"I commend the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for securing this important debate.
As the first missiles went into Iran, bills doubled for the households in my constituency that use heating oil—there are about 5,000 of them. It was a terrible moment, and I am …..." David Smith - View Speech
"On the hon. Member’s point about managing consequences, I welcome his positivity about the things that the Government are doing, but does he agree that it was a terrible idea for the last Government to abandon the UK’s gas storage in 2015?..." David Smith - View Speech
"My hon. Friend is giving a powerful speech. It is right that our immigration and asylum system should, first and foremost, be fair to the population of the United Kingdom. Does she agree that, on the question of whether we can remove people who have committed serious crimes, it is …..." David Smith - View Speech
"Notwithstanding the abject failure of the last Government to manage our immigration system, there are many ways to skin a cat. The hon. Member mentioned Eritrean immigrants or asylum seekers and deportations. He may have noticed that the Government are looking to work with the Eritrean Government to say that …..." David Smith - View Speech
"Not to do my hon. Friend’s work for her, but the hon. Member for Wimbledon asked why anyone else in receipt of benefits should not make a contribution. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a clear distinction? By definition, if someone coming here to seek asylum has not …..." David Smith - View Speech
"I am delighted to hear the Opposition spokesman say that this is not a refugee tax. Does he agree, as we approach other issues in the Bill and elsewhere, that redistributions of funding and contributions in other areas are not always a tax?..." David Smith - View Speech
"At the danger of reiterating a point from earlier, does my hon. Friend agree that, not only does the contributory principle approach a sense of fairness, but it enables a dignifying process for asylum seekers to show that they actually belong—that they are part of something that we are all …..." David Smith - View Speech
"I warmly welcome the statement, especially the word the Minister has used several times—pragmatism—and how that stands apart from the ideology we see, especially from the Green party. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot decarbonise our economy, make steps towards a fully renewable energy generation mix, or achieve …..." David Smith - View Speech
"I was going to make the same point that the Minister has just made to some degree. It seems to me that the key terminology in the clause is “no weight”. Can she say more about what that will mean in practise?..." David Smith - View Speech