“People were saying it could be 20 or 30 hours in the queue,” a woman declared. “I said I don’t care if it’s 300 hours. It’s about respect for the Queen. She served us loyally for 70 years.”
King Charles III tells those assembled in Westminster Hall that “Parliament is the living and breathing instrument of our democracy”.
We saw yesterday that terrorism takes the lives of the innocent, but strengthens the resolve of the survivors to carry on as before.
Most MPs find Parliament a reminder that they are just a new sentence in a thousand-year story. But not Chuka.
Reading East MP Rob Wilson secured a Westminster Hall debate for today, on the subject of Fibromyalgia. North Thanet MP Roger Gale was in the chair. Highlights from Mr Wilson's speech follow. It is clear that this is another area where the data that ministers gather is inadequate – a theme I wrote about recently. "I […]
With Congleton MP Ann Winterton in the chair, Westminster Hall hosted a debate entitled "Investigating the Oceans" yesterday. The now defunct Science and Technology Committee published a report with the same name back in 2007. Eighteen months later, MPs were back for a progress report from ministers! Shadow DEFRA Secretary Nick Herbert spoke for the Conservatives: […]
Yesterday saw Wells MP David Heathcoat Amory introduced a debate in Westminster Hall, on the subject of nuclear energy. Herewith some extracts from his speech: "Due to a combination of short-sightedness and wishful thinking, this country faces a looming energy gap between future demand and supply, because we have been decommissioning our nuclear power stations […]
Preseli Pembrokeshire MP Stephen Crabb secured a Westminster Hall debate for Tuesday, on the subject of gas storage in the UK. Herewith some highlights from his speech: "I am grateful to have secured this short but timely debate on the adequacy of UK gas storage. We are experiencing another winter of tight gas supply with […]
On Thursday Westminster Hall held a debate on the annual report of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe announced that Exchequer funding for Sport England (the English sports council) has increased from £33 million in 1997 to £133 million in 2008-09, and that nine out of ten pupils now do […]