28/01/2026 | 11:13:17 Mr Vice President, I support what my colleague Baroness Thérèse COFFEY says on votes at 16. Now, the report is right to stress the importance of young people understanding democratic institutions. We all agree. It does not sufficiently distinguish between neutral civil education, the responsibility of the state and its educational partners, and normative political instruction. The responsibility of non-state political actors in a free society. This distinction, that is crucial if trust in... 27/01/2026 | 18:08:03 Russian aggression is absolutely appalling, and, of course, we must stand up to it, and there could be no surrender. I don't think we should be depressed about the outcome of this appalling act of aggression by Mr Vladimir PUTIN. He may be a tyrant, but he's not really a very effective war-making tyrant. In the four years of this war, he's marched, let's say, 30 miles. In that time, Josef STALIN marched all the way from the Volga to Berlin. So there is hope. We must pile pressure on Russia... 26/01/2026 | 16:23:41 Madam President, The Convention of Human Rights, as the Minister from Germany has reminded us, is, in its inception, a very good document. And I would remind delegates here that it was the leader of the Conservative Party, Winston CHURCHILL, who helped draft it. And this body is at its best when it fights tyranny. For instance, what Russia is attempting to do in Ukraine. And the Convention, of course, was created to fight the evils of fascism and communism. But I have to tell you that it is... 01/10/2025 | 11:49:01 Mr President, This body is only powerful and only has real point when we're completely united. And I think in that sense, this debate now is a high point of our week. Yesterday evening, we had a debate on Hungary; we were divided. I'm not sure what that will achieve. But today – I'm a conservative – I've agreed with every single word of every single speech that has been made so far. I've agreed with the very moving and powerful speech made by Mr Conor MURPHY right at the beginning of this... 30/09/2025 | 19:04:18 Well, we all know what this is about. There's an election coming up and this is a ridiculous attempt to try and influence the election. But of course, the Hungarian people are much, far too robust to take note of this kind of nonsense. We know what's going on here. The left hate Mr Viktor ORBAN with an absolute passion because he's a winner. Even the socialist rapporteur who introduced this report admitted that Fidesz wins, wins fair and square. But they hate him, of course, because he's a... 26/06/2025 | 11:43:13 Mr President, I acknowledge the report's intention to improve co-operation amongst public and private actors involved in migration management. Co-operation is valuable, but it cannot replace firm enforcement. The report underplays the need for robust measures to deter illegal crossings and disrupt smuggling networks. There is a noticeable lack of focus on deterrence strategies. Without clear intentions to discourage dangerous journeys, more lives will be lost and put at risk in the Channel... 26/06/2025 | 10:26:56 Madam President, I'm a sailor. I know the English Channel well. It's very dangerous. We've always had a precious principle, sailors, in international law for centuries, that if somebody is in distress at sea, you pick them up. I support that. But because we've been very weak over this issue, people are dying every year because they're attempting to cross the Channel. And this report is not the answer. If this report was adopted, more and more people would make these hugely dangerous journeys... 25/06/2025 | 16:36:58 Mister President, I've been a friend of Israel for the whole time I've been in parliament for 43 years, and I fully support the right of Israel to defend itself. I condemn, utterly, Hamas and all their actions. I support the actions of the United States and Israel over the last 10 days. But I just want to be balanced in this. Just because you are a friend of Israel doesn't also mean that you can't be a friend of Palestine. Just because you support the human rights of Israelis doesn't mean... 24/06/2025 | 17:18:58 Mister President, I only have two minutes, and even if I had two hours, that would not be enough to articulate the appalling crimes that the Russian Federation has committed. Not just its original invasion, but every breach of what we call the Geneva Convention. The brutal treatment of prisoners, the kidnapping of children, the bombing of innocent civilians. But I'm perhaps going to make myself a bit unpopular in this Assembly by not just condemning Russia, which I do unequivocally, like... 10/04/2025 | 10:20:01 Mister President, we only have one planet. We all agree it's worth protecting, for instance, from illegal logging and fishing. We are custodians of the natural world, not its masters. But net zero by an arbitrary date is a fantasy which has been adopted as a dramatic tenet of faith by our political class and is now being weaponised in the criminal law. G.K. Chesterton once said that when people cease to believe in God, they do not believe in nothing, but become capable of believing in...