Speeches by Dollimore.

“You are spending £15 million on cleaning it up now, which is equivalent to your entire annual clean-up budget for waste crime. How long were you in discussions with the council? I assume that was Ashford Borough Council?”

“Let us be clear: the Bill is the biggest uplift to renters’ rights in a generation. It will make a huge difference for so many people in my constituency. Before I come to the amendments, I place on the record my thanks to the Minister stewarding the Bill through Parliament, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for As…”

“Jules Fielder is a young woman from Hastings who has tragically been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer after doctors repeatedly missed the early symptoms. Jules is now channelling her personal tragedy into action and campaigning to raise awareness of early symptoms, and she wants shops like Boots and Superdrug to use…”

“May I add my congratulations to the new Archbishop of Canterbury? I wrote my thesis on the campaign for women’s ordination in the Church of England, so it is brilliant to see a woman go to the highest office for the first time, and I place on the record my thanks to the women and men who campaigned for women’s ordinati…”

“I really welcome the £21.5 million of extra funding for Hastings, and I am delighted that hundreds of residents have been in touch with their ideas about how to spend it. As the Minister said, it is better spent on people’s priorities and not wasted as in previous schemes under the Conservative party, like the £150,000…”

“My hon. Friend, like me, represents a constituency that the Sutton Trust has ranked one of the lowest for social mobility and opportunity. Does she agree that reopening the link would provide a massive boost to young people and opportunities for them in our area?”

“I thank the hon. Member for making the case for international rail. Does he therefore agree with me that it is a great shame that the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition Government sold this country’s 40% stake in Eurostar in 2015, during their time in Government? As a result of that sale, we lost our seat at the table when…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of returning international rail services to Ashford. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. When the channel tunnel first opened in 1994, it was rightly celebrated as a triumph of engineering and ambition. It showed that Britain wa…”

“Today we have heard huge support from across the House for restoring international rail services to Ashford. I thank the Minister for the Labour Government’s firm commitment to restoring international trains to Ashford International, which is music to the ears of the constituents we represent. I also congratulate him o…”

“I totally agree that having good, international rail travel is important, not just because it is often cheaper and easier, but because it is better for the environment. At a time when we need to consider climate change, we must have more options for people to travel to our closest European neighbours. Since Eurostar st…”

“T2. The Queensway Gateway roadworks have unleashed chaos on my constituents in Hastings and the surrounding area. The project was originally planned to last one month, but has dragged on for more than a year because of the failure of East Sussex county council to plan for the relocation of a major water main. Does the …”

“Noted. Lastly, on a cultural point, we have repeatedly heard the water bosses come here and justify eye-watering bonuses despite overseeing huge failure. When we have pressed them on their percentage bonus it is always much, much bigger than the bonus package available for the frontline staff who are actually out fixin…”

“Our experience shows that we need those guidelines, we need those guardrails, because this is an industry that thrives on wriggling out of legal loopholes where it can. So, as a Committee, our plea to you would be to please put those legal protections in place for our constituents. We have also called for a single soci…”

“What would your message to the industry be about the differential between the bosses at the top—who have been failing—and those frontline workers?”

“Thank you. Flooding has been another massive issue. I have constituents who have waded through sewage in their own home and been forced to move out for six months; others have had it pour into their back garden. There is currently no duty on the water company to come out within a certain time to fix it and put it back …”

“Minister, I just wanted to ask briefly about the issue of landslips, which is an issue that is increasingly affecting more and more of our constituents. We know that it is something that will increase with climate change as well. When landslips are happening, it is having a really devastating impact for the residents a…”

“As you know, we have been having all the water bosses in and grilling them about very specific failings that they have made and wider problems in the sector, which is completely rotten. I just want to ask about some specific findings and recommendations that we put to the House in that report and to hear the Government…”

“I should start by declaring an interest as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Water Pollution. We have heard a lot of evidence today—indeed our Committee has over the last couple of months—about how useless Ofwat is as a regulator. It is a regulator that does not even want to bark, let alone bite. And…”

“But there is a commitment from the Department to set out some proper guidelines about what we can expect on day one, day two, day three of a water outage incident, and to learn the lessons from past failures?”

“T6. I recently visited the ghost terminal at Ashford International train station, where five years ago Eurostar, shamefully, ceased to have its services stop. A report last month found that bringing back those international trains to Ashford could benefit our local economy in Sussex and Kent by over £2.5 billion, which…”