Speeches by Kirkham.

“There has been some controversy about the wording of the Act and the conservation measures. We have finally come up with, “Conservation measures will materially outweigh the negative impacts of development.” That term is not really specifically defined. How do you define the term, “Materially outweigh”?”

“Will Natural England have a specific definition, then, or will it be more on a case-by-case basis?”

“That is why a satellite link across villages might be something to consider. On broadband, Openreach and service providers do not have a good system of fault notification. During Goretti, they were unaware of faults, and the notification of faults solely through third-party providers did not work well, as residents str…”

“That is helpful.”

“The work on the EDPs is a very big job. Thinking of Cornwall particularly, because that is where I am from, we have a very strong local nature recovery strategy. Some places have those, some places less so. When you are working on EDPs, are you managing to take local areas’ pre-existing plans into account? One of the c…”

“My question is about planning and licensing for renewables. There was a site in North Devon where cabling was going to come in from one of the test and demo models for floating offshore wind. That took a very long time to get planning and part of the issue was that there were lots of back and forths about, “You need th…”

“Absolutely. You are answering it a little, but the Environmental Audit Committee warned of a potential conflict if Natural England is the creator, executor and regulator of EDPs. What other steps are you taking to minimise those kinds of risks?”

“The Secretary of State will know that working in the visitor economy is so good for young people’s confidence. The extensive Cornish hospitality sector would like to be part of the youth guarantee pilot. Will he consider meeting us to discuss that?”

“So it is more disposal than development?”

“As I understand it, it is almost like social housing. You have your main contractor and then subcontractors underneath. The subcontractors do one little job, and the main contractor does not really check or do much about it—they have a contract until 2029—so on the ground we are trying to get the housing officers to ma…”

“Just briefly, this money is going to change the entire housing service. It is fantastic. I can see why you are looking at this with housing. Does that put the housing service in a position where it will essentially be a developer as well as a landlord? How will the service balance those different roles?”

“So your strategy will set what will be for sale as private homes and what will be for military use.”

“I just have a few questions about that. I know this has been considered before, but of course families are not the same as they used to be—I have some personal experience of that. We have single parents who are not living with their children all the time, and people in long-term relationships who are not living with th…”

“There is a recommendation, isn’t there, that families of all shapes and sizes need to be accommodated?”

“I welcome the changes to the Green Book to support investment in coastal and rural areas. Can the Chancellor confirm that they will lead to investment in transport infrastructure in places like Cornwall, to support the investment being made in our industries, particularly the £50 million going into our critical mineral…”

“The ONS is considering taking out the veteran question in 2031, thinking that it might be able to rely on the MOD service leavers database. Do you think it should keep the question or take it out? Would it help to leave it?”

“My main question is to Steve. How should we use the increase in the Reserves that we are hoping to get? Is it better to backfill Regular roles, or should there be separate formed units?”

“My question now is about housing. Considering you were involved in the Kerslake Commission on armed forces housing, do you support the Bill’s establishment of a Defence Housing Service, and do you think it could and should lead to improvements in armed forces housing, which has not always been of the best standard?”

“Thinking about the difficulty that we now know we have of getting in touch with people who were in the forces, do you think that something like a national database would help, with people’s names, addresses and skills? Do we need something that large, or is it more down to people having a duty to get in touch, and for …”

“As a layperson who is not on the Defence Committee, I am astonished by what you say about how the MOD does not keep in touch with people and may not even know where they are once they have left, whereas in the 1980s it sounds as if you had a system of contacting people and updating. Who is responsible for that now? How…”