I believe that everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law, and that the lifelong commitment people make to each other when they make their marriage vows means something profound to them, and benefits society as a whole. I believe that these vows have great significance to the...

The terms 'great' or 'iconic' are too readily used in our modern celebrity culture, but Margaret Thatcher was a great and will remain an icon of the second half the 20th Century. Her place in history is secured by her position as Britain's first woman prime minister, and her legacy...

Beer drinkers may raise a glass to the Chancellor tonight, and drivers filling their cars with petrol will be pleased to hear that there will be no further increase in fuel duty, but people aspiring to become home owners are the real winners of this year's budget statement.

The...

I will be supporting the Same Sex Marriage Bill because I believe in a society where people have freedom of religious expression, but also one where outside of religion people are equal in the eyes of the law. But as an MP of Roman Catholic faith, I have been drawn...

To govern is to choose and in his autumn statement today setting our the governments tax and spending priorities, it's clear that George Osborne has not only fixed his economic strategy, but set in train the Conservative Party's approach to the 2015 general election.

The big debate now remains over...

Lord Leveson's report is right to focus on the failings of press regulation, but is wrong to believe that the government's media regulator Ofcom should oversee a new self regulation model. A free press is vital to a free society and a properly functioning democracy. Once statutory regulation of the...

It was alleged on Wednesday morning by the London Metro newspaper that I told an audience of young people in a debate at Channel 4's offices that they should busk to raise money to use public transport, leave school at 16 and work for less than the minimum wage. No...

The best economies are the ones that produce the best ideas and for the UK to remain a successful and creative economy it has to be a centre for ideas, risk taking and innovation. The role for government should be to create the conditions which make the best and most...

Looking back at the publication of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee's report on News International and Phone-Hacking I can't help thinking of a famous man of Australian birth, well known in the UK media and a former favourite of Margaret Thatcher. Yes, Rolf Harris would often ask...

Today the Chancellor, George Osborne used his Budget speech to set out his 'industrial ambition' that Britain becomes Europe's major technology hub. We have seen this in evidence already with the government's support for 'Tech City' in East London, where last night Google opened their new 'Campus' centre to provide...

The expectation is that on Wednesday this week George Osborne's budget speech will set out further measures for the government to support growth and investment in the economy.

Funds for new initiatives are going to be limited and that's why the Chancellor should look to sectors were an adjustment to...

A radical new approach is needed to sort out the finances of football and stamp out potential abuse from allowing in investors who are not fit to be part of our game. These ideas are the driving force behind the Football Financial Transparency Bill I introduced to the House of...

Last July Rebekah Brooks told her assembled staff that "worse revelations are yet to come and you will understand in a year why we closed News Of The World". We haven't had to wait a year and the evidence from the Surrey Police published today by our House of Commons...

As world football looks to clean up its act, we may soon find out whether Sepp Blatter is Eliot Ness or Al Capone. Is he serious about sorting the mess out, or is he only interested in protecting his own?

Former FIFA Vice President Jack Warner has now alleged that...

Gemeinschaft, translated from German as meaning a sense of community in which individuals are oriented to the large association as much as, if not more than, to their own self interest. It is this desire to maintain the eurozone as a large group of European nations which has weakened and...

The question senior media executives should have asked themselves as they listened to the shocking evidence from the family of Milly Dowler to the Leveson inquiry yesterday, was not just how did it come to this, but, why didn't we act sooner?

The elephant in the room at the inquiry...

FIFA President Sepp Blatter's recent comments that there is no racism in football, and that any evidence to the contrary can be settled and forgotten with a simple handshake, provide further examples of how out to touch he is.

He is no longer able to lead football's world governing...

Spying on lawyers, paying police officers, hacking phones, buying silence; as we listened to the litany of charges against News Corporation I think James Murdoch had also come to our parliamentary select committee to deliver his own message straight from the script of The Godfather. Channelling Michael Corleone [from early...