Speeches by Mayhew.

“Will the hon. Lady give way?”

“I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He says that he has failed to persuade Opposition Members in this place, but does he accept that he has also failed to persuade the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the other place? That Committee, which is chaired by Labour, said last month: “We r…”

“rose—”

“The right hon. Gentleman makes reference to the ability of this House to make regulations. We can, of course, do so by primary legislation. There was a parliamentarian who said that “the use of delegated powers carries a risk of abuse by the Executive, which is not something the Opposition could ever support.”––[Offici…”

“Much of this debate has been about whether this Bill leads us to dynamic alignment. The Government’s position is that it does not and that this is all a mirage and a fantasy. If that is the case, does the hon. and learned Member agree that a simple amendment to this Bill to make that clear would go a long way to reassu…”

“I have nothing further to add on the meat of the debate than what my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk put forward. I rise to explain my delayed arrival to the Committee; I was a Teller in the Divisions in the Chamber, but I came as quickly as I could. I did not mean any rudeness to you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and …”

“I have not intervened on other speeches, but on that one comment that the hon. Lady has made, has she read the plan for water that was published by the previous Government and is she aware of its contents, which include £56 billion of investment to deal with exactly this issue?”

“I would like to give the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to correct the record: the official Opposition did not oppose that Act.”

“It has been an absolute delight to listen to the debate. There were times when I thought that having an official Opposition was unnecessary because of the amount of opposition from Government Members. I congratulate my Norfolk neighbour, the hon. and gallant Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis). I am delighted to hav…”

“I am absolutely not saying, “You’ve never had it so good,” but I am drawing attention to the actual data, so that we can make a balanced judgment. I will come to some of the disadvantages of the last 30 years later on in my speech, so I hope I will give a balanced judgment. We have dealt with the rivers and serious sew…”

“The profit motive does promote efficiency in innovation, because companies want to minimise their costs and therefore maximise their profits. It also provides access to capital in the manner that I have described, because there are rights issues as well as the recirculation of water bills. It is right that that is the …”

“I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but she ducks the point that if she had the political will she could bring CrossCountry in-house now. It is not the first operator to come under GBR or even close to it. Under current plans, the Government will not get around to tackling CrossCountry until 2031. In the me…”

“It has been an enormously enjoyable debate. I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee). From the perspective of Conservative Members, he is one of a depressingly large wave of new entrants into this place, but he has definitely marked himself out as one to watch. He produced a to…”

“We are told that nationalisation is the answer to improving passenger rail performance. If that is the case, surely it would make sense to start by nationalising the worst performing operators. CrossCountry comes last out of all train operating companies for passenger satisfaction and it is not complying with its oblig…”

“The rate of decrease has been increased substantially. Does the Minister not agree that that will have a negative impact on financial viability? The change in the pace of the decrease of the delinked payments makes an old impact assessment unreliable.”

“In October last year the Chancellor delivered a massive tax, borrow and spend Budget. Now her plans have collapsed around her ears, with an emergency Budget to cut that spending, so has the time now come for the Prime Minister to state in public that he has full confidence in the Chancellor?”

“Does my hon. Friend accept that farmers right across the country are currently seeing a cash-flow crisis? A business may be profitable in one, two, three or five years’ time, but if it cannot pay the bills now, it will go bust. Does my hon. Friend accept that the Government’s cumulative actions are putting farmers at r…”

“I drove a tractor to Fakenham racecourse about five or six weeks ago, to take part in a demonstration that not only involved farmers but encompassed the wider rural community, including farming industry suppliers. Does my hon. Friend agree that the mood in relation to the Government is sulphurous?”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing multiple interventions. We have heard about food security, but the Government have a number of other legal obligations, one of which is to halt biodiversity net loss by 2030. If SFI—the key measure to help farmers in the fight against biodiversity loss—is effectively cancell…”

“Is the problem not worse than that? Farmers can no longer rely on the schemes that seem to be applicable to them because the SFI can be paused or cancelled without notice. What confidence can they have that any scheme to which they seem able to apply will be there when they need it most?”