Speeches by Mayer.

“You have been making the case for subsidised buses throughout the evidence you have been giving. Is there a price that you would put on that? What do you think is a reasonable per passenger journey subsidy? These journeys are being paid for by the taxpayer when it comes down to it. Would you want to put a figure on it …”

“On the question of risk, in the new world that we are going towards, with more franchising, enhanced partnerships and enhanced partnerships-plus, we will be in a situation whereby local transport authorities retain the fare book income. That clearly has some possibility for reward, but also the possibility of risk. Fro…”

“How effective do you think the Government’s recent £1 billion funding allocation for bus services will be in improving services across more rural and suburban areas? To bring this in at the same time, a lot of you have spoken about long-term funding settlements. What period do you think long term is and what times…”

“I understand what you are saying about people being there and that long-term funding helps with that. The other point is about what skills those officers have, because we are moving increasingly to a new world, aren’t we? Officers traditionally provided sticking-plaster solutions to services that didn’t work, and never…”

“This question is to anybody. Are there any aspects over which you think central Government should retain control?”

“I somehow doubt it is in a bank vault—Rachel Reeves would have found it. Andrew, you were talking about the potential for franchising using the example of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. When you read the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough business case, actually the overall level of subsidy remains identical throughout …”

“The Government’s new buses Bill says that it aims to “empower local authorities to improve their bus services”. Can you explain what you think empowerment should look like, and how local authorities can be best supported to do that?”

“T7. Eenie and Meenie, two white cats from Stanbridge, were recently shot and killed. Could the Minister outline what discussions she has had with local police to that ensure that these crimes are properly investigated and that the law is upheld?”

“Moving on, the expansion of Heathrow is clearly likely to be very largely funded by the private sector, but what cost do you think there will be to the public purse?”

“Minister, you rattled through quite a lot of statistics in answer to the previous question. When was the last time the Department conducted an in-depth analysis of the value of aviation to the UK economy?”

“The Chancellor said that Heathrow expansion will deliver economic benefits across the country, meeting one of the Government’s four tests, but Frontier Economics analysis shows that the growth will be strongly weighted towards London and the south-east. Have you quantified the benefits that will be delivered for region…”

“Where is this growth predominantly coming from? Is it business passengers? Is it leisure passengers? Is it freight?”

“Would you like to rank them?”

“One of our witnesses on the previous panel told us that business use of air travel has not really seen any net growth since 2006, so do you really believe that there is untapped demand out there, or has the market corrected and taken away some of the leisure flights?”

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“What does my hon. Friend think about online games that are not gambling, but in which, when someone loses a turn, they are immediately presented with something like an online app roulette wheel to win an extra game? Is that normalising gambling?”

“I commend the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) on securing this important debate. I think that most Members and most people are pro-post office. After all, post offices are part of the fabric of our nation. Many Members of my age were brought up on Postman Pat and his black and white cat. It would n…”

“Finally, presumably across the country, there are a lot of similarities. In my constituency we have a canal towpath. It is the Grand Union Canal; it goes all the way up the country. To what extent do you look at how walking and cycling have worked in one place like that, particularly when it is a piece of infrastructur…”

“Obviously, there is very different physical geography in different places. It is flat in East Anglia and hilly in the west country. Does that have a big impact on the interventions that you think need to be taken?”

“How does your approach to increasing cycling and walking differ between, say, cities, market towns and more rural areas?”