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Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster, Central) rose--[Interruption.]
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady should not mind what the Opposition are saying. I will deal with them in a moment.
Ms Winterton: Will my right hon. Friend find time for the House to debate whether legislation is now necessary to make kerb crawling an arrestable offence? There are particular areas in my constituency where residents feel extremely threatened by the activities of kerb crawlers and are understandably worried about the safety of their children. Local police have made it clear to me that a change in the law is necessary. Can my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that she will look at the issue seriously?
Mrs. Beckett: I am well aware of the fact that my hon. Friend has long campaigned on that important issue. Kerb
crawling causes great distress to families, particularly because of its effect on children. The Government accept that there is a strong argument that a specific power of arrest would assist the police in dealing with the problem. I am not in a position to tell her at present that we are likely to introduce such a provision in the very near future, but we are looking at including it in some of the draft legislation that the Government are considering and hope to publish for consultation in the not-too-distant future.
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): Is not the problem with Prime Minister's questions that the Prime Minister does not like to come to the Dispatch Box? Let us go back to having two Prime Minister's Question Times a week--on a Tuesday and a Thursday for 15 minutes each. I was quite happy with that.
We failed to get the Prime Minister to the Dispatch Box to make a statement following his summit with farmers, so is it possible to have a full day's debate on the state of agriculture, which is in the worst crisis for 60 years--indeed, it has been exacerbated during the past three years of the Labour Government? Even post the aid package that was announced, farmers are still reeling and suffering--farmers such as Paul Kenny in my constituency, who cannot make a profit out of farming.
During today's Agriculture questions, aid to pig farming was mentioned. The Leader of the House may not have noticed, but the protest is still taking place in Parliament square. Winnie the pig is still there. If the right hon. Lady cares to come with me after Prime Minister's questions to have a chat with the farmers there, I will hold her hand as we cross the road.
Mrs. Beckett: As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, the National Farmers Union has welcomed the package that the Government have announced. I fear that he is nurturing an illusion. There may be only one Winnie the pig, but there is a substantial number of pigs--they are working shifts, I understand--on the demonstration. The hon. Gentleman will be happy to know that it is not one solitary pig being progressively poisoned by fumes in Parliament square. [Interruption.] If they are all called Winnie, I hope that they are all female pigs.
I do not know why the hon. Gentleman keeps making that rather tedious point about the Prime Minister not liking to come to the House. As I have pointed out to the hon. Gentleman on many occasions, the Prime Minister attends Prime Minister's Question Time more frequently than his predecessor. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that he is happy with the way it was before, when the then Prime Minister came less often, that is less than kind to the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major).
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West): Apparently, the Home Office is sitting on a report that it commissioned from Professor Paul Weller, which suggests that the next monarch should be crowned by Buddhist priests and representatives of other religions in a ceremony not entirely dissimilar from that which opened the millennium dome. Might we have a statement on those proposals? It seems to some us rather odd that the first commandment seems to have escaped the Government, which contains so many professing Christians.
Mrs. Beckett: I am happy to say that I am entirely unaware of any such report. I am not entirely sure how
accurate--if such a report exists--the hon. Gentleman's description of it is. If, however, it is accurate, perhaps it is a good thing that the Home Office is sitting on it.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is about six weeks since the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended after the threats by the Ulster Unionists? Will there be a statement soon as to what will happen about the Members who are still being paid? It seems odd to some of us that that Assembly needs to get back to how it was before, yet, at the same time, the Members are drawing the money. It looks to me as though they will continue in that vein for ever unless, at some point, someone says that the Assembly has to start again. What are the conditions for that happening? Will there be a statement on the matter? Are we going to get that Assembly back on the road? If we do not, those Members will continue being paid a salary for not attending, and that will produce only gridlock.
Mrs. Beckett: As my hon. Friend will know, the Government are very anxious indeed to see the institutions begin to work again. I am very mindful, having heard from someone who has been close to some of the negotiations, of what a pleasure it was to hear Members from Northern Ireland begin to argue about matters such as housing and education. We all wish those discussions again to become the focus of political concerns in the Province. I fear, however, that I cannot find time in the near future for a debate on the further implications of the suspension to which my hon. Friend referred. Perhaps he will have a chance to the air the matter at the next Northern Ireland Question Time.
Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire): Madam Speaker, you probably are not familiar with European Commission document COM (1999) 719 Final, which proposes the establishment of a European food authority and was debated yesterday in European Standing Committee C. The debate was attended by only 15 hon. Members. If the 84 action points in the document's annexe were implemented, it would effectively usurp all British law on food production and agriculture. It would also make redundant the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the recently established Food Standards Agency and much local authority activity.
Yesterday, I pressed the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), three times for a White Paper on the matter to be debated on the Floor of the House. The document's consequences are so momentous that they could effectively result in a programme that is larger than this Session's Queen's Speech. Will the Leader of the House give serious consideration to a full Government White Paper and a full debate on the document on the Floor of the House?
Mrs. Beckett: As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, the preparation of a Government White Paper is not the work of a matter of moments. However, I certainly understand the concern that he expresses, and I shall draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend. I cannot, however, undertake readily to find time in the near future for such a debate on the Floor of the House.
Helen Jones (Warrington, North): Could my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the plans recently
announced by the Whitworths Group to close its plant in Warrington, with the loss of approximately 250 jobs? In view of the high-handed way in which that company has behaved, and its failure to recognise trade unions in its Warrington plant, is it not time that we had a debate, with a Minister at the Dispatch Box, so that we could discuss the role of companies that behave more like 19th-century mill owners than modern employers?
Mrs. Beckett: I am certainly sorry to learn of the concerns that my hon. Friend identifies and of the problems that are caused to her constituents. I fear, however, that I cannot undertake to find time in the near future for a debate in the House on the matter. May I, however, again recommend to her the virtues of Westminster Hall, which I believe has doubled the opportunities for Back-Bench Members to raise such issues in an Adjournment debate.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): Given the uncharacteristically brusque response of the Leader of the House to the important question on parliamentary accountability asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), I hesitate to ask another question on the subject. [Interruption.] I shall, nevertheless, risk it.
Will the right hon. Lady find time for a statement by the Minister for the Cabinet Office on the role of prime ministerial special envoys who are, of course, unaccountable to Parliament in relation to their security clearances and to briefings that they may have had from either United Kingdom or foreign intelligence services?
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: Lord Levy.
Dr. Lewis: Such a statement would give the House a chance to obtain more information from the Minister than I was able to obtain on Tuesday, when I asked a very pertinent related question of the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) on Lord Levy.
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