Following the recent publication of a Government White Paper on Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, North Oxfordshire MP Tony Baldry has called on Defence Ministers to consolidate MOD Logistics at Bicester and to promote Bicester as a centre of excellence for defence logistics, support and yechnology.

T7. [93028] Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): What can the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills do to support the more than 1,500 community-led work clubs across the country to help young adults to recognise the apprenticeship opportunities that exist, ensure that further education colleges can provide training opportunities for those out of work, and link in the national careers service?

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): The UK is fortunate in having many excellent professional bodies—engineers, architects, surveyors, lawyers and so forth—but often they find it difficult to practise within the European Union because of a host of national barriers to professional practice. In the context of the single market, improving competitiveness and creating jobs, has the Council taken steps to remove some of those national barriers to professions being able to practise throughout the EU?

North Oxfordshire Tony Baldry is campaigning to persuade Planning Ministers to give clear guidance to the Planning Inspectorate that when considering if Cherwell has sufficient provision for its 5-year housing supply that the Planning Inspectorate take into account all existing and valid planning permissions for housing that have been granted, irrespective of whether construction work has begun.

North Oxfordshire MP, Tony Baldry, welcomed a letter published at the weekend in a national newspaper signed by Dr Stephen Richards who leads the Oxfordshire GP Commissioning body together with 50 other GP leaders of clinical commissioning groups across the country.

North Oxfordshire MP Tony Baldry, who has been campaigning for the Government to take action on lead and metal theft, has welcomed the announcement by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, that the Government is going to introduce legislation to tackle the problem by making it a new criminal offence to prohibit cash payments to purchase scrap and by significantly increasing the fines for all offences under the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): I shall make three brief points. First, following on from the comments of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), there is no stronger advocate in the House than I of the need for the UK to have a strong international development programme. As a former Chair of the Select Committee on International Development, I think we all owe a duty of care to the very poorest in the world. However, India, which has a nuclear programme and a space programme, and which spends a considerable amount of its GDP on defence, also has a duty of care and a duty to ensure that the growth of its economy is more fairly shared among its people. We should be careful that we do not find ourselves in a position where the west and Europe are somehow expected to look after India’s poor, while India’s middle and upper classes continue to get wealthier and, on occasions, disregard the poorest in their community.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Given the recent international behaviour of the Iranian Government, is not one of the sad truths that we cannot trust any of the undertakings that they give? We therefore need two things from them—not simply an unconditional return to negotiations but preparedness to give unfettered access to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to go wherever in Iran they want to. That would give them the competence to find out whether Iran was complying with whatever it told the international community it was doing.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): I do not intend to refer to the policy of the Director of Public Prosecutions in cases of encouraging or assisting suicide or to the report of the Commission on Assisted Dying because I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) has been given a debate by the Backbench Business Committee. Hopefully that debate, in which I suspect that many hon. Members present today will seek to catch Mr Speaker’s eye, will give us the opportunity to make our views known on those matters.

As Second Church Estates Commissioner, metal theft is a key issue for Tony Baldry MP. Following his letter to the Home Secretary on the subject at the beginning of January, Tony has now received a response from Lord Henley, Minister responsible for Crime Prevention, a copy of which can be found by clicking on the link provided here: Metal Theft from Lord Henley 100111.