Speeches by Thomas-Symonds.

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we want to see this Bill on the statute book by the end of this Session. The role of hereditary peers is completely indefensible in this day and age. Last year, the Bill was resoundingly approved by this House, and it is currently going through the other place, where it will soon…”

“As an immediate first step in reform, the Government introduced the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. That Bill was unamended and passed in this House, and will soon be in Committee in the other place.”

“As the Member of Parliament for the seat where I grew up, I share my hon. Friend’s passion for representing my area. He will be aware of the Government’s manifesto commitment to reform the process of appointments to the House of Lords so that it better reflects the country it serves, and we will consult on proposals fo…”

“I do not think the hon. Gentleman can seriously compare the appointments we have put forward with what happened under the Conservative party. We have already set out that each and every appointment will be accompanied by a citation indicating the experience to be brought to the upper House, and the people he refers to …”

“The Infected Blood Compensation Authority has made the first compensation offers to 11 people, with a total value of more than £13 million. The Government have also paid over £1 billion in interim compensation, and in the Budget we announced £11.8 billion of funding for the scheme. Yesterday, I visited the Infected Blo…”

“Yes, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I look forward to the former Paymaster General’s reflections after his visit next week. I was delighted yesterday to meet the user consultants— three victims; two infected, one affected—who are certainly making their voice heard at the Infected Blood Compensation Autho…”

“One is equivalence, the other is alignment. They are different models.”

“I don’t know what you mean by “back into”, because obviously we have the Windsor framework arrangements at the moment; those exist in relation to Northern Ireland and do already have a role for the European Court of Justice in interpretation of EU law. So I don’t think that is a new concept in our arrangements at the m…”

“I would be hesitant to get into specific design points at this stage. I am just observing that obviously, with the Windsor framework, the previous Government negotiated particular arrangements, which we supported from opposition. Again, what the Windsor framework represented was a very specific set of arrangements for …”

“I certainly hope I am always a pragmatist in these situations.”

“I have not had any preconditions put to me. On the talks, we have not got, as I have said to the Chair and John, up into that steep part of the negotiation yet, so I have not had preconditions and things like that put to me.”

“I am not proposing to publish a road map. Our position is set out in our manifesto; we have a very firm democratic mandate. There are examples in that manifesto of things that we want to secure or to deliver. In the trade space, as I indicated, a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement is a really important objective for …”

“To go back to my earlier answer to the Chair, the commitment is that the summit will be in the first half of this year, and I am confident that that will be the case. It is also really important to emphasise the interaction that has already taken place. There was a phone call between the Prime Minister and the EU Commi…”

“In the first half of this year; before the end of June.”

“—the first part of this year.”

“I describe them as pillars, but there is, of course, an interrelationship between all of them. I would describe the first as the security pillar, and at one level that is about geostrategy and foreign policy co-operation. We have already seen some progress on this; the Foreign Secretary has met the High Representative—…”

“It is a pleasure to appear before your Committee and I thank Liam for the invitation to come along and accompany Douglas today. I think the reset is central to what we are trying to do. If I could talk a little bit about the approach that we are taking to the reset, first, the very fact that I am speaking to you as a M…”

“Look, we have set out in the manifesto examples of things that are objectives and what we want to secure. You can read it. You can see what they are—they are all pretty open. Obviously, what is not within my gift is what the EU ultimately chooses to bring to the table. I see lots of rumours in different newspapers abou…”

“Congratulations on your first Prime Minister’s question.”

“We certainly would not want a walk in the dark. We believe in high standards, whether that is in employment, in agricultural products or in our brilliant farming sector. We believe in high standards. We do not believe in a race to the bottom. We believe in what I think Katherine Tai referred to as “a race to the top”. …”