Speeches by Milne.

“The triple lock has done a fantastic job of raising UK pensions to more or less the middle of the pack since it was introduced under the coalition Government. However, it is at heart just a mathematical formula. Do you think it is still the right mathematical formula? Or do you, for example, think it needs some social …”

“The Government have stated that they do not accept the ombudsman’s report and that, even if they did, they do not have enough money to pay compensation anyway. It does feel like killing one bird with two stones. In the light of this difficulty, what solutions or actions can you take from this point?”

“Do you feel that whatever might be said about current finances, the Government should have left the door open for action in the future when finances might permit?”

“I agree with that and I will talk about it in the next panel, in fact. Thank you.”

“The Government have said that you did not properly take into account all the relevant evidence. In particular, it was claimed that 90% of women understood the change in 2006, but that was a survey based on a sample of just 170 women and is contradicted by multiple other figures. For example, the DWP found in 2007 that …”

“We probably do not have time for that right now. The 90% figure is relevant because it affects the scale of the problem. If one person has been maladministered, it is not an issue. Another key issue in the debate has been the impact of sending letters, whether earlier letters should have been sent, and so on. The Gover…”

“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on calling this vital debate. EHCP provision is a national crisis, but how it plays out locally varies enormously. In East Sussex, 87% of EHCPs are issued within the 20-week target, but hop across the border to my area of West Sussex and it is just…”

“Last week I met with a GP in my constituency, and she described very much what the hon. Gentleman is talking about: at the end of the day, after blitzing through 25 patients, back to back, she sometimes found herself sitting in her car, simply too tired to drive home for half an hour. Does he agree that we are expectin…”

“You have already partially answered my question. Obviously you have psychologists across a lot of jobcentres. What is the mechanism for referring claimants to them: how do they get involved and how are they brought in?”

“Thank you. That is a pretty unanimous verdict. The Government have already committed to introducing a general duty of candour, which relates to some of these issues. Would you say that that would not be sufficient in itself? Do you think we need to go further?”

“There has been a lot of discussion about whether to introduce a statutory safeguarding duty to the DWP. Broadly, as far as I can see, the Department is, shall we say, less keen and external bodies are more keen on the duty. Where are you coming from? What do you think? Do you think it will be a net positive or a negati…”

“Do you feel that that system is working well enough that the right claimants are being identified by the staff on the frontline?”

“It has been suggested to me that perhaps some psychologists are not always brought in at an early enough stage. We wait until claimants are a long way down the line before they get referred, they are already in a lot of trouble and then their difficulties have become greater. They have been out of work longer, perhaps …”

“rose—”

“On the hon. Member’s earlier point about Age UK, it estimates that just in my Horsham constituency it will cost £150,000 per year to cope with the changes and the extra charge. Age UK is not a business and cannot raise its prices; it can only cut its service. Does the hon. Member agree that when one in five pensioners …”

“T2. A farmer in my constituency tells me that even in a good year he is lucky to see much beyond £20,000 in profit. With margins as wafer thin as that, regular farming barely qualifies as investable at all. The risk of losing a huge slice of that farm to inheritance tax at random intervals would not only go to putting …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Indeed, there is a suspicion that part of the motive behind this is to enable an expansion, which has not been permitted yet. In this new design, flights would be concentrated over a much narrower band of countryside. The introduction of satellite-based navigation, which is …”

“I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. I am aware that he has been fighting this cause for a very long time. I certainly agree with his comments and the need for a truly national process on this. The problem is identified by the CAA as a “scarce expertise in the industry…leading to inconsistent standards a…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Indeed, part of the problem is that this process is in isolation from 100 other issues; infrastructure is very much one of them, because, as he says, it is already sadly lacking. As I was saying, the options show little to no variation from each other. It is not three choic…”

“I recognise that the Minister has not finished, but I am concerned that his points have, so far, been general. I wholly support the overall ambitions to reduce carbon emissions—I have absolutely no problem with that—but there are two issues. First, the consultation is not a genuine one because there is no real choice. …”