Speeches by Swayne.

“rose—”

“What is it in particular that the new regime in Mauritius have doubts about? It is that they want more money, isn’t it?”

“What deterrent will the Home Secretary implement for those asylum claimants who have destroyed their papers and purport to come from regimes to which they cannot possibly be returned?”

“Clearly, it would have been expedient to have had a special envoy for religious freedom in place; it is all very well for the Minister to say that such an appointment is under ministerial consideration. What is the problem? Do the Government not have anyone committed enough or talented enough to do it?”

“To be fair to the Prime Minister, he made it absolutely clear that things would have to get worse. The difficulty is—this is my prophecy, if you like—that there is no prospect of them getting better thereafter.”

“May I prophesy too?”

“To ensure that “if you can work, you must work”, will the Secretary of State familiarise herself with the works of Jeremy Bentham?”

“Can the Secretary of State imagine the plight of a shop assistant, some decades hence, when a middle-aged or elderly person presents themselves seeking to buy a packet of cigarettes? Is that shop assistant really expected to demand their bone fides?”

“The Secretary of State presented the savings as no-brainers—the ships were damaged and obsolete—but in his closing remarks he told us that these would not be the last difficult decisions. He simply cannot have it both ways. It is all about the messaging in the end. What message will be received from this statement in B…”

“So long as we are limited to saying how cross we all are about our different perspectives and the Minister keeps sanctions under review, China will take not a blind bit of notice, will it?”

“What is the beef behind the Government’s reluctance to embrace with enthusiasm locally generated community energy? Why did they vote against the amendment tabled to the Great British Energy Bill by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse)?”

“What estimate has the right hon. Gentleman made of the impact on capital investment, which will be reduced as farmers consider the inheritance tax implications of those investments and adjust their plans accordingly?”

“It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke (Pamela Nash). Until recently, my cousin was a minister in Carluke. Let me give the House a piece of Swahili wisdom. Howezi kuwafukuza swala wawili: you cannot chase two antelope. That, however, is exactly what the Government have b…”

“The reality, as the right hon. Gentleman knows because he wrote to his successor about it, is that he left us with a deficit that stood at fully 10%, as against the 4.3%—and in sharp decline—that we have bequeathed to this Government.”

“rose—”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“Much of it reannounced, and much of it put at risk by the behaviour of the Transport Secretary, but nevertheless an achievement. Of course I welcome any inward investment. What I think is a huge risk is a great borrowing binge for exactly the sort of investment that we saw throughout the 1960s and 1970s, which never de…”

“Investment requires a measure of optimism, not the collapse in business confidence that the Chancellor has engineered. She would have done better to stress some of the positives that she inherited, wouldn’t she?”

“I congratulate the Lord Chancellor on recognising that for some prisoners, the shortcomings of short sentences are properly remedied by providing for longer ones. On the review and David Gauke, it is difficult not to like him and even admire him, but I am not alone in regarding him as a notorious wet, am I?”

“The opportunities available to any migrant are vastly greater in Rwanda, aren’t they?”