Speeches by Norris.

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Michael Payne) for securing the debate, and for raising both the economic challenges and the opportunities faced by our communities in the east midlands. He and I have been friends for a long time and have talked about these issues a great deal, as members of our …”

“I very much do agree. It should be a point of great pride—and, again, it is one of our huge assets—that we have the biggest pure freight airport in the country. Frankly, our geographical location means that all journeys involving the transport of goods tend to come through our region at some point, but with the airport…”

“I do not think we could litigate in the remaining 22 minutes whether Long Eaton is in Nottingham or Derby. My hon. Friend is perhaps better qualified than me to say so—but when I go to see him, I see a lot of Forest shirts. He is right to highlight the work of his council. It has not had very long in power, but it has …”

“My hon. Friend adds a very thoughtful and well-judged counterweight to my love letter to Nottingham city centre on behalf of Derby city centre. Perhaps she knew it was just too far beyond me to overcome our traditional rivalry, but she did so better than I could have done. Derby has some very exciting days ahead becaus…”

“Our colleagues will have heard a lot from us about the primacy of growth. It is the Government’s firmest belief that economic growth should reach all communities and drive a real rise in living standards throughout the country, particularly in areas that have been left behind following years of declining investment. I …”

“I have been there. It is horrible in opposition. It gets to the point where, a couple of hours before orals, someone tells you that have to ask the clip question on council tax. All I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that I know that the people of our country are smart enough to decide which of us they would rather.”

“We are changing the way in which local growth is done in this country, exactly for that reason. The previous Government wanted to subject communities to beauty parades for short-term funding, according to criteria decided by them. Our funding plans, which will come forward at the spending review, will be long-term, all…”

“We are giving local leaders the tools they need to deliver growth for their areas by devolving power and money from central Government to local communities. We are investing in programmes that drive growth, and we will set out our refreshed vision for local growth funding at the multi-year spending review.”

“First, I think it reflects well and probably speaks to the improvements made within LFB that that is, from the top, what they want. My experience has been that they have invited transparency at every turn. I wish we saw more of that. It is a good way of building confidence in the future that when changes have to be mad…”

“I would not say that my personal view would be that it should be a 50:50 split, because the size is different and the estate is different, and we should always match up against risk. I will confess that I am still a little bit in the foothills of this, but having looked at it, I think that a third of the resources of t…”

“I would want form to follow function, such as on whether deadlines were not being met—well, it is quite hard to believe that statutory deadlines would not be met. But if there were concerns raised about quality, that sort of thing would tell you whether the resourcing was not right, but I would wait to see that before …”

“Yes. We are having those conversations in great detail. Prior to the machinery of government change, I already had responsibility for local resilience, so that linked to those local resilience forums across the country. There is a broader national resilience review in the context of the findings of this inquiry and in …”

“I do not think that it is necessarily a new burden; it is as much about wiring the system up much better. I know it from my own town and my own city that these organisations are doing this anyway. There just seems to be that gap with statutory services that disappear immediately the moment there is a problem. Outside o…”

“To give you an assurance, Mr Powell, we are very interested in RBKC and its process, as I know you and members of the council are. The Deputy Prime Minister has met with the leader, as have I. I meet with the leader monthly; I am meeting them again on Thursday, to see progress. RBKC were not particularly referenced in …”

“At the moment, building control is keeping its head above water. I am more worried about down the line. We need to ensure that we are growing and developing the workforce, and that we have an environment where that practice that is as safe as possible. That is what I am particularly motivated by.”

“I read very closely what Edward Daffarn said in the previous session. He recognised some of the progress that had been made with the council, but the gap is exactly as you characterise it. I do not think you can decouple it from the conversation we had at the very start about quality and culture by those social housing…”

“The finances of resilience is one of those really interesting and never-talked-about issues. If we interrogated Hansard, I suspect this might be the first conversation in quite a while on this point. For very small amounts of money, we do very big things in this country. It is not just local authorities. It is the comm…”

“There is for the trailblazer areas. But at the moment, that is where it stops.”

“That is such a great question—it is the important question of the day. We are now getting to the point where mayoral authorities in many parts of the country have been well established over a long period of time. Year on year—every May—more come on stream. We are very shortly going to get to the point where the entiret…”

“I can only speak for my own views on this. You want to get it right, first of all. This is a really important thing that people are putting a lot of stock into. You have to find the balance, it seems to me, between what the Committee is doing here, what Parliament will do all day every day, the relationship between the…”