Speeches by Powell.

“My hon. Friend is right: access to culture and sport is at the heart of thriving communities and happy places and people, and I am sorry to hear about what is happening in Kettering. As she will know, we have a manifesto commitment to replace the community right to bid with a strengthened right to buy assets of communi…”

“This Government take these issues extremely seriously. My hon. Friend the Minister was in Bangladesh recently, where she made it very clear that the Bangladeshi Government should take more steps to protect religious minorities. The anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh that my hon. Friend has described has already been rai…”

“The hon. Lady has taken the opportunity —an important opportunity—to raise an issue which I am sure will be of interest to many Members on both sides of the House: the role that women play in farming and how vital that role is, and some of the challenges that they experience, often in silence or without recognition. I …”

“I certainly join my hon. Friend in marking Children’s Mental Health Week, and he is right to raise these important matters. Mental health services, especially those for young people, have been the poor relation for far too long. I think that all of us, as constituency MPs, parents and others, recognise that the mental …”

“Let me first thank the right hon. Lady for raising with me recently some matters relating to correspondence and the lengthy wait for replies. Having raised the issue myself, I have now been assured that she should have received those replies in the last couple of days. I know that she has been raising the question of t…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue and for her many years of important campaigning and leadership, which I know has been a great comfort to the many women—and not just women—who have been affected by this scandal. As she has said, the Hughes report was a significant watershed and a line in the sand. I will c…”

“I am sorry the hon. Gentleman does not welcome our real commitment to devolution, ensuring that local communities have more power over the things that affect them, such as their local services, transport, economic development, and joining that up in a way that provides strategic benefit to those areas. I respect the ho…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the issues raised with her on her recent school visit. PE not only plays a vital role in ensuring our young people have access to a broad curriculum that can help them better succeed in education, but is critical to mental and physical health and to our preventive work, and the Gov…”

“I am sorry to hear of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents who have been incorrectly charged and then chased down for those debts, but I am pleased to hear that some of that is now being put right. I know that there is a debate in Westminster Hall on the regulation of the bailiff sector, where he may want to raise some of…”

“I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Greenhill primary school for its achievements in that regard. He is absolutely right that schools could do more to provide sustainable energy for themselves through Solar for Schools—a school in my constituency has embarked on that. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and …”

“The hon. Member is absolutely right that skills are at the heart of all these industries that are vital to creating the new jobs and industries of the future through our mission to be a clean energy superpower by 2030. The Government want to take more action to ensure that those who live and work in this country have a…”

“The beaches around my hon. Friend’s constituency do indeed sound beautiful, and I am sure he regularly gets his kit off to go for a swim in the sea there. He is right that it is unacceptable that sewage is still flowing into the waters and seas of Scotland and that we do not even know the extent of it. The Scottish Gov…”

“The hon. Member is absolutely right that it is vital that we recruit more GPs. We have been left a terrible situation with the NHS workforce. That is why workforce planning was at the heart of our recent 10-year plan for the national health service. I will absolutely ensure that Health Ministers and the Secretary of St…”

“I take this opportunity to once again congratulate my hon. Friend on all his campaigning and all the times he has raised with me and other Ministers the lower Thames crossing—I am sure he is pleased with this week’s announcement. I join my hon. Friend in welcoming some of the measures outlined in our devolution White P…”

“I join the hon. Member in congratulating the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) on the birth of his daughter Poppy last week, and I thank her for stepping in to do some cover for him. I am very familiar with Stepping Hill hospital and can appreciate the state of disrepair it is in and how much it is in need of capit…”

“I am saddened to hear the case that my hon. Friend raises. She is absolutely right that ketamine is extremely dangerous, and the rise in its use across many of our towns and cities is deeply concerning. This issue has been raised with me a number of times in these sessions, so I will ensure that a response is made avai…”

“The right hon. Member raises a very important matter, and I thank him for doing so, because we recognise how important it is to have a smooth transition for consumers away from the radio teleswitch service. I am concerned to hear what he says about that being off track for many of his constituents. We will continue to …”

“I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Adam Trennery and all those involved in the Get Together After Serving team. It sounds like a really great initiative to support veterans in his constituency. The Government take these sorts of initiatives very seriously, and I thank him for raising it.”

“This Government are absolutely committed to tackling child poverty. We inherited a very challenging context from the previous Government. The child poverty taskforce has been set up, and has funding. Its urgent work has begun, and we will publish the child poverty strategy in the spring. The hon. Gentleman mentions the…”

“My hon. Friend is right to raise tax evasion, tax avoidance and, in some cases, illegal tax avoidance—industrial-scale tax avoidance such as in the case he raised. Obviously, I will not get into individual cases, but the gap is still too wide. Just a few years ago, the tax gap between what was being avoided and what wa…”