Brendan O'Hara
Main Page: Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)Department Debates - View all Brendan O'Hara's debates with the Leader of the House
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Lidington
The truth is that whatever system of social security we have in this country, voluntary initiatives such as the Govan toy bank will have a significant additional role to play. We cannot shy away from the fact that we need to have a welfare system in the United Kingdom that is fair both to those people who are genuinely in need and to taxpayers, especially taxpayers who work hard on modest wages to pay for that social security system.
Brendan O'Hara
During Monday’s Defence questions, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) why the national shipbuilding strategy had not yet been published. In her reply, she accused me of
“complaining about the lack of publication of a report that has been published”.—[Official Report, 12 December 2016; Vol. 618, c. 485.]
May we have a Government statement, preferably right now, to confirm for my benefit, the country’s benefit, the benefit of this House and, most importantly, the benefit of the Under-Secretary that Sir John Parker’s report is not the national shipbuilding strategy, and that that strategy has not been published and indeed will not be published until the spring of next year?
Mr Lidington
At the end of the question, the hon. Gentleman was replaying a timetable that I had given him in the past at this Dispatch Box. He is right to say that the Parker report has presented the Government with some very far-reaching recommendations for the future of our shipbuilding industry. The hon. Gentleman and his friends would have been the first to criticise us had Ministers rushed to the Dispatch Box abruptly after the publication of the report, rather than first giving it the serious consideration it needs.