The Europe Minister also tells Channel 4 News that inside the EU Britain can help shape the rules of the single market.
By Joseph Willits Follow Joseph on Twitter Yesterday in Parliament a debate was motioned, and passed unopposed without a vote, to approve a European document related to Croatia's joining of the European Union. Europe Minister David Lidington began the debate by speaking of enlargement more generally, saying that the Government has long been "a strong supporter of […]
On ConHome Comment today Mr Lidington makes an extended case for rejecting today’s referendum.
In the Commons yesterday evening, Edward Leigh MP secured an Adjournment debate on the future of the BBC World Service's Hindi Service. The Service's audience: This is an important Adjournment debate about the future of the BBC’s Hindi radio service. At the moment, it is broadcast for three hours a day, divided between the morning […]
By Jonathan Isaby At the end of proceedings on the European Union Bill yesterday, there was an opportunity for the Commons to debate and vote on the amendment from Wellingborough MP Peter Bone, which he wrote about here on ConHome last month. The thrust of his amendment was that an in/out referendum on British membership […]
By Jonathan Isaby The European Union Bill returned to the floor of the Commons yesterday for the first of three days this week. (Europe Minister David Lidington wrote about its benefits here on ConHome yesterday) The Bill sets out that if there is deemed to be a transfer of power to the EU and the […]
David Lidington is Minister for Europe. This week the new European Union Bill will go through intense scrutiny by MPs as its details are debated, and rightly so. The EU bill is the most radical piece of legislation on how we handle the EU since Britain joined the then EEC in 1973. That organisation has […]
Last Thursday, on the orders of William Hague, the ECR group in the European Parliament, that includes Tory MEPs, voted to support the formal creation of the European External Action Service. I write formal because the EEAS has been in effective existence for some time. The EEAS is a deliberately bureaucratic name for what is […]
In the Lords yesterday Baroness Kinnock gaffed with an acknowledgement that foreign embassies and related activities were facing budget cuts across the globe: "We have had staff redundancies in Argentina, Japan and across the United States. Programmes in Afghanistan in counter-narcotics have been cut, capacity building to prevent conflicts in Africa, counter-terrorism and radicalisation in […]
In a Westminster Hall debate last week, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister David Lidington MP discussed the challenge of nuclear proliferation. The non-proliferation treaty has a good history: "When we look at the history of the non-proliferation treaty, we can take some pride in the fact that it has helped, in its way, to keep the […]
One for the localists amongst you: there were oral questions on communities and local government yesterday. Monmouth MP and pugilist David Davies asked about the Government's programme to tackle violent extremism, a topic which Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government Paul Goodman has also been pursuing. "David T.C. Davies: When I last raised this […]
Yesterday saw Foreign Office questions. Shadow Deputy Secretary of State for Wales David Jones and former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind both asked about Iran's nuclear ambitions: "The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (David Miliband): The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report of 19 February shows that Iran continues to refuse to […]
David Lidington is Minister for Europe. Earlier this year, the European Union Act 2011 became law. This and any future government is now obliged by statute to hold a referendum before it can ratify a new treaty or treaty amendment that transfers powers or competences from this country to the EU. That’s a Conservative manifesto […]