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16 records where Austin Mitchell is listed as a sponsor, author, or other actor. Search with topics and years
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 897open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 18 December 2013
That this House believes in the excellent contribution made by sixth form colleges in providing students with a wide range of courses, subjects and an atmosphere akin to that of a university; emphasises the view of the National Audit Office that sixth form colleges are the most successful and cost-effective providers of post-16 education; urges the Government to end the present discrimination against colleges in favour of sixth forms in schools; feels that colleges and school sixth forms should be put on an equal funding basis by the Government reversing its decision to withhold the VAT rebate proposed from colleges and by restoring the cuts which have been made to tutorial and support funding, to enrichment and careers education, as well as the cuts in the overall funding for students over 16 and, now the proposed 17.5 per cent reduction in funding for students aged 18; further emphasises that this vulnerable group of 18 year olds is in a critical year of transition and includes students who have lost time through illness, a change in career plans, students who have had to repeat their level 2 qualifications and students who have been excluded from sixth forms in schools; and points out that the Government's pledge not to cut education budgets is not being honoured by these cuts.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 2529open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 12 December 2011
That this House considers Sir Neil McKay's review of children's cardiac services has unreasonably weighted the odds against retaining the excellent children's cardiac centre at Leeds Infirmary by failing to consider the advantages of such units being placed in the same building as other hospital services, as they are in Leeds, by failing to adequately consult the wider areas such as Humberside, which depend on the Leeds unit, and by placing Leeds in only option Dfor retention, while other centres are in all options; takes the view thatthe consultation fails to recognise the excellence and the strengths of the Leeds unit and discounts the needs of the children over the wide areas of Yorkshire and Humberside who depend on it; and therefore urges the Department of Health not to drive Leeds and the Department to the expense and trouble of winning a judicial review against the consultation, such as that that the Royal Brompton has just been awarded, or to the future considerable expense of an unwise appeal aginst court decisions, but to listen to the strong concerns coming up from hospitals, health bodies, patients and the wider public in Yorkshire and Humberside against any threat of closure of the Leeds unit, to discount the bias against Leeds in the report and to give Leeds the fair prospect it deserves of carrying on its valuable work into the future.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 440open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 21 December 2004
That this House is deeply concerned by the proposal of Reuters to cut more than 100 jobs from its London news operation and its news bureaux around the world; expresses its concern at plans to transfer jobs to low-wage economies in Asia with poor employment rights; further expresses concern that Reuters will make substantial cuts in editorial budgets; believes such cuts will damage the company's reputation for accuracy and integrity; and urges the company to think again and compete on the basis of the highest quality not the lowest cost.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 323open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 17 December 2003
That this House notes with concern the contrast between the enormous expansion of private credit and the growing debt burden that this imposes on society; further notes that public credit, as measured by the proportion of publicly created money in circulation, has fallen from 20 per cent. of the money supply in 1964 to three per cent. today; believes that using public credit and increasing the proportion of publicly created money should be used to cut the costs of, and to boost the quantity of, public investment and to allow the Chancellor to fulfil his golden rule without further borrowing; further believes that this can be done without any impact on inflation; and, therefore, urges the Treasury to commission an independent review of the benefits of using the public credit and increasing the proportion of publicly created money.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 300open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 16 December 2003
That this House notes that the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention binds signatories not to transfer to any nation any agents, toxins, weapons and equipment of biological and toxin warfare and provides that any nation finding another signatory in breach of this undertaking may lodge a complaint to the Security Council; further understands that the Riegle Report to the US Senate has published evidence that the US sold biological materials including Bacillus Anthracis, Clostridium Botulinum, Histoplasma capsulatum, Brucella, Melitensis, and Clostridium Perfringens to various agencies of the Iraqi Government pursuant to export licences issued by the US Department of Commerce, in quantities set out in the Report and at the time when the US was fully aware of the Iraqi biological warfare programme and that these exports have been fully documented and are also set out in the 23 September 2002 edition of Newsweek and by Senator Robert Byrd in speeches in the Senate on 20th and 26th September 2002; requests the Government to exercise its power to report these sales to the Security Council of the United Nations in the light of its commitment in the April 2002 Green Paper, Strengthening Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention that, those at every level responsible for any breach of international law relating to the use of such weapons will be held personally accountable because compliance with the BTWC is an issue the international community cannot avoid; and urges the Prime Minister either to lodge the necessary complaint with the Security Council of the UN or change its stated policy after an appropriate public announcement and discussion.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 1077open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 24 October 2000
