Speeches by Milne.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) for securing this debate. I am a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, and we have been looking at the impact of the cost of living crisis on a range of vulnerable groups. The ef…”

“And you would agree that no one was really looking out for that beforehand—it was there to be seen, if anyone was looking.”

“We have mentioned the LDI episode a couple of times; it was a major crisis that led to the fall of the Government. It has been argued that, while the Budget may have precipitated the crisis, there was a weakness or vulnerability building up in the system that should have been identified, but no one appeared to be looki…”

“It sounds like you think that was the right way to play it—”

“I thank the hon. Member for the intervention. We must also place this debate in the wider context of changing rural road use. In Cowfold parish, the accident rate has doubled in the past five years, with three fatalities and 20 serious injuries. Traffic volumes have increased but road infrastructure has not kept pace. …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Horse riders are not a marginal group on our roads and we should stop treating them like one. They are a vital part of rural life. I want to thank Sophie from Billingshurst, a village in my constituency, who wrote to me ahead of the debate. She argues that we …”

“On the specific issue of fiduciary duty, which one could say is a high principle—whether you think it is a good idea to invest in UK industry or not, there is a principle at stake here—do you think the regulator should have said more about that?”

“So you don’t think they should have exerted a more directional role in it.”

“Do you think the way they worked on that was more informal?”

“Good morning. You talked a little earlier about how you played a big role in the Mansion House accord. The Pension Schemes Bill is still on its way through Parliament. It is largely welcomed by industry, but mandation is the most controversial aspect. It raises a big principle such as fiduciary duty and the protection …”

“Do you think that TPR, as it is now, has the capacity to foresee and hopefully prevent a crisis of the LDI character?”

“That is a very definite answer. What would you view as the most important considerations around financial stability with regard to your new role? Alongside that, to what extent do you think TPR has the powers and capability that it needs to do the job?”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“Gatwick is precisely the airport that I was going to raise. It jumped to £10 in very short order, over a couple of years. That is an enormous amount of money for something that takes a couple of minutes. The objective is allegedly to cover the increase of business rates and to fund airport expansion. Does the hon. Memb…”

“I recently met Richard, a publican in my constituency, and he told me the trade had never been so tough. He said: “The truth of the matter is, for the first time I’m thinking I shouldn't have bothered taking the risk of going into business. I should have stayed with the big brewer, taken my salary and relied on my pens…”

“We keep hearing that disability spending, and welfare spending in general, is spiralling out of control, but the truth is that, as a percentage of GDP, it has barely moved since the mid-1980s, under Margaret Thatcher—that famous supporter of welfare. Does the hon. Member agree that if we are going to reform welfare, we…”

“We have talked a lot about the BBC’s news output today because clearly that is what is going to interest a room full of politicians most. However, I am glad that we are now focusing a little on the creative output. We have a fantastic creative and cultural industry, which is a major export and one of the jewels of this…”

“Access to the grid for new energy suppliers is patchy across the country, and it leads to an overconcentration of solar farm and battery energy farm applications in unexpected places, such as the village of Cowfold in my constituency. What action will the Government take to ensure a fair distribution of renewable energ…”

“This Government have bent over backwards to not criticise President Trump directly, but that only makes him think he can get away with more and more. If President Trump really does invade Greenland, it is the end of NATO and the end of the special relationship, so will the Foreign Secretary accept that the best way for…”

“This feels like some kind of unholy Labour-Conservative alliance to avoid electoral humiliation. At West Sussex county council, the dysfunctional Conservative administration will surely grab the chance to cling on to power for yet another year past its sell-by date. To make sure that any decision to delay is taken for …”