Guildford MP Questions Prime Minister Again

Published on: 16 Mar, 2023
Updated on: 18 Mar, 2023

Angela Richardson listening to the prime minister’s response

By Martin Giles

Guildford’s MP has, for the third time in three months and for the second time in a fortnight, managed to raise a question on her constituency at Prime Minister’s Question Time. She also invited the PM to visit Guildford.

In December, Angela Richardson asked the prime minister to consider a tunnel solution for the A3 at Guildford, a fortnight ago she raised the subject of a national award won by Guildford’s Zero Carbon Community Hub.

See: Award Winning ZERO Carbon Guildford Mentioned in Prime Minister’s Questions

Yesterday the subject was Guildford’s high-tech sector, specifically those in the space industry.

She said: “For decades, the Surrey Research Park in Guildford has been home to our pioneering space sector, with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited and now the Surrey Space Centre Spacecraft Project, which recently received £300,000 to train and recruit dedicated space engineers and create facilities to trial space-related technology.

See: Surrey Space Industry Gets Boost from UK Space Agency

“Will my Right Honourable friend join with me in welcoming this investment? And when his diary allows, will he come and visit Guildford to celebrate successful local innovation and job creation?

The prime minister answering Angela Richardson’s question

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak replied: “I can reassure my honourable friend that we are continuing to invest in the UK’s thriving space sector, including in her constituency, with a new £6,500,000 scheme to support high-impact projects.

Space South Central, as she knows, is already the leading regional space cluster in the UK.

“There’s more investment coming and I look forward to either visiting myself or the Minister of State for Science Innovation and Technology, to make sure that her companies get the recognition they deserve.”

Responses to Guildford MP Questions Prime Minister Again

David Roberts Reply

March 18, 2023 at 11:06 am

This is what in Whitehall is called an “inspired PQ”, in other words a parliamentary question planted by the government party whips or civil servants to take pressure off the Prime Minister at Question Time and make government policy look good. A low-level official in the ministry concerned will have prepared his answer for him in advance.

The promise of a visit, sometime or other, by “either myself” or – much more probably – a very junior minister, George Freeman MP (who?), will hardly set Guildford alight, but oral PQs are about the only time most backbenchers get the PM’s attention and they may convince the more impressionable voter that they are not just lobby-fodder.
David Hicks Reply

March 18, 2023 at 11:36 am

“Managed to raise a question” Seriously?

Are we not aware that these “questions” are merely plants among ineffectual back-benchers to allow the PM to spew some pre-prepared nonsense of the “aren’t we doing soooo well” variety.

It would have been more of an achievement not to have posed the question.
Susan Fox Reply

March 18, 2023 at 5:04 pm

Would be interesting to know how many people in the constituency even watch PMQs. Planted questions, unless they are of real relevance (not to denigrate the Research Park) are a couple of minutes reprieve for whoever is PM.
Graham Cole Reply

March 19, 2023 at 1:58 pm

It is wonderful to see that our MP can ask questions that are totally in line with the Conservative party line. Who’d have thought?

I wonder what our MP’s reputation is for answering questions.

Is there an election coming up?
Stuart Barnes Reply

March 20, 2023 at 2:37 pm

It will be interesting to see if our MP will have the courage to vote against the unsatisfactory deal with the failed EU re Northern Ireland.