Speeches by Mayhew.

“To save everyone’s time, I will not make a speech on this, but I am concerned about new clause 12 because it confers an absolute duty regarding chalk streams. I represent a constituency with several chalk streams, including the Stiffkey, which goes through Walsingham. The new clause says: “Where a relevant undertaker o…”

“The hon. Member says that privatisation has demonstrably failed. I challenge him on that. There are elements of privatisation that have failed: the refinancing, the imposition of debt and the removal of money through dividends in the noughties and, I am sorry to say, between 2010 and 2015. That is a failure, but I hope…”

“Okay, perhaps the Minister is right—perhaps the detail of what percentage of debt or what multiple of revenue is appropriate should be established by the commission and the wider review—but surely the principle can be established now. From any investigation in this area, we can say that the principle will be that debt …”

“The shadow Minister is right that a lot of the supposed solutions were uncosted and had an impractical timeframe. One that springs to mind was the Liberal Democrat amendment that was costed: there was a tax that was supposed to pay for the improvements to water quality. Does he agree that, on a basic calculation, it wo…”

“I have a slightly cheeky intervention. Is the shadow Minister aware that there is a debate in Westminster Hall at 4 o’clock tomorrow led by yours truly on nature-based solutions for farmland flooding? The fund is central to improving the situation.”

“The hon. Gentleman will perhaps know that under current insolvency law, there are secured creditors. There is a hierarchy of debt, and the least protected—not the most protected—are suppliers. Does he envisage changing the rules to give additional protection in this process to unsecured creditors and essentially revers…”

“They will be right at the bottom.”

“The hon. Gentleman is conflating the term creditor with debt provision, but actually there is a plethora of suppliers to any large organisation such as a water undertaker. They are creditors—that is just how they are defined. His clause would cover small and medium enterprises that are providers of services, and in fac…”

“The hon. Gentleman says it is the creditors who put the undertakers in the position that they are in, but surely that cannot be right. Creditors are the people who provide services for a fee to the undertaker—they will not be the organisations that put the undertaker into that position. Surely the hon. Gentleman agrees…”

“Probably, but what would be plan B?”

“Yes. Thank you very much for hearing me. I feel like I have queue-barged; sorry about that. I am here because I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people. For the very few Members of Parliament who have not heard of that, we are one of the largest APPGs, second only to the al…”

“You want more Government?”

“Well, there you go. That is six, in that case.”

“I can easily do that, as you well know. Claire Hazelgrove is the deputy chair of the APPG. I will set her a task, and I am sure she will do that.”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“I think this is technically now a speech rather than an intervention. I am supportive of the content of the clause, but I have one technical question: if we choose to move a penalty from a fine to imprisonment, there has to be a person to apply that penalty to, rather than a body corporate. The question that obviously …”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to her post, and look forward to helping her to do an excellent job. As we can see following the last few days of flooding, changing weather patterns are damaging our roads and increasing potholes. The last Government allocated an additional £8 billion for road improvements, paid …”

“I will speak primarily in support of amendment 6. I pay tribute to the former Member for Ludlow, the right hon. Philip Dunne, who throughout the previous Parliament was the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sat. The EAC’s work on water quality and the seminal report that we produced started this hu…”

“I am not against the principle of this—in fact, I am strongly in favour of it—but I have some practical questions. I wonder whether this would bump up against individuals’ human rights and restraint of trade arguments in the courts. I must confess that I was previously a barrister. That was a long time ago, so I have d…”