Speeches by George.

“Until that happens, and until our own workers are prepared to take on these jobs—fundamentally, we are talking about jobs involving minimum wage and very hard work, in both social care and care work—we will still be dependent on migrant workers. What are you saying to the Home Secretary to make sure that that supply is…”

“Although it may seem a little tangential, will the scope of the investigation include the fact that hundreds of thousands of people who have worked in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years and who have paid their taxes are unable to influence the outcome of elections because they have an EU passport, yet hundreds of thou…”

“The Minister must accept that house building targets are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. House building targets are based on a naive delusion that private developers will collude with Government in driving down the price of their final product, which surely cannot be the case. Cornwall is not a nimby locat…”

“I strongly endorse the Secretary of State’s emphasis on the importance of vaccination, not least to protect the resilience of frontline NHS staff and face down the anti-vaxxers and vaccine-hesitant. Nevertheless, will he reflect carefully on his emphasis on the shift from hospital to community at this time, given that …”

“Further to the excellent campaigning and question by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) and the brilliant question from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray), will the Minister say a bit more about preventing or at least reducing repeat offending? Specifically, will the …”

“I congratulate the hon. Member on the way he is articulating the case for Fairtrade. It is important that it is robust and traceable and has strong integrity, but if we are to scale up, should we not also integrate international Fairtrade standards into the Groceries Code Adjudicator, which is part of UK legislation? A…”

“I am dreadfully sorry to ask, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that those who are campaigning for Fairtrade believe that it can succeed properly only if this Government lead the way with their official development assistance budget, which has been severely cut? Does he agree that to achieve the aims that we all want to …”

“I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the manner in which he has been handling the issue. However, I want to ask him about the way he summarised the position at the end of his statement. He presented it as a choice between striking and having more jobs and the other parts of the offer. I seek clarity on the …”

“I rise to present a petition on behalf of the people of the Penzance area, 3,000 of whom have already signed a public version to oppose the closure of the Lloyds bank, which is located in the iconic market house in the centre of Market Jew Street. The decision has been taken without any local consultation whatsoever. T…”

“Following up on that point, I want to look at the barriers that older people find when engaging in any ageing-well physical activity. There is a lot of two-dimensional thinking that older people need to get fit, meaning leisure centres, gyms, dumbbells, treadmills, putting on Lycra and perhaps changing their whole life…”

“Actually, last weekend we squelched. There are about 10 different groups in that club, from walk-run up to Olympic. Everyone praises each other and they all get along fine. There is no public money; there is no state intervention. A lot of them are engaged in park runs. There is a big community out there of activity in…”

“Members’ facilities, did you say?”

“It seems to me that it is about the bridge between ill health and the GP surgery and wherever else that presents itself, and the variety—not just gyms, but exactly what Charlotte was saying. How do you get over that bridge? You are only mentioning the link workers; there is no other methodology at the moment.”

“The question is this: is there a role for the voluntary sector? Why is the state not utilising that enormous wealth of activity and trying to encourage more of it, rather than the more conventional methods that seem to be pursued by many organisations?”

“In terms of ensuring that there is enough provision out there, we are looking at barriers. How much need is there? How do you bridge the gap between what is needed and how we get people into the physical activity?”

“One example of tailored support to SMEs is in Scotland’s Reformulation for Health programme; would you say that has been a success?”

“Perhaps it was me; it is on the record anyway.”

“My question was, can the Government have a constructive role in this area? Your answer was yes, and then you followed that with a lengthy no, so I do not quite understand. I think actually you are saying no, but you are presenting a façade of yes, so really you do not think that the Government have any role in contribu…”

“So helping them in a competitive sense?”

“What, specifically, do you think has been the success? And what do you think in terms of its outcome for the health of the population, rather than just reformulation of the food?”