Speeches by Shelbrooke.

“To paraphrase Churchill, the cornerstone of a free society is a free press. Whatever the investigation may be looking into, I am afraid that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office has admitted that he set the investigation going because he did not like the report that had been issued about donations. That should n…”

“I must raise a very important issue with the Secretary of State: there is concern about thermal runaway in batteries, especially those on prime agricultural land. Heavy metals vaporise at 900° and thermal runaway burns at over 1,000°. What research and assessment has been done on the evaporation of these heavy metals, …”

“Further to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), this looks like smoke today. The horse has bolted so far that it is at Wetherby racecourse, and the right hon. Gentleman is not giving the answers that we need to hear. He said that this goes to the …”

“To my right hon. Friend’s question about vetting, can she foresee a circumstance where a professional diplomat would be given clearance if they had sold passports and taken undeclared loans?”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that focusing on the angle of what Mandelson did as a Minister in releasing secrets and trying to make money from them is still deflecting from the fact that it was felt to be “worth the risk” to send to America as our ambassador a man who was associating with a convicted and, at that time, re…”

“Does my hon. Friend think that we will now start to understand how Mandelson had such a level of influence that, having had to resign from Government for not declaring six-figure-sum loans, having had to resign from Government for trying to flog passports, and having gone off to the EU and faced all the allegations abo…”

“The Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and said that he knew. The Minister says that documents such as the vetting report will be released, but all that is irrelevant. We are not interested in what the report says, because the Prime Minister said that he knew. The question for the Minister is this: why did the Pr…”

“This debate is about accountability; everything falls into the lap of the Prime Minister. Does my hon. Friend not find it frankly incredible that the Prime Minister has sent—I say this with the greatest of respect—a junior Minister to the House, when he alone has serious questions to answer? Would it not show real lead…”

“China has no regard for human rights whatsoever, and it is known to be trading with Iran, which is enabling Iran to slaughter its own citizens. What assessment is the Foreign Office making of the details of that trade, and what action is it taking?”

“I welcome the sale of Government land around HMP Wealstun. Were neighbouring residents given advance notice of the auction details so that they could express an interest?”

“I think it is important that I start with some of the realities as vividly as I can. Six million Jews were murdered in a deliberate attempt at the extermination of European Jews. I think it is shameful that the BBC did not speak about Jews in its opening report about Holocaust Memorial Day. One million of those Jews we…”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point about the gravestones that mark massacres in Bosnia and elsewhere. They emphasise the importance of Holocaust Memorial Day and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, because millions of people were cremated so that there was no evidence of genocide.”

“I have a fantastic Yorkshire brick company in my constituency. Unfortunately it had to go into administration, but it was rescued. As welcome as the supercharger scheme is, the problem was that the company did not qualify because it did not meet the business level test, so it did not get any Government support. Can the…”

“There is a lot of evidence to back that up. The phrase passes me by, but there is a sphere of influence that Iran wanted to put in place through Iraq and Syria, with Hamas and Hezbollah as its proxies to run things, and we have debated in this Chamber so many times the malign influence of Iran and the Islamic Revolutio…”

“In talking about the events that happened, we have spoken about the dehumanisation. The Holocaust Educational Trust runs visits to Birkenau-Auschwitz, as part of which, at the end, family photographs and things like that are displayed to rehumanise people. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has been able to attend, bu…”

“The hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating opening speech, and I congratulate him on securing this debate. Could I ask him to re-emphasise the point he has just made, which is that such a grouping of an entire religion, race or ethnicity with the actions of a Government is an entirely antisemitic act?”

“Again, my hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does he share my horror and disgust that yesterday, a member of the public thought it was entirely appropriate to dress as a prisoner of one of the concentration camps? Surely this is the hatred he is describing.”

“And it has put what it said into practice. It has raised £77 billion in taxes, but I cannot see great investments being made in defence. May I say that I do not like the idea of expressing the amount of GDP being spent on defence as a percentage? Somewhere along the line, NATO and its allies fell into the trap of think…”

“I spoke earlier about the naval problem, but China has also built an incredible number of intercontinental ballistic missile silos. It is hugely increasing its nuclear arsenal and refuses to come to the table for negotiations on non-proliferation treaties. Is this not the most ridiculous time to give up the certainty o…”

“Does my hon. Friend share my concern that were this deal to go ahead, there will be a need for more Navy, which is expensive? At the end of the day, the increases to the defence budget that we are being told about will be used to pay for this ridiculous deal.”