Speeches by Cross.

“12. What plans she has to increase community involvement in the planning process.”

“Those of us who advocate for the North sea oil and gas sector are not climate change deniers. We are realists who understand that we will need oil and gas for years to come; that we would be replacing our domestic supply with imports that have four times the carbon intensity; that China emits in 10 days what we emit in…”

“I am sure the Minister agrees it is vital that local residents’ concerns are properly listened to, especially on major planning decisions. Having listened to many constituents in places such as New Deer, Kintore and Rothienorman who are facing huge amounts of energy infrastructure, I tabled an amendment to the Planning…”

“The spending review came off the back of last year’s autumn Budget, which hit businesses in my constituency in north-east Scotland very hard, whether it was family businesses and farms with the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief, or the extension of and increase in the energy profits l…”

“I am grateful to the hon. Member for Watford (Matt Turmaine) for bringing forward this private Member’s Bill, alongside the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger), and I am pleased to confirm that the Conservative party supports the measure. It is legislation that the previous Conservative Government supported, and we…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course, we should all strive for deregulation, and would like more of it all the time. That is probably a bit too much to take on within the very small confines of this private Member’s Bill, but it is certainly something we should strive for, in order to help businesses …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention. This is clearly an area that he is very passionate about. If these proposals progress, I am sure that he will be able to feed into them well. We have been hearing about the affirmative procedure versus the negative procedure. The affirmative procedure has proven particularly…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“I thank the hon. Member so much for giving way so gladly. I have visited universities recently, too, and they also point to the real-terms cut in funding from the Scottish Government having a real impact on their budgets. In the interests of fairness, will he reflect on that too?”

“The hon. Gentleman talks about ideological blocks. The oil and gas sector, as he well knows, is crucial to Scotland, especially to the north-east of Scotland. Allowing it to flourish and to be supported into the future will have just as much of an economic benefit. Will he reflect on that and perhaps have a word with h…”

“Q9. This time a year ago, farmers and many others across the country were about to go to the polls, perhaps to vote Labour for the first time because they took the Prime Minister at his word that he and his party would never leave farmers in the background again. Within weeks, however, that trust had been completely sh…”

“I am grateful to the Minister for his speech and for bringing this important and very necessary measure to the House. I also thank him for the briefing I was provided with earlier today. Let us be clear what these measures are and are not about. Do we support free speech? Yes. Do we support the right to protest? Yes. D…”

“The right to protest is a hugely important part of our democracy. We support the right to protest and the right to free speech. We do not support a right to commit criminal damage or to intimidate or threaten the public, but that is exactly what these groups are doing and why they are quite rightly being proscribed. We…”

“I thank the hon. Member for that, but if Palestine Action is using pyrotechnics against people who are escaping an attack by that organisation, that is intent. If it intends to damage Royal Air Force property and Ministry of Defence property by sabotaging RAF jets at Brize Norton, that is intent. It is showing intent a…”

“The Scottish Conservatives have suggested that we should be prioritising Scottish-based students for medical places at university, because they are much more likely to stay in the UK and therefore contribute to our workforce. Would the hon. Gentleman support that to help the backlog and health services in Scotland?”

“Keeping our country safe is, and must be, the first duty of any Government. That comes with decisions and choices that Governments must take to keep their citizens, our country and our way of life safe. That is why we Conservative Members support the Bill. It is much needed to close a recently created loophole that mus…”

“The Government stood in to secure British Steel, citing national security and protecting jobs; now they are standing in to support Prax Lindsey, citing the need to protect energy security and workers. As the Minister knows, tens of thousands of jobs and many, many companies in north-east Scotland are nearing a cliff ed…”

“Secretary of State, you said it was your understanding that the NICs increase had stabilised the economy. Is that what you said? Is that really the case that is being made for NICs? Certainly, from what I am hearing on the ground—I will not be alone in this—it has not stabilised the economy at all. It has put an absolu…”

“As you have already mentioned, in the spending review we saw that there was money for the Acorn project, which is obviously welcome, but there was no decision on the final investment decision, other than saying it will be sometime this Parliament when the affordability and readiness is understood. Why has that been del…”

“Are you working to try to tie down a date?”