Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: ...be done if they would do it quickly to relieve her of the pain and torture she was going through, but they said, “Sorry, we can’t do that.” This is the problem we have with the NHS. The real elephant in the room is that much, much more money has to go in. Those who can pay more must pay more and be willing to pay more. That will shorten the lists and produce more money to make...
Lord Ravensdale: ...you need a systems approach”. The future systems operator is exactly what we need to implement that systems approach and deliver the energy system that we need. However, there is really an elephant in the room regarding the energy system and the Bill: the build rate of new capacity. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, touched upon that in his powerful contribution. We have a world-leading...
Jeffrey M. Donaldson: ...North South Ministerial Council. If we are going to find a solution, I have to say, with respect to my colleagues, that simply focusing in on what I accept are important points while ignoring the elephant in the room will not take us anywhere close to finding a solution that restores political stability in Northern Ireland.
Edward Davey: ...are facing a financial catastrophe over the next few months, yet the Conservative party seems blissfully ignorant. In the so-called debates between the leadership candidates, there is this massive elephant in the room, the energy bill catastrophe, yet they have no serious answer to that. The Liberal Democrats have showed what could be done. For months, we have been calling for an emergency...
Matthew Offord: ...use this urgent question to criticise the current Government in Sri Lanka. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) can chunter from a sedentary position, but the elephant in the room is not the governance of Sri Lanka; it is the decision in 2019 to become an organic country within 10 years. That has led to food shortages and overseas remittances not...
Owen Thompson: ...halved. No wonder Hinkley Point C is now nearly 50% over budget and running five years late. If we are serious about the “security” in “energy security”, we cannot ignore the radioactive elephant in the room. Nuclear waste still needs to be buried for hundreds of years; there is literally no other working solution. It is time for the Government—and Labour—to drop their nuclear...
Wendy Chamberlain: ...of living measures. It is an important topic for every MP in this place, because DWP matters make up a proportion of our constituency casework, and people come to us at a time of need. The real elephant in the room is this: the Government talk about spending to help people deal with the cost of living crisis, but we have to acknowledge that they have put some people into the positions in...
Baroness Fox of Buckley: ...’s commitment to academic freedom is dependent on academics holding the correct views on foreign policy, or should we defend the free speech of useful idiots as well as those we agree with? The elephant in the room is surely the Online Safety Bill—a huge threat to free speech in the UK, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, indicated. He also noted a number of other contradictory trends....
Catherine McKinnell: ...use and gaming contributes to their tiredness as much as school does. However, I was hugely impressed by how deeply those Newcastle pupils thought about the proposal. As the discussion in the classroom progressed, there was a clear shift in both groups’ views, as they reasoned that increasing the weekend would have a knock-on effect on the school week. There was a realisation that Monday...
Tom Hunt: From what I can see, this very focused intervention is about making it easier to kick out rapists and people who have broken the law and to stop people arriving here illegally. The elephant in the room is border control, which the people of this country have repeatedly voted for and is bitterly opposed by the Opposition, whatever they say. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that the Bill of...
Julian Knight: ...will be a drain on public resources either; it has never been one in the past. However, it is better off being placed in the private sector to ensure that it can grow and develop. Then we have the elephant in the room—the Jon Snow at Glasto, if you like. Is this in some way a revenge play? I hope not, because such things are deeply unbecoming. As individuals and collectively, we must...
Afzal Khan: ...with asthma are double the national average. Trees, shrubs and grasses can improve air quality and keep harmful, traffic-related pollution away from where children play and congregate. There is an elephant in the room that we cannot ignore, and that is the impact of austerity on our parks. Since 2010, cuts to local government funding have meant that Manchester has been forced to make more...
Jeremy Hunt: ...are doing one of the most difficult jobs in Britain today, and anything we can do to give them better support in their careers will help all of us. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the elephant in the room is that one thing that makes their job most difficult: we have more national targets in the NHS than any other health system anywhere in the world? That means not only that there is...
Elizabeth Smith: ...not agree with that. Our Scottish Future was absolutely blunt in its analysis last week. It said that “Scotland’s long-term failure to increase its growth rates relative to the UK” is “the elephant in the room.” Our Scottish Future told the Scottish Government to stop “throwing good money after bad or non-productive” projects, and it cited the illogical decision to cut...
Natalie Don: .... I am confident that the system will only continue to improve, but it is high time that the Scottish Conservatives, and members across the rest of the chamber, got real and addressed the elephant in the room: we will never be able to fully build the truly transformative system that we need in this country without all the powers of independence. If we had all the powers over social...
Douglas Lumsden: ...community wealth building have the potential to be transformational for many communities up and down the country. It is strange, however, that the Government’s motion makes no mention of the huge elephant in the room: the funding of local government. The briefing note from the Improvement Service states that local government has a huge role to play as an anchor institution; as a...
Baroness Fox of Buckley: ...to recruit more truancy staff to specifically engage with parents of non-attending pupils. I definitely prefer this human-centred, not data-centred, approach, but even this misses the mark and the elephant in the room. The Education Committee rightly notes that Covid school closures were nothing but a national disaster for children and young people. This is often understood in terms of...
Margaret Ferrier: ...security Bill. I said I would return to the things that are missing from the Queen’s Speech, and I will focus on a big one. This year’s Queen’s Speech skirted neatly around the very large elephant in the room—an elephant that, for some reason, the Government are determined to ignore. At the very least, they do not want to make eye contact with it, perhaps because they know that, at...
Lord Stirrup: ...risks we run if we fail to confront autocracies from the outset. For too many years, we pandered to him, and we are now paying the price. We should not make the same mistake with other regimes. The elephant in this particular room is clearly China, which is moving back along the road to autocracy. At the same time, it is engaged in a sustained effort to reshape the international order to...
Miriam Cates: ...having a decent home to young people. The Bills laid out in the Queen’s Speech will do much to tackle the cost of living in the long term, growing the economy and tackling rising prices, but the elephant in the room is taxation. The biggest cost in many people’s lives now is the state, with taxation levels at a 70-year high. Many Conservative Members, and our constituents, are deeply...
