Speeches by Smith.

“The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point; I have always been impressed, on a cross-party basis, by the passion with which he speaks for industry in his constituency. My point is that we need to talk to those industries that do not currently have the support. I noticed that the hon. Gentleman bobbed to try and ca…”

“Will the Secretary of State instruct his officials who are putting together construction plans for a new mega-prison adjacent to HMP Grendon to actually listen to local voices, rather than insisting from a distance on traffic management plans that will put thousands of heavy goods vehicles down totally inappropriate ru…”

“In answer to questions from Members on both sides of the House in relation to the proscription of the IRGC, the Minister has rightly said that he wants to see that legislation come forward, but we still do not have a fixed timetable. Given that the EU, the United States, Canada and Australia have proscribed the IRGC, d…”

“T10. Instead of constantly pushing back the closure date for RAF Halton in an era where we need to increase defence capability, will the Minister commit to keeping it open for the long term?”

“In the Prime Minister’s discussions on what he somewhat mildly describes as “areas of difference”, did he raise the discovery of kill switches and hidden comms devices in Chinese-manufactured solar panels? If he did, can he assure us that, rather than politely asking for this practice to stop, he demanded that it stop?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) not just on securing this important debate, but on the powerful way in which she opened it. It can be described only as a sobering debate that requires the Government’s full attention, and that must …”

“T5. On Friday, I met a constituent who has been told that she is losing all her child maintenance payments because her ex-husband simply told the Child Maintenance Service that he had moved abroad, which my constituent knows is entirely false. What steps will the Government take to verify claims from people trying to g…”

“Thames Valley is already a large police force, where our superb police officers and staff struggle to balance resources effectively, even with local command units now across rural areas like my own and the bigger cities, such as Oxford and Milton Keynes. Given that it is such a large force—and that right now it finds i…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing this important debate. It is not the first time that I have heard her make the case for Aldridge station, which she does with considerable force. She has been …”

“Does the Secretary of State accept that cancelling an £18-million, purpose-built, 152-place SEND school in Buckinghamshire, due to open in 2028, and replacing it with just £8 million over three years will inevitably increase reliance on high-cost independent placements, worsen outcomes for children with the most acute …”

“This morning I met Roly May, the landlord of the Russell Arms pub in Butlers Cross. Government Members might recognise it: it is the closest pub to Chequers, where they can drown their sorrows after an audience with the Prime Minister. The pub has seen as £17,500 business rate increase. I have heard similar horror stor…”

“The Minister has been consistent this morning both in his defence of the indefensible and in avoiding putting a price on this scheme. He did not answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson), who asked whether the Government dispute the £1.8 billion figure from the OBR. If h…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. She is absolutely right and I wish her a speedy recovery from her own horse-related incident. What might seem a minor lapse in judgment from behind the wheel has serious and sometimes devastating consequences for riders and horses, given that the rider has limited…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Too often when we talk about rural activities, too many dismiss them as relics of a bygone age. Those of us who represent rural constituencies know that nothing could be further from the truth. Horse riding remains a vital living part of rural life, deeply emb…”

“The Minister said in her statement that she did not want to look the other way, but in reality this Government are looking the other way when it comes to rural communities. I listened carefully to the answers she gave to my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), but the fact is that, with the exception …”

“If the Minister is serious about, in his words, “doubling down” on brownfield first, will he look again at the Campaign to Protect Rural England report, which was put together with academic rigour, which identified enough land in England alone for 1.4 million homes on brownfield sites? If he looks again at that serious…”

“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, but it is curious to see what is and is not in the Red Book from the Budget we just had. Page 88 shows in intricate detail just how big the welfare budget will get as a result of the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap, but there is no such analysis anywhere i…”

“2. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of Exchequer on meeting the NATO target of 5% of GDP on defence expenditure.”

“T5. Given that Germany has lifted its partial arms embargo on Israel, why do the UK Government persist with restrictions on defence export licences to our ally?”

“As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for securing this debate on an issue that matters greatly: ensuring that transport, in this case on the railways, effectively serves rural communities. It is part…”