Speeches by Downie.

“The Minister has already outlined the support of the British overseas territories. Will he please remind us of who else supports the Bill? Who supports it and who else opposes it, in addition to the Conservative party?”

“rose—”

“The right hon. Lady talks about transparency, but once again we have not heard a word from her about what her Government’s position would have been, so there has been no transparency at all. They went through 11 rounds of negotiations. If she did not believe a deal was possible, surely she would have stopped after two …”

“As we have heard already in the debate, apparently we cannot hear a negotiating position, so will the hon. Gentleman describe in detail exactly what those red lines were?”

“We have heard from Members on the Opposition Benches a slew of political opportunism, scaremongering, some cliché bingo and some derogatory terms—something that belongs more in a tabloid than in this House—about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Back when these negotiations started, the Conservative party knew that a de…”

“That point was covered before. We have already seen scaremongering from the Opposition about the other British overseas territories, including the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar. I hope that the Conservative party will reflect on and apologise for that. None the less, the previous Government knew that a deal would keep…”

“The right hon. Lady says “behind closed doors”. Will she please publish the previous Government’s negotiating position, including the cost of the deal they were looking to do?”

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention—he is someone for whom I have a lot of respect. I would tell my constituents that this country is now safer and more secure because of the deal that this Government have done. Let us see who is on the Government’s side. The United States backs the deal, with President Trump …”

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. At the beginning of the intervention, I was going to point out that there were five years during which the Liberal Democrats were very close to the Conservative party, but I will remove that thought from my head and agree with him. This does seem a very strange hill for the…”

“I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his intervention. I listened very carefully to his speech—it was very interesting indeed, and I respect his viewpoint. My short answer is that the last Government just could not seal a deal, like they could not seal a deal with the EU and could not seal a trade deal with…”

“I thank the Minister for his statement, as well as for last week’s news of the significant infrastructure investment in the Rosyth dockyard in my constituency, which is highly welcome for jobs in the area. As the Minister said, the real defence dividend will be the long-term skills. We have seen skills devolved to the …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent work he does with us on the Committee. His contributions are always valuable and should be listened to carefully. Yes, we considered both those matters. As I outlined in my speech, we appreciate that maintaining the principle that we should use proxy voting only when away from t…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I know that was a very difficult day for him. We spoke briefly on that day, and I know how hard it was. I think everyone on all sides of that debate had a great deal of sympathy for what had happened. My belief is that that kind of thing should never have to happen again. A…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his question. I have now been intervened on by the hon. Member for Strangford and asked a question; I wonder exactly what the third part of the trio to complete the hat-trick might be. We considered matters such as that, and we received some evidence. However, as I stated, we did not find en…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I am grateful for the opportunity to make this statement on behalf of the Procedure Committee, following the publication of our second report of this Session, entitled “Proxy voting: Review of arrangements introduced in Session 2024-25”. Before turning to our i…”

“We are having an absolutely important debate today. It is important to make sure that we have accessible pavements for all, for all the reasons that the hon. Lady has outlined. In Fife, we have seen the implementation of the pavement parking ban just this week. Although it has been broadly welcomed, there are some chal…”

“The hon. Member is making a powerful point about the preparedness of the RAF being much more than what was perhaps seen by the public. Will he join me in paying tribute to the Hurricane pilots of 602 and 603 Squadrons, based in the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, who conducted the first interception of world war two o…”

“This weekend I met with Karine Osipyan and Artur Manucharyan, who have been told by the Home Office that they were granted permission under the Ukraine family scheme in error, and that their application under the Ukraine permission extension scheme might not be granted. I wrote to the Home Office at the beginning of Ju…”

“The hon. Member reflects the concern that we all have to make sure that our constituents can continue to go on holiday, and that trade can continue to happen, but does he agree that, in addition to some of the information that we heard, there was also a concern about the cost of doing nothing? That could actually cause…”

“Q Sitting in the audience, you will have heard me ask this question of the last person. We had a witness this morning who said they did not believe the revenue certainty mechanism was required, and that the market would essentially take care of this on its own. You described it there as “compelling”. Do you agree that …”