Speeches by Chope.

“On that point, does my right hon. Friend accept that one of the consequences of the lack of transparency has been a public distrust of vaccines, which is spreading rapidly? As a consequence, for example, there is less take-up of MMR vaccines than there should be and used to be, and that is because of a lack of trust in…”

“My right hon. Friend hits on an important point. What action did the MHRA take to apologise for or explain its failure to give adequate and timely warnings to potential patients?”

“I shall try to be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I follow the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) by referring to a quote from Hayek’s book, “The Road to Serfdom”. I do not claim credit for identifying it myself; it was quoted in the other place by Lord Hannan of Kingsclere on 15 January in the…”

“The Minister, quite rightly, expresses sympathy for the victims of covid-19, which is something we all share, but he has not mentioned anything about the victims of covid-19 vaccines, of whom there are thousands. We know that those people did the right thing and took the vaccines, but they were not warned of the risks.…”

“Secretary of State, in your 2008 Act you put a lot of emphasis on the need for adaptation and for building resilience measures. You have not mentioned that in your opening remarks, and you will know that the Climate Change Committee is extremely critical of the lack of progress on that front. Bearing in mind that the E…”

“If the Government were to decide that investing in adaptation and resilience measures should take priority over some of the capital programmes in your budget, would you go along with that, on the basis that adaptation and resilience are of much greater significance for the ordinary people—you mentioned working people—t…”

“Greater priority should be given to investment in adaptation and resilience, even if it means having to cut back on some of your own ambitions within your own Department.”

“I am not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that you should be willing as a member of the Government to insist that greater priority should be given to investment—”

“In the Netherlands in 1953, some 2,000 people were killed as a result of flooding. We have similar problems now in the United States—masses of people being killed as a result of the consequences of climate change. Are you going to stand there and say that this Government are going to ignore the priorities that have bee…”

“But you are ducking the question about adaptation and resilience. We used to be global leaders in adaptation and resilience, and the Climate Change Committee says we have fallen behind on that. You are not prepared, it seems, to say publicly that you believe that adaptation and building resilience are and should be top…”

“Let me give a specific example. The Environment Agency published a report at the end of December saying that as a result of climate change, one in eight properties in England is going to be in danger of being flooded by the middle of this century. The cost of dealing with that, preventing it and adapting to meet that t…”

“Thank you for highlighting the importance of adaptation and resilience, which are among your statutory responsibilities. When it comes to public investment to meet those objectives, how do you evaluate the relative benefits of taxpayer-funded investment in adaptation and resilience measures compared with taxpayer inves…”

“Could you let us have a note on that, because I had not realised that that was one of the excuses for not delivering on your goals under the 2008 Act?”

“In the meantime, we don’t have to wait until October, do we, for you to get the Government to respond to the concerns that you have articulately expressed here?”

“On a matter of fact, I thought that DESNZ was the Department that had responsibility for the Climate Change Committee. If it is the Department to which the Climate Change Committee reports, and DESNZ is basically their sponsor Department, surely we as a Committee, which is responding to that and holding that Department…”

“Why is that?”

“I have a brief question. I am sorry that I was not here at the beginning; I have been at the Procedure Committee. Nuclear is described by the Government as clean power. Almost all the evidence that you have been giving today has been about the waste, the contamination and the need for cleaning up as a result of nuclear…”

“Would you describe, for example, nuclear as cleaner than gas?”

“Why would you say that?”

“But your answer is based on the premise that CO₂ emissions are innately dirty.”