed opportunity. It is not that the…13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementIt is true that the social weighting applied here is insufficient, but European countries also send a clear subliminal message to competitors, putting up, as it were, a sign…13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementI absolutely agree. Hopefully then, we will achieve what Mr Churchill argued for in the early part of the last century. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he wanted to see…13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementWill the Minister give way?13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementI thank the Minister for his positive remarks. Cannot Government, as customer, prescribe ratios of apprenticeships within the contracts, particularly construction contracts, and…13 May 2024HANSARD Public ProcurementThat is exactly right. One of the arguments for buying steel from, mainly, Sweden—and possibly from France—was “We do not produce steel of that quality here”, but if we do not…13 May 2024HANSARDEngagementsQ10. Yesterday, the Chancellor confirmed that it is Government policy to abolish national insurance, at a £46 billion annual cost, with no indication of where the money will come…08 May 2024HANSARD DefenceHas the Secretary of State not just confirmed that the amount of money in the budget designated for the British armed forces has, in fact, gone down?07 May 2024HANSARD DefenceWill the Secretary of State give way?07 May 2024HANSARD DefenceCan we be clear that, as was kindly referenced by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), that situation was the result of a failure of political judgment…07 May 2024HANSARD DefenceWas the Secretary of State not a member of the Government, and indeed chairman of the Conservative party, during the period we are discussing when the Government did not renew…07 May 2024HANSARD DefenceIs it also the case that these aircraft have considerable aircraft life left in them? It is not as though they are approaching redundancy.07 May 2024HANSARD DefenceI am mindful of your dictum, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I start by following up on the comments of the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) about Boeing, because…07 May 2024HANSARD DefenceWhat the hon. Gentleman refers to was just a manifestation of the running down of our Russia-watching capacity, in that context but also much more broadly within the system. I…07 May 2024HANSARDTopical QuestionsT2. In the 2019 Conservative manifesto, the Government made this commitment:“We will continue with our reforms to leasehold including implementing our ban on the sale of new…22 Apr 2024HANSARD Citizens’ Assemblies and Local DemocracyThe Minister rightly says that the essence of exercises such as citizens’ assemblies is that they will deal with a narrow issue. The Government then have to choose between…16 Apr 2024