That this House condemns the decision by BBC1 to move its flagship current affairs programme Panorama from Monday to Sunday and reduce the number of editions; expresses its concerns that there is now no serious current affairs programming on BBC1 in weekday peak time; further notes the concentration on soaps, drama and quiz shows in the new BBC1 schedule to the exclusion of serious public service programming; and calls on the BBC's Board of Governors to reverse this decision and return Panorama to weekday peak time on BBC1.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 973open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 13 July 2000
That this House recognises that certain fisheries in European waters are killing, as a result of incidental bycatch, many thousands of dolphins and porpoises; acknowledges that EU legislation requires that bycatch of cetaceans be monitored and addressed; is concerned that despite clear evidence of the incidence of bycatch, particularly in pelagic trawls and gill net fisheries; there has been very little action on either a national or EU level to effectively reduce the mortality of cetaceans in fisheries; understands that bycatch of some species greatly exceeds levels that could be sustained by the populations; therefore calls upon the Government to take immediate action to address known bycatch problems, monitor and manage fisheries effectively to prevent dolphin and porpoise deaths occurring and close problem fisheries where bycatch is not being reduced; and urges the Government to press for the institutional and policy changes necessary to achieve these ends through the forthcoming meeting of the parties to ASCOBANS and the current review of EU Common Fisheries Policy.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 884open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 22 June 2000
That this House, in view of the large numbers of multiple sclerosis sufferers using cannabis to alleviate and treat their condition, because they know its value as confirmed by the BMA report on cannabis, and the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology which recommended that it should be made available to them, knowing that in the light of all this, juries have become increasingly reluctant to sustain prosecutions against the victims of this terrible disease, for possession, use or even growing cannabis, a failure which brings the law into disrepute and undermines the war against hard drugs, as the Runciman Report for the Police Foundation wisely points out; regrets that the Government refuses to hear representations from the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics and its expert advisers on the grounds that decisions must be postponed indefinitely for protracted research; considers that this unjust attempt to postpone the inevitable is an abdication of responsibility, particularly now that NICE is recommending withholding from new MS victims the only current alternative treatment, beta interferon; and recommends the Government to grasp the nettle and to stop putting MS sufferers on the front line of its war against drugs by ending attempts to prosecute victims of multiple sclerosis, or their close relatives, for using, possessing or growing cannabis, for treatment of their condition, when recommended in writing by their doctor.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 806open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 12 June 2000
leave out from 'dissertation' to end and add 'urges Oxford and Cambridge to award its MA degrees on that basis but insists that all those still living who have paid for MAs shall have their payment refunded provided they stop using their title, including the honourable Member for Grimsby who paid ú30 for his MA degree from Oxford University.'.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 809open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 12 June 2000
at end add '; and further urges that those sitting in the Second Chamber should cease to use their titles and that the House of Lords should be renamed the Senate.'.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 737open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 16 May 2000
That this House congratulates the Phoenix Consortium, led by John Towers, for its successful deal with BMW which will maintain volume car production at Longbridge and commends the efforts of Government and the DTI to further and broker this deal; wishes Rover every success in maintaining and expanding a proud British marque which is crucial to the industrial future of the West Midlands; points out that large-scale car production at Longbridge needs to be sustained into the long-term future, but that that depends not only on the efforts of Rover workers and management in boosting productivity, but also on the competitiveness of the exchange rate which translates British costs into foreign currency terms; emphasises that the pound is presently substantially overvalued, particularly against the undervalued euro, and urges the Government to continue what it has now begun by helping and sustaining Rover over the long-term in every possible way, including both alleviating its burdens and, if necessary, by providing, guaranteeing and facilitating the necessary finance to allow Rover to build the long-term better future for its marque, for Longbridge and for the British component industries which depend on it; and points out that Britain cannot allow Rover to fail, which gives government a responsibility to sustain and support it in every possible way.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 738open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 16 May 2000
