Speeches by Alexander.

“I agree. We will not make the same mistakes when we take train operating companies into public ownership. We will do it properly. It is a massive undertaking, but we will make our railways a system for the whole country to be proud of.”

“I will. I know that my hon. Friend represents the proud railway city of York, as I represent the proud railway town of Swindon. I look forward to having that meeting with her.”

“I would be happy to.”

“I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend. I have already met a number of Members of Parliament in the Gateshead area about some of the recent problems with the flyover, and met the Mayor for the region.”

“We are six months in. The Conservative party had 14 years. Those promises are worth nothing without a plan to deliver.”

“My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner for her local area, and I fully endorse her efforts to get money to fix the broken roads in her constituency.”

“We spend about £2 billion a year on rail enhancement projects. We will be looking carefully through the spending review at all proposals that get freight off the roads and increase the availability of passenger services.”

“Yes, I think I will have a busy diary coming up.”

“We are exploring how we can extend pay-as-you-go to other stations in the south-east. I must admit that my mental map is not good enough to identify every station yet, but we share that ambition to make it easier for people to use the railways across the south-east region.”

“I will certainly ask the Rail Minister to take that meeting.”

“We have had decades of chaos on the railways, and railways that simply did not work for people. What is needed is a fundamental reset with the trade unions to deliver improvements for passenger services.”

“I associate myself with the shadow Minister’s lovely remarks about Lord Prescott. John was a political giant, and I am sure I speak for the whole House in sending our thoughts and condolences to his family. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) on securing this debate. I also thank th…”

“The hon. Gentleman pre-empts the next section of my speech. We saw, during the passage of the private Member’s Bill before it fell on Prorogation, that there are strong and differing views on SLAPPs. I understand that there were still unresolved issues before Prorogation. The former Member for Caerphilly, Wayne David, …”

“The right hon. Gentleman also pre-empts the next part of my speech. I am very happy to tell the House that I am keen to consider a range of non-legislative measures—procedural measures in the court—while not ruling out the possibility of legislation in future, but I want to take time to look at what options will work b…”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Judicial Pensions (Amendment) Regulations 2024. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. This is my first Delegated Legislation Committee as a Minister. In fact, this is my first speech in this House since the general election. It is somewhat…”

“I am grateful to the shadow spokesperson for his support and brevity, and I am sure all members of the Committee endorse that comment. With that, Mr Betts, I hope you agree that this statutory instrument is necessary, and I commend it to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.”

“Ed, do you want to pick that up?”

“I cannot at the moment. It is not inconceivable that somebody could come forward still, but I am confident that we are aware of the vast majority of people who have convictions that are in scope of the Act. As I said, we have so far assessed 87% of those cases.”

“Thank you, Chair, for inviting me. My responsibility in the Ministry of Justice relates to writing to individuals who need to be informed that their convictions have been quashed by the legislation. Minister Thomas in the Department for Business and Trade is responsible for the running of the various compensation schem…”

“We did encounter some difficulties in July, in terms of discrepancies between the various datasets that we were using to identify individuals who had convictions that were in scope of the Act.”