Speeches by Kirkham.

“What happened to the dialysis centre?”

“We have read about some really quite sad situations—people struggling with dialysis, dialysis not working and medical interventions needed because people were unable to receive dialysis. Incontinent people with bowel cancer were left struggling without water. Some of those care homes, the dialysis centre, the doctors, …”

“Had that happened in Tunbridge Wells?”

“Was that planned in advance, though? Did they know that they were going to be doing that? That is an emergency response that needs to be planned, isn’t it?”

“It is so important that in an incident like this you have a clockwork plan that cannot fail like that?”

“Yes, and so that people can lift it, open it and use it. To go back to the water stations, there were problems, I understand, with them being overcrowded, closing early and people struggling to get into them rather than their being accessible. What have you learned from that about the water stations that you picked and…”

“Something else that the borough council told us was that the centre of town was pretty much left to them. They were providing the toilets and bottled water around the town centre. That is quite a big gap. How did that happen?”

“The other thing that came up, considering that these were vulnerable, elderly or ill people, was that sometimes when water was delivered, a 12kg pack of big bottles of water was stuck on their doorstep, which was something they could not access. That is something that you need to consider for next time. How come that h…”

“I welcome this sensible compromise and point out that the £800 million put into the environmental land management scheme in 2023-24 will become £2 billion by 2028-29, along with the sustainable farming incentive being reintroduced in April, the land use framework and the farming road map. Does the Minister agree that t…”

“T5. Merry Christmas to everybody in the Chamber and beyond. I was very proud to stand on a manifesto that committed to end cruel practices such as puppy smuggling and to phase out animal testing and ban fur imports. Is the Secretary of State able to update the House with a little more detail on the progress of the anim…”

“The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority does not have confidence that the farming and countryside programme will hit those goals to time and cost. Do you agree with that? How would you respond to that? I am talking about evaluation and monitoring as we go forward?”

“There are some very good schemes out there. It is just about supporting them and allowing them to grow.”

“You talked about the science that they are doing down in Cornwall, and I wondered whether you had considered whether the coastal growth fund could be used in areas like that in the future. Also, when we have new catch opportunities, such as the bass ones, if we are talking about bringing young people into fishing, is t…”

“They felt blindsided, yes.”

“Fishers saw that as a bit of a loophole. There were changes made to our waters without consultation.”

“There were changes made in the catch, but I understand that there were some technical measures taken in our waters as well that were part of the negotiations. These were done quickly, without the kind of consultation we would normally have, and they affected UK waters.”

“Have you not just been to Newlyn?”

“Yes, on-farm holistic advice.”

“Does that mean that we are going to open up more of those advice schemes? Is that going to expand? We really need that.”

“One thing that has been really helpful to farmers is the farming resilience fund and some of that advice work. That finished, I think, last March. I think everybody agrees that farmers need that more whole-farm approach to advice. What work has been done to expand those advisory services? Where can farmers go to get th…”