Speeches by George.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) on an excellent and eloquent speech, which covered all the issues. I also thank the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) for contributing very tellingly. My bac…”

“Well, I suppose I should—no, I will not. One stands on the shoulders of giants, and Colin Breed did a tremendous amount of work from 1997 to 2001. He produced an excellent report called “Checking out the Supermarkets”, which laid a lot of the groundwork for the Grocery Market Action Group. Albert Owen, David Drew and o…”

“I very warmly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement. Although he perhaps cannot use the language I am about to use, I hope that when the Prime Minister and he meet Putin’s appeaser in the White House later this week, he will remind him that if we have a special relationship—and the Foreign Secretary keeps referring…”

“Is it all lip service?”

“I have two areas of questioning. The first was in relation to what you thought good community health services look like, but, following the excellent first panel and what you have said already, we can see the component parts and we can probably collate that ourselves, if you do not mind. We are also running slightly be…”

“I imagine that there is a concern among providers that it will result in raised and unfulfilled expectations and more resource. Surely there must be examples that one can identify where involving users has resulted in more resource efficiency.”

“It is worrying that no one is jumping at the opportunity to tell us, “Yes, there is this example.” That is worrying.”

“Yes, you do not need to do it now, but certainly point us in the direction of any location where we could identify a place where co-production has really worked and has resulted in outcomes that we can be proud of.”

“It would be really useful if any of you could point us to any locations.”

“If we as a Committee wanted to go and look at a location where co-production has been handled well, sincerely and with meaning, and has resulted in satisfactory outcome, where would we go? Can you point us to anywhere?”

“The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful point, which I strongly endorse. Of course, he can go further, because we are well aware that the new US Administration are now recommending the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. On top of the UK Government making clear their abhorrence of all of the actions that the hon. Gentleman …”

“The hon. Gentleman is making a very thoughtful contribution. He is clearly looking at ways in which the policy can be amended to make it more palatable to the farming community. That may be the reality that we are looking at, rather than getting rid of it altogether. Does he therefore agree that we should look at chang…”

“1. What steps he is taking to promote biodiversity recovery.”

“I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted nations on this planet. The “State of Nature Report 2023” indicated that up to one in six UK species faces the risk of extinction. The Minister’s reply is very encouraging, but just last week the Chancellor, promoting the Government’…”

“Anita, when you commented earlier you said that the current situation is having appallingly low wages so that everyone else can have a good life. I want to address the cold health economics, not the soft argumentation that justifies why we should pay care workers more. If, for the sake of argument, we were to model an …”

“What proportion of providers are not covering the travel time? Do you know? Are there any figures on that?”

“That is really helpful. Finally, on the disaggregation of residential and domiciliary care, what has happened, in view of what you just described, about care workers’ conditions of employment with regard to travel time and travel recompense, and having sufficient time to care when they get to a home? This has always be…”

“That would be helpful. I am sure that all MPs have met the proprietors of care homes or domiciliary services, when there was a recent increase in the minimum wage, and been told bluntly without any shame that that will be a challenge, and that it is the biggest problem they currently face in maintaining the viability o…”

“Thank you.”

“The US has the most substantial interest in Diego Garcia, which is the fulcrum of what we are discussing today. Although I understand that the Minister cannot disclose the details of the compensatory package that is being negotiated, is it reasonable to assume that the US will be making a substantial contribution to th…”