That this House, recognising that the change from ecu to euro in setting agricultural support intervention and market prices has been deeply damaging to the financial returns of UK agriculture and of farmers generally, because the ecu would have reduced disparities in exchange rates where the euro now heightens them when the pound is overvalued and the euro in decline, a process further compounded because the change to euros was coupled with the reduction of compensation arrangements; and therefore urges Her Majesty's Government to insist on a special compensation scheme for British agriculture, financed by the EU which has caused the problem, so as to offset the consequences for British agriculture of the fall in the value of the euro and the excessive valuation of sterling.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 739open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 16 May 2000
That this House, concerned at the overvaluation of the pound, particularly against the euro, points out that the inevitable consequences of sustained overvaluation are that manufacturing contracts, so that exports suffer, imports rise, investment falls and production is transferred overseas, all processes more like rigor mortis than stability; accepts that, though the Bank of England always errs on the side of deflation by undershooting its inflation target, it cannot manage the exchange rate, which is the responsibility of the Chancellor, and that for him the strategy of Conservative governments in the overvaluation crises of 1981 and 1991 of 'do nothing and hope for the best' is an abdication when the manufacturing base which generates the majority of Britain's exports is suffering so badly; and therefore calls on the Chancellor to review his options for getting the exchange rate down, for persuading the euro zone to end a competitive devaluation against sterling which stimulates their growth, employment and exports but damages British production, and points out that unless the pound comes down substantially the only alternative defence of the manufacturing base is either by direct subsidy, of the type offered to coal or agriculture, or massive cuts in all burdens on producers including tax, NIC, utility and government charges, because doing nothing will lead to more damage to the productive economy, to the manufacturing regions, to employment, exports, economic growth and investment in this country, resulting in a lopsided, uncompetitive economy unable to pay Britain's way in the world.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 677open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 2 May 2000
That this House welcomes the Government's Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Review and the comprehensive coverage of the report with its continuing commitment to fisheries and environmental issues, but is very concerned about the impact of the proposed ú1.5 million cut to Grant in Aid to the Environment Agency in April 2001 for its fisheries work, given that similar cuts have been undertaken throughout the 1990s; notes that further cuts will make it difficult for the Agency to do its fisheries work adequately; and therefore calls upon the Government to reverse its decision and to implement the review Group's recommendation that funds should be significantly increased to 1994 levels in real terms, in order to ensure that the Environment Agency's fisheries work continues vigorously and effectively.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 626open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 10 April 2000
That this House is concerned at the assault on independent journalism represented by the attempt to intimidate The Guardian, The Observer and the reporter Martin Bright, by obtaining orders under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to force them to surrender information relating to contacts with David Shayler, which was either in the public domain or has been supplied to ministers by Mr Shayler himself; notes that the newspapers and Mr Bright have been notified that they could face charges under the Official Secrets Acts relating to contacts with Mr Shayler and that, while a research student, Julie Ann Davies, who had worked on a Channel 4 programme on Mr Shayler, has also been detained and interrogated by Special Branch officers without charges being brought, all to suppress legitimate enquiries in the public interest; further notes that the NUJ Code of Conduct requires that journalists do not divulge confidential sources of information; further notes that charges laid under the Official Secrets Acts against former Sunday Times journalist Tony Geraghty, over a book he had co-written about intelligence operations in Northern Ireland, had to be withdrawn after public protest, while charge against his co-author Nigel Wylde have been dropped; and suggests that ministers should restrain proceedings against journalists and ensure that the orders against The Guardian, The Observer and Mr Bright are withdrawn, and that no charges are laid against them or Ms Davies under the Official Secrets Acts.
Motion· Early Day MotionEDM 557open
United Kingdom · UK Parliament · 22 March 2000
That this House, recognising that decriminalising marijuana possession is on the agenda and likely to become, with the Police Foundation report, an issue which will precipitate emotive public debate urges Her Majesty's Government to take the question of the therapeutic use of marijuana for the treatment of medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Aids, arthritis and the relief of severe pain, out of this debate entirely so as to ensure that sufferers are not forced onto the streets to purchase illegal drugs or face an omnipresent threat of prosecution which puts the sick and dying on the frontline of the war against drugs, but that instead, recognising the opinion of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology that marijuana has therapeutic value as well as the overwhelming volume of evidence about its benefits which is now emerging, should follow the suggestions of the Lords' Select Committee, accelerate the research which will legitimise prescription of marijuana for treatment on a named patient basis, but in the meantime, to prevent the law being brought into disrepute and juries being faced with agonising choices about jailing MS victims suggests that the police be instructed not to prosecute victims of these diseases and conditions who grow or purchase marijuana for their own exclusive use with the written support of their doctor, so that with the issue of medical use taken out of the debate, the wider decisions on marijuana can be taken on a rational and considered basis.