Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Funding for fire services is basically being held flat against a backdrop of a welcome decline in fire incidents. At the same time, the single fire authority system is sitting on hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in reserves, so we still believe that fire services are adequately resourced.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T5. Will the Home Secretary confirm her commitment to the right to peaceful protest in this country? Given that there have been no successful prosecutions for harassment outside abortion agencies in recent history, will she resist the campaign to set up buffer zones? Does she accept that if peaceful protest outside abortion agencies is banned, the Government will also have to ban it, for instance, at hunts and outside animal life laboratories?

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend and I have already met to discuss this, and it was a pleasure to meet him and various colleagues to discuss their concerns about the continuation of peaceful protests. I hope that I was able to reassure him that it is this Government’s plan always to ensure that peaceful protests can continue, wherever that is. It is also this Government’s commitment to make sure that women can access abortion safe from harassment and intimidation.