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...
Marie Rimmer: .... Most importantly, it is the responsibility of Government to look after the public. A social care system that is adequately funded frees up GPs and other NHS resources. Social care has been the elephant in the room for decades. It needs sorting out and sorting out properly, and not from a heavy hand down—it needs developing upwards. The country cannot afford for the Government to...
Edwin Poots: ...over the past 24 years. We are now in a circumstance where we require the consent of both communities to move forward on the issue that is in front of us today. We also need to deal with the elephant in the room: the Northern Ireland protocol. We hear people calling out the cost of living. The reality is that the protocol will affect people's cost of living, not just in 2022 but in 2032...
Audrey Nicoll: ...for older people. Although it is easy to assume that loneliness and isolation impact only older people, as Lee Knifton from the Mental Health Foundation Scotland reminded us, the “elephant in the room is the ... number of young people ... who struggle to form relationships at a young age”. Intergenerational practice has many benefits for children and young people, including shared...
Lord Watson of Invergowrie: ...of students falling behind, but the White Paper says that you must not label children as “behind”. Can the Minister clarify where the funding for this support will come from? Of course, the elephant in the room on the whole question of education recovery is the Chancellor. Sir Kevan Collins knew exactly how much was required to deliver meaningful programmes, but the Chancellor...
Lord Blunkett: ...undoubtedly true that the effectiveness of the vaccine has been to reduce the impact and the great danger, and therefore the knock-on effects on the health service. But it is also true—it is the elephant in the room—that it is not providing immunity. It is very welcome that the noble Baroness has been able to assure us that work is going on, but could this be accelerated on an...
Christine Grahame: ...£13 or so in VAT, which is levied on the raw cost plus the fuel duty, doubling the pump price. That is £42 in tax that goes straight to the Treasury. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the elephant in the room is fuel duty and that, in these extreme times, it would not be a bad idea for the Treasury to waive fuel duty for a period? That would save our public services—the national...
Louise Haigh: ...be delivered in just three months, when 23 million have been delivered over the past nine? If we are to break the cycle of new variants, there is only one way to do it: to vaccinate the world. The elephant in the room today for the Transport Secretary is the cost of living crisis about to engulf this country. The barrier to passengers booking holidays with confidence this spring and summer...
Mr Mark Ruskell: ...Climate Change Committee’s recommendations that we need a 20 per cent reduction in meat and dairy consumption in order to have any chance of meeting our climate targets? That seems to be a real elephant in the room.
Mervyn Storey: I thank the Member for giving way. Earlier, one of the contributors to the debate talked about the "big, fat elephant in the room". There is another one: a five-party mandatory coalition. The Finance Minister rightly said that, if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. We have an Opposition within the Government. A five-party mandatory coalition does not work. Given the probable...
Pam Cameron: ...from the proposed amendments. Amendment No 11 would tighten up the parameters of unlawful recording for the purposes of the offence created in clause 6. The reality is, however, that it misses the elephant in the room, namely the ambiguous and open-ended approach to the offence of direct or indirect influence in the same clause. On balance, I feel that the amendments would exacerbate...
Catherine McKinnell: ...resources.” While we believe the Law Commission’s proposals are eminently sensible, we are deeply concerned that the inadequate resourcing of our police and criminal justice system is the real elephant in the room. It could prevent us from dealing with the most serious forms of online abuse, such as death threats, the sending of indecent images and illegal hate speech. I suspect that...
Jonathan Buckley: ...the point; it is related to finance and the Budget. To address the concerns that Members across the House have about the funding and transformation of our health service, we need to deal with the elephant in the room. Unless the protocol is dealt with, there simply will not be the political basis on which we can take decisions in this place that transform services and get on with tackling...
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames: ...is inflicted on the rule of law inherent in Clause 1. However, if all were passed, they would still by no means eliminate it. As has been pointed out, the worst part of Clause 1—in a sense, the elephant in the room of the first two groups—is the presumption, which we shall come to in the next group, which has been spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the...
Owen Thompson: ...the possibility of a strategic partnership with Taiwan that would allow renewable energy supply chain companies to access the Taiwanese market much more easily. Among all this, we cannot avoid the elephant in the room. China’s current denial of Taiwan’s right to self-determination and its insistence that Taiwan is merely a stray province of the PRC is a major concern. All this puts...
Baroness Smith of Basildon: ...in the other House and in your Lordships House said that this Bill brings clarity, but it is clear that it does not bring clarity. That is why the Government have insisted on Clause 3. The elephant in the room, as has been mentioned, is Prorogation, but Prorogation is different from Dissolution. The unlawful Prorogation has had an impact on many people—I still think of it. I agree with...
Duncan Baker: ...legislation is not there to support such efforts. We are decarbonising our electricity grid and ending our reliance on fossil fuels, but we are leaving ourselves open to a big concrete and steel elephant in the room. The Climate Change Committee has been advising for four years that embodied carbon needs regulating. During the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into the...
Clare Bailey: ...ever more focused on climate credentials for investment. What happens to our economy when GB and the Republic move ahead with net zero targets and we are left behind? It is important to address the elephant in the room and the tractors at the door. I am sure that agriculture will be the focus of much of today's debate. First, the Green Party is pro-farmer. We want to see farmers and...
Baroness Smith of Basildon: ..., Lord Faulks, said, the practical consequences of doing so are quite disastrous and it is hard to contemplate the impact that would have on a democratic decision to have a general election. The elephant in the room that has been alluded to is that everybody, whatever side of the argument they are on, is scarred by the unlawful Prorogation. I appreciate that this is about Dissolution,...
