Andrew George: ...impact of the millennium development goals on selling arms to developing countries, and the impact of the Export Control Act 2002 and the need to update, embellish and extend it. Today we have an elephant in the room. It raises some serious questions about the Government's integrity. The Department of Trade and Industry is one of a number of Departments that needs to address the issues...
Caroline Spelman: ...that cost every household almost £600 every year. How much longer must Ministers indulge in this absurd regional agenda? It was the Deputy Prime Minister's pet project, but it has now become the elephant in the living room. Nobody wanted regional government, but it was forced on them anyway, and for as long as it exists anything that the Government say about localism will be met with...
Dermot Nesbitt: ...with the proportion of appointees. The Equality Commission, the Government, the research agencies and anything else that I have had contact with resolutely refuse to address that. It is the elephant in the room that is being ignored. The commission says that caution is required because there is overlap between applicants and appointees. One might apply for a job this year, but not be...
Lord Addington: ..., perhaps we could do without another couple of Home Office Bills, which all seem to do exactly the same thing as the Bills from seven or eight years ago. Possibly then we might get a bit more room for these types of measures. I leave that one sitting as the elephant in the room—but we must ensure that we give enough time and effort to this Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, is...
Owen Paterson: ...these small isolated trials built around the peculiarities of congestion in the big conurbations. Can the Minister tell us what we will learn for a national scheme, and can he then mention the big elephant in the room, which we did not get an answer to last week, which is the European directive, not yet finalised, on the technology?
Andrew Dismore: ...well as local authorities. The idea that one can achieve such consultation and produce the guidance in two months is wishful thinking. When considering cost, we must not forget the Treasury—the elephant in every room when we discuss private Members' Bills—and the provision that it would need to set aside for the Department for Communities and Local Government to enable it to meet the...
Robert McCartney: ...principles of democracy. During the past two months, there has been discussion on the minutiae of how the monster is to be restored in some attenuated form. This is a typical example of the elephant-in-the-drawing-room scenario, in which everybody walks around talking about every other matter, such as the Dresden china in the china cabinet, ignoring the fact that there is a bloody great...
Maureen Macmillan: ...the 1950s, 1970s, 1990s and even when the bill was first drafted four years ago. The issue was not so much what the bill contains as the fact that it does not address the new problems. That was the elephant in the room when consultations took place. Never before in the crofting counties has there been such demand for croft houses in the most remote locations, not to work them as crofts,...
Frances Curran: ...Gore calls for a tax on polluters and the Lib Dems support that approach. Are the Tories in favour of such a tax to secure green investment? However, such policies are not the answer. There is an elephant in the room, which is the real problem. As long as it is possible to make billions of dollars in profit by producing a barrel of oil for $7 and selling it for $60, energy consumption...
Ian Paisley Jnr: ...to progress has been identified in the report: the resistance by the party that is absent today to support the rule of law. That is the substance of the report. If people want to acknowledge the elephant in the room and want to know why the Government are not up and running, it is because one party aspires to Government, but wants to use criminality, terrorism and everything else in the...
Andrew Stunell: ...Chancellor is, I suspect, the person who is least likely to be happy with the Bill, because he may face some angry phone companies asking whether they can have their £30 billion back. That is the elephant in the room, because fantastic sums of money are involved in the promotion of the industry. Clearly, any constraint on trade is viewed by the industry with the utmost suspicion and it...
Gregory Barker: ...warm words—I accept that the Minister means them sincerely—but they are acceptable only if they are followed by action. As we have seen throughout the Committee’s proceedings, there is an elephant in the room; it is the obstruction of the ODPM. The Minister may be on board, and I know that he is sincere, but every proposal seems to be frustrated by the ODPM. I am sorry that that...
Philip Hollobone: The elephant in the room with this Bill is the ODPM’s house building programme. Hundreds of thousands of new houses will be built in this country by 2031, and my constituency is right in the middle of one of the growth areas. There are 36,000 dwellings in Kettering borough; there will be an additional 13,100 by 2021, and between 5,000 and 10,000 will be built between 2021 and 2031. The Bill...
Mark Pritchard: ...eagle, an alligator, a dromedary, a mountain lion and a Lear's macaw. Sadly, the list goes on and on. I was very interested to hear from the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) about the elephant in the room at the Foreign Office. That escaped my research, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will pass on the details to me. In August 2005, the International Fund for Animal...
Andrew MacKinlay: ...time in the interests of the United Kingdom. The problem is that the Foreign Office often dictates our European policies because Ministers for Europe are not in post for long enough. Belarus is the elephant in the room that is not mentioned in the White Paper. I urge my right hon. Friend to address the European Union's policy, which is not a sanction against the existing Government in...
Bill Cash: .... I hope that, in the course of these discussions, some common sense will eventually emerge, resulting in our not being completely constrained by the common agricultural policy. The CAP is the elephant sitting in the room. It is unnecessary to have a common agricultural policy in order to have a sensible agricultural policy. There is a difference. We must be radical in our approach to all...
Alistair Burt: ...local government today. He rightly referred to the quotation of John Banham about how the costs of restructuring are always well beyond anything that is contemplated. He put his finger on the elephant in the room: the leaked letter of the Minister of Communities and Local Government which was a ploy to divert attention from impending huge council tax increases and to set Tory against...
Norman Baker: ...than they thought. That is the reality. It was depressing to listen to Prime Minister's questions today, because not one MP or party leader mentioned the environment or climate change. That is the elephant in the room and we have to grasp it—if we can grasp an elephant. We have to address the issue. We cannot go on pretending that it is not there. We must do something different. I am not...
Norman Baker: ...by Sir Jonathan Porritt, said: "The Government's current aviation strategy is entirely unsustainable". That is a big problem, but the Government are not paying any attention to it. It is the elephant in the room. They need to get to grips with transport policy and do something with it. The SDC report also said: "Carbon emissions from road transport account for 24 per cent. of the total...
Tommy Sheridan: ...for or against private schools. I am opposed to that because I want a presumption against private schools. I want such special schools to have the same recognition that would be given to an elephant that sits in the corner of the living room. Private schools are undoubtedly a symbol of elitism and privilege that represents the establishment in this country. Charitable status confers 80...
