Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Chris Grayling

In an ideal world, no one should get something for nothing.

I personally always took the view that, if you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it's a question of somebody who's doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn't come into their own home.

We've got a very poor record on unnecessary red tape; extra cost to business; people being asked to do things they don't need to; over the top regulation, misinterpreted regulation, poor guidelines.

I don't think all the cycle lanes in London have been designed as well as they should have been.

It is already tough to buy a house. But if we are bringing a population the size of Newcastle upon Tyne into the country every single year, if we cannot set limits on the number of people that come and work in Britain, then simple maths says it is going to be even more difficult to get on to the housing ladder.

The railways should be run in the best interest of passengers and, overall, taxpayer's money should be spent improving the network, not subsiding it.

Motorists in London have got to be immensely careful of cyclists. At the same time, cyclists in London are too often unwilling to obey the road signs. I've seen regular examples of people who just bolt through red lights.

Visit any of the fastest growing parts of the world and you will find investment in infrastructure.

I'm a lightning rod for the anti-Brexit brigade.

Turkey has a customs union with the E.U. - it still means there are checks on the border between Turkey and the E.U.

Whatever your race, colour or creed in London, you still want your children to get on the housing ladder. You still want spaces in hospitals or GP surgeries, you want school places and you want space on the trains in the mornings.

Introducing ID cards isn't a matter of great national security importance.

You chastise children when they are bad, as my parents did me. I'm not opposed to smacking. It is to be used occasionally.

Back in the late 1980s I was programme editor of Channel Four's Business Daily. Day after day we broadcast the latest news, views and analysis for the City in a period when its visibility was as high as it has ever been.

I'm not afraid of making big and sometimes unpopular calls if they're the right thing to do.

We must give individuals the opportunity to show what they are capable of.

I want prisons to be spartan, but humane, a place people don't have a particular desire to come back to.

We cannot afford to let Brexit slip away - the political price, the reputational damage to the country is too great.

Take a walk around many of our cities and you will find areas of deprivation, high worklessness and educational failure only yards from areas of prosperity and employment.

Few escape our most deprived estates. Few young people with potential escape difficult upbringings. Fewer cross the social divides.

Leaving school or college and heading out into the world of work is never easy, even in good times. It's a huge transition as well as a practical challenge.

The problems of gang crime you find in some parts of the north are little different to the problems you find on the streets of south London.

The gang culture - tragically - has for some young people become the only source of stability in their lives.

We need to curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights in the U.K.

The arrival of DNA testing has brought new dimensions to the investigation of crime. It has brought resolution to old cases where past investigators were unable to uncover the truth. It has brought justice in new cases where once the truth might never have been known.

We're ending the situation where any old thug can turn up and work as a bailiff.

A something-for-nothing culture does no one any favours. It makes those who are doing the right thing cynical.

People are innocent until they are proven guilty, and we will make sure that stays the case.

The root causes of the gang culture lie right across the policy spectrum - but they can all be found in the same areas geographically: worklessness; family breakdown; educational failure and addiction.

Family breakdown is blighting the lives of far too many children.

It's not good enough to announce 'I know my rights' if you aren't prepared to accept that you have responsibilities to society and your fellow citizens as well. And if people don't live up to those responsibilities to our society, they will not be able to hide behind their rights.

We are concerned about benefit tourism.

Are we really going to accept the situation where the government of Lithuania has more power over our trading relationship with the Commonwealth than our government does? That is the reality of the customs union.

People who end up in our prisons tend to come from the most difficult backgrounds. They did not have the parental support as they grew up, as many of us enjoyed, and they struggle when they leave prison.

One thing really important is that we set out an agenda of compassionate Conservativism. That's what I've been trying to do in the Justice Department.

University research is crucial to our future as a nation.

Government is about priorities.

If we have unlimited migration in perpetuity, the pressure that will put on the lives of those in and around London and the South-East, in terms of housing and pressure on public services, will be something that all of us come to understand, in my view, is simply not copable with.

We need a proper balance between rights and responsibilities in our laws.

I'm not suggesting we suddenly become a jingoistic, closed-door society that erects barricades at Dover. That would not be in the interests of London. But we can't, in my view, go on for ever accepting an unlimited number of people.

To survive in the future, we will need our economy to be dynamic, entrepreneurial, innovative and flexible.

Generational disinterest in education means that too many young children lack the push from their parents in early years which can make the difference between success and failure in schools.

Universities which deliver high quality research and innovation will be an essential part of that future.

Judicial review has developed since the 1970s as a way for individuals to challenge decisions taken by the State.

Social immobility is driven by family background, instability in childhood and often by parents who don't know how to give children the right start in life.

Whether it is kids carrying knives because they are in gangs or kids carrying knives because they are afraid of gangs, it is the gang culture that underpins the problem.

We need to scrap the Human Rights Act and need a balance between rights and responsibilities.

I do not believe that as a country we are completely ill-prepared for no-deal Brexit. It is not the optimal solution it is not the best outcome for Britain, we will do much better than people expect.

We are world leaders in open and transparent government.

A short distance away from thriving city centres in virtually all of our cities, you will find areas of endemic worklessness, alienation, crime and antisocial behaviour.

We remain fully committed to introducing a cap on social care costs.

We cannot do anything that exposes the country to the risk of Jeremy Corbyn.

The growth of cycling is a good thing. But good cycling is responsible cycling.

This is not rocket science. If you mentor and support people when they leave prison they're less likely to reoffend.

Some bailiffs were tacking on extra charges left, right and centre - a fee for every letter they sent, extra fees for visiting your house, for clamping your car, seizing it, towing it and selling it. It all stacked up and people in debt had no choice but to pay. We have put an end to this.

The truth is that those who join gangs - more often than not they are young men in their later teens - often do come from the most difficult family backgrounds, from an environment where they feel neglected and unwanted. Gang membership can bring a perverse sense of belonging which they may not have ever got at home.

We need to be self-confident, ambitious, and relentlessly internationalist in our outlook.

No longer can a bailiff come crashing through someone's door in the dead of night. We have banned them from visiting between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M.

It was never the case that prisoners were simply allowed unlimited parcels - books or otherwise... It would be a logistical impossibility to search them all, and they would provide an easy route for illegal materials.

You can't be allowed to take away the rights of others, and then use your own rights to avoid facing the consequences.