Speeches by Newbury.

“My constituency is on the edge of the west midlands conurbation, and has plenty of country lanes and quiet beauty spots. Communities in my constituency, and particularly in my home village of Norton Canes, know all too well the impact of fly-tipping and organised waste crime. We Labour Members have not forgotten the de…”

“I am fairly encouraged by the Government’s response to our report on illegal meat imports, but we do seem to find ourselves in a chicken and egg situation when it comes to the upcoming SPS agreement with the EU. On a number of fronts, whether it is our call for a strategic approach to reducing demand for illegal meat, …”

“It is a pleasure to speak with you in the chair, Ms Butler. I thank and pay tribute to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), not only for his powerful speech drawing on his deep personal experience, but for his steadfast campaigning in this place. He is a strong advocate for children and adults with dyslexia. My hon…”

“I wanted to come back particularly on the hospitality industry, which we receive a huge number of complaints from. We had a debate on this in Westminster Hall not too long ago and the Minister, who I agree does fantastic work on this and is embedded in the detail, committed to looking at if there was anything more we c…”

“So there is nothing in the potential negotiations that could stop us advancing this? Or do you think there are some areas that would?”

“This is a question for the Secretary of State. We welcome the commitment and response to rebuild the relationship between DEFRA and the Dover Port Health Authority. This is something that we were concerned about and discussed at length with Baroness Hayman. She said that she is the type of person who likes to knock hea…”

“Do you think that some of those requirements are a little loose? You can have information on a website, but it could be buried somewhere where nobody will find it. You can have posters, but they may be A4-sized and nobody coming in actually spots. Our concern is that there is a greater role for the Government in a wide…”

“Is there anything in the common understanding that would prevent us from requiring ports of entry to give greater education—because it really is about education—about the risks, not just the rules?”

“Our concern is that clearly the regime at the moment—whether it is temporary or permanent—is not working very well. A great quantity of meat is still making its way into the country, and we are not able to do the extent of checks that we would like. Will that be looked at through the negotiations and beyond? That is th…”

“Absolutely, but our concern was that we were not automatically stopping imports from Germany for a number of days after. We were lucky in the sense that it was a country such as Germany that has very stringent controls and has a well-resourced biosecurity infrastructure. If the outbreak had happened in a country that d…”

“Do you understand that that is a point of vulnerability for our country at the moment? We have heard negotiations could take at least a year and are concerned about that, given how vulnerable we could be to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, African swine fever or many other threats, that could do tens of billions …”

“I welcome Professor Francis’s review. On the critical issue of SEND, does my right hon. Friend agree that the review’s findings—on flexibility, time for repetition and revision, early identification of need and the role of special educational needs and disabilities co-ordinators in ensuring an inclusive curriculum—coul…”

“It gives me great pride as a Labour MP to speak in this debate on an incredibly important Bill that will further right historic wrongs—stains on our nation’s history. Although my constituents hold a range of views on many issues, they are united in expecting public servants and institutions to act with honesty and tran…”

“Earlier this month a 12-year-old girl was hit by a car while crossing a dangerous crossroads on the A5 in Bridgtown. Despite being thrown to the other side of the road, she miraculously escaped with minor injuries, but the incident has reignited long-standing concerns from residents—including her parents, Andrew and Be…”

“It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate. As this is the first debate in which I have spoken with the Minister in his place, I warmly welcome him to his new role. I know that he brings an immense amount of professional and personal experience to this role. It is always wonderful to see somebody on the Front Bench …”

“On the issue of burdens versus compliance, do you not think you have a greater role to play in advice and spreading best practice? Is that not a role that you could do more of?”

“Just on the scope of permitting regulations—which we touched on earlier—do you think that lowering the threshold of bringing more medium-sized businesses into scope would help tackle some issues we are seeing on units or do you think the threshold is right as it is?”

“There have been regular reports of environmental breaches in livestock facilities, particularly in the dairy sector. We know this is not just an issue in England alone. As a Committee, we recently visited Brussels and were speaking to an MEP from Ireland who sits on the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural …”

“Just on river water pollution specifically, River Action has accused the EA of neglecting its responsibilities in this area, particularly relating to industrial-scale livestock facilities, in particular poultry units. The River Wye has been cited as a prominent example of this but is obviously not the only one. How do …”

“Do you understand the point that it is very likely those carcasses are being disposed of in the same way but it is just they are having to travel off farm?”