Speeches by Western.

“Jon McGinty, we used to be a nation of shopkeepers, apparently. Under the current system, are we not denying all manner of citizens the opportunity to have their own business on the high street?”

“This is to the two of you, but maybe very brief comments from the others. Which other country is doing this better?”

“When I talk to businesses in my constituency of Warwick and Leamington, the points that come up from all those in the centre of the town are concerns about rents, business rates, parking, and a few other issues. I am surprised at how little I have heard from the three of you about those points. Six years ago, I remembe…”

“David, what are your members doing?”

“Sarah and David, in terms of how we can address that, what work is being done, recognising the gaps and the £3 trillion worth of construction that could be happening? We might be letting down young people or adult learners who want to get back into construction just because we do not have the training in place.”

“Speaking to my local college, Warwickshire College, which is the sixth largest in the country, I am told it has loads of young people who want to get in to be plumbers, electricians or whatever, but it cannot provide the training because there are not enough tutors. Is that what you see across the country and in all se…”

“How do you assemble that data?”

“It would be useful to know specifically whether the Government could do that and when it would choose to do that.”

“So we are looking the other way?”

“I understand, but I guess—going back to Minister Falconer’s point about making an assessment—if there is an opportunity for the Government to make an assessment of what is happening in Gaza, when all of us are denied that because we have no media feed about what is happening, the UK has an opportunity to determine or a…”

“Is that something you could ask the RAF to do?”

“I understand it is not the purpose, but do we, as a Government, have that data through the RAF?”

“I understand, but in the absence of any journalists, or any media, being allowed in Gaza—media reporters are not even allowed to film when they are dropping humanitarian aid into Gaza—there is a complete absence of information. It just strikes me as strange, in that there would be data that is available from surveillan…”

“You may not ask them specifically to do that, but in terms of the information recorded—I am not familiar with how RAF surveillance flights work—I can imagine that they are recording data on an urban landscape across Gaza as they are flying. Then from that data, you would be able to ascertain the amount of damage and th…”

“So with the surveillance flights, we do not actually keep data; we do not record anything about the amount of destruction of any part of Gaza during those flights.”

“I understand. Minister Pollard, do you have an estimate for the number of sorties that have been undertaken by F-35s? What information do the Government have on targeting and the ordnance used by the Israeli F-35?”

“It could be used in the west bank?”

“I understand that. It just seems that it is almost an academic argument, given that there is no need to be using it. I guess that is my simple point. If you say, Mr Falconer, that it has been used, and you gave a date when you believe it was used, what is the likelihood—what are the chances—of it being used again in Ga…”

“Experts tell us that the F-35 is not actually the most appropriate vehicle of force in the aerospace to be using for this kind on conflict—that the F-15 is a far better vehicle. Why are we even allowing the F-35—that is, we have talked about the trade permissions—because it is actually not the most appropriate?”

“Experts tell us that it is really not the most appropriate vehicle of force for use in Gaza—that the F-15 is more appropriate. Why do we think it should be permissible for them to use it anyway?”