Speeches by Taylor.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing this important debate. Transport links are essential to our economy, tourism, trade and everyday life, but all too often they have been neglected. Up and down the country, people…”

“When we see the investment going in, the tracks being laid and the services turning up to stations, I think we will agree that that is a win for any Government. For too long, we have seen empty promises that have not been funded and have not arrived, so perhaps we should all pause our congratulations and backslapping u…”

“I warmly welcome this plan and the ambition that the Government are showing, and I will try to dispel some of the official Opposition’s misconceptions. I am sure we have all been out knocking on doors in our constituency. When I was doing so in Worcester Park last week, a lady came to the door in a big jacket, and I mo…”

“Hongkongers and other Chinese dissidents in the UK will be rightly concerned about this news. I want to make it completely clear that the Liberal Democrats have serious concerns that this project will enhance China’s ability to conduct transnational repression against Britons and Hongkongers on British soil. What is th…”

“The Liberal Democrats have made it clear from the beginning of this saga that the approval of China’s super-embassy would be a terrible betrayal of Hongkongers who moved to the UK to escape the very repression that the Government are now inviting to their doorstep. The Government must halt the application and summon th…”

“Diplomacy relies on rational actors, yet even in the last fortnight we have seen Donald Trump declare that he is not bound by international law, only by his “own morality”. He has deployed paramilitary forces against his own people, and he speaks of cancelling elections. How apt! We have also seen the unilateral kidnap…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) for submitting her application, and Mr Speaker for granting another urgent question on this issue. Although we are not yet happy with the answers, we have at least been given repeated chances to scrutinise the issue as it has progressed. I am here on beha…”

“I thank the Minister for what is a clear Lib Dem win. I repeat the question from my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton), on the need for a transparent assessment of the potential economic growth benefits of a customs deal. In three years, we will all be seeking a new mandate…”

“That sounds like all of it.”

“To go back to the previous question in a bit more detail, the suggestion seemed to be that cost was not really a factor or a decision in whether to go forward. It does not seem that there is much of a cost-benefit analysis of whether to proceed. Is that the case?”

“Moving on to digital ID, because Liberal Democrats like to talk about this sort of thing, why are you the Minister responsible for the digital ID project?”

“I go through that process with my own accounting units on a regular basis. Again, it does not feel like there is really a value for money bit of work being done. Given the complexity and the ongoing cost of the digital ID scheme—I understand the policy aim of digitising the right-to-work question and that it is aimed t…”

“That is fairly straightforward.”

“Is this the boiling frogs?”

“It is implementation versus co-ordination and the strategy of such. As a follow-up, this does not signal digital capability moving back to the Cabinet Office more broadly; this is more about a delivery mechanism for the technology.”

“There is general agreement that there is very little public understanding of this process. While it is not necessary that you have a column every week in a broadsheet newspaper explaining what the mission boards have been doing, has it been a mistake not to give more detailed explanation of how the sausage is being mad…”

“Has the composition of those boards changed since inception and, if so, how?”

“Just to use the NHS as an example of the mission board, the mission is, “Build an NHS fit for the future.” The mission board there seems relatively straightforward on the interpretation or how that is delivered through the milestones and the first steps. In addition to departmental governance, what has that provided? I…”

“Moving on slightly to mission boards, you referred to them in one of your previous answers. How active have they been across the piece up to this point?”

“Can you give us an explanation for how that came to be?”