Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): I know from personal experience that the post of UK Fisheries Minster is a lonely one and I congratulate my hon. Friend on what he has managed to achieve. This ludicrous system whereby decisions are taken year on year on the basis of sleep deprivation simply has to stop. Will he give the House a written statement in the new year on how he sees the reform of the common fisheries policy moving forward? This year two maritime nations—Denmark and Cyprus—will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union, so surely there is an opportunity to move to regional fisheries management during their year.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Small businesses in Banbury, Bicester and elsewhere will welcome the enhancement of competition in high-street banking and the fact that it will be easier for them to move accounts. Will my right hon. Friend explain, however, why it is going to take until September 2013 for these changes to be implemented? If the banks had the will, surely they could implement those changes much more speedily.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): My hon. Friend and I are privileged to represent Oxford constituencies, and Oxford county council is managing to keep all 43 public libraries open notwithstanding a difficult financial settlement. Is not the reasonable inference that some local authorities have elected to make deep cuts in front-line services simply to make a political point and that it is perfectly possible, if local authorities put their minds to it, to keep libraries open?

Recently, Tony Baldry MP, the Member of Parliament for Banbury, visited Thailand & Burma and set the following letter to the Chairman on his return.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): All Government Members would acknowledge the chaotic situation that my hon. Friend inherited. One difficulty of that inheritance is the number of failed asylum seekers who were left by the previous Government and who are still here. I cannot believe that I am alone among colleagues in what I find when I investigate the immigration status of the people who come to see me. I discover that they have been told that they have exhausted all their remedies and have been advised to leave. Of course, they have no intention of doing so because they wish to remain in the UK and know that if they manage to remain here for a long time, there is always a chance that the courts will give them some right to remain here under human rights legislation. Therefore, this is a question not just of stopping the routes for people coming in, but of dealing with failed asylum seekers who have no right to be within the jurisdiction.

Following the Durban Climate Change conference earlier this month, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change made a statement to the House on 12 December during which Tony Baldry congratulated him on the progress that was made at the conference.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): The shadow Minister said that the regulation did not work and the regulator did not do anything sufficiently. Surely the reason for that was because the regulator was put under sustained and unacceptable political pressure by two former Prime Ministers and by the current shadow Chancellor. Will my hon. Friend confirm to the House that this Government, and the Treasury under the stewardship of this Chancellor, would not put such pressure on regulators and that the constitutional convention as to how a Government should work with regulators will be properly observed?

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): My right hon. Friend is the first UK Minister to have visited Burma for a very long time. Will he please take this opportunity to update the House on the outcome of that visit, particularly on his discussions with Aung San Suu Kyi?

Tony Baldry: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the number of people in the United Kingdom who have no right to be within the jurisdiction. [85208]

As joint co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Carers, North Oxfordshire MP Tony Baldry has submitted evidence to the Government’s engagement exercise on the future of social care.