Speeches by George.

“To take a heartless devil’s advocate position—do not misinterpret what I am asking—to what extent is that statistic explained by other factors? Ethnic group A might happen to be more deprived and have different health comorbidities, et cetera, compared to ethnic group B. If you go across the whole population and you pu…”

“I have recently returned from a visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories with the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam). We were expecting an appalling situation, but it was far, far worse. Israeli Ministers are gleefully calling for the bombing of food warehouses because they believe it will help bring v…”

“I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and sorry I missed the first minute of his speech. I warmly congratulate him on the point that he is making. I agree that what he describing is a false premise, in the same way that the targets themselves are based on a delusion. The delusion is that private developer…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) not only on securing the debate, but on the very erudite manner in which he took us through the issues and correctly analysed the weaknesses of the system. It is also a pleasure to follow m…”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“I congratulate the hon. Member both on securing this debate and on the manner in which he is approaching it. He is absolutely right that we should not stray into the areas that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) are getting involved…”

“Sorry, Mr Vickers.”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I welcome the Minister’s opening remarks, particularly about Lord Byron, who, of course, was opposed to Lord Elgin’s actions regarding the removal of the Parthenon sculptures. Clearly, the specific point for today is whether it is possible, under the 1963 Act, for the British Museum to arrange a loan, and whether the M…”

“Of course not.”

“It is also a health scandal. What water companies are doing by allowing sewage to seep into our coastal waters and rivers means that many people who enjoy that environment for swimming and so on fall ill, and many of them lose days at work. As well as covering the cost to the taxpayer of cleaning up the environment, th…”

“Finally, you seem to at least keep the door open with regard to the possibility of PFI within the capital spend. Now that you have Alan Milburn, who is an evangelist for PFI in some people’s minds, where are you on that? Are there not lessons that you surely will have learned from the catastrophic impact that has had o…”

“So, learning lessons, and hopefully there is still the institutional memory to learn those lessons.”

“You were saying earlier that you keep in mind the Francis report. One of the things in the Francis report was that any major reorganisation should be subject to a risk and impact assessment. You say that you are confident it will not have an impact. Has any impact or risk assessment been undertaken? If not, when will i…”

“You do not think that this reorganisation will distract you from the progress made so far. Do you not think that is the key thing?”

“As you say, although Lansley might well have had these plans in advance, the coalition agreement in fact announced that there would be no top-down reorganisation at the time. But moving on, the public and patients will be bemused by this, will they not? They are not as concerned about the backroom plumbing and wiring o…”

“What lessons have been learned from previous reorganisations? I was around on the Government benches—opposing all the way through to the bitter end, I have to say—at the time of the Lansley reforms, which David Nicholson said could be seen from outer space, as we all will remember. If you were looking at those reforms …”

“3. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of her tax policies on investment in second homes.”

“I am grateful to the Minister for that response, but I believe we can go further, because this is not about the politics of envy but about the politics of social justice. In Cornwall, it cannot be right that through the small business rate relief system, over £500 million of taxpayers’ money has gone into the pockets o…”

“In view of the time, I will direct this question to Henrietta. There has already been a reference to the NICE guidelines, which were published only a couple of months ago. Are they sufficient? Are they welcomed? And if there are issues about the implementation of those guidelines, what are those challenges and how can …”