Speeches by Harding.

“5. What steps she is taking to support the police to tackle burglaries.”

“Will the hon. Member go further and say that Ofcom’s implementation so far has been weak, overly cautious and fundamentally disappointing? Does he concur that it is unfair to put parents in the intolerably pressured situation of being the policemen of their children’s social media activity?”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is about not only mental health harm, but inattention? I speak to many headteachers in my constituency who tell me that children are unable to concentrate any more because of hours spent on their screen. Would she agree that the Government study announced in November that seeks to expl…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and I thank the hon. Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) for securing this incredibly important debate, in which there have been many insightful and inspiring comments. We have heard today that women and girls disproportionately suffer the impact of th…”

“Let me starting by saying how much I welcome the Bill, as an important step in strengthening the role of education and multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, so that we can better identify and protect vulnerable children. A headteacher in my constituency reached out to me and said: “Children do disclose to teachers, p…”

“To push you on the separation between the two, has that meant a loss of focus for the development part of it? For example, is it subsumed by perhaps UK commercial interests and has that focus gone?”

“Nick, ODA has been cut again for the 2024-25 budget to £13.7 billion, which is a reduction of £1.6 billion from the total 2023 ODA spend. Where will the impact of this reduction be felt?”

“Do you know what balance that is between the in‑country refugee costs going down and GNI going up? Do you know how that is?”

“Can I also ask another question? Coming back to priorities, I noticed also that there was a decline in spend on the eradication of poverty. From what you have just said about the Minister’s priorities—and, again, we can ask her when she comes—is it your expectation that the objectives for development are going to be on…”

“I think that there was a decline from 2019 in aid to least developed countries, which went significantly down, as you would expect, in 2021, but then continued to go down into 2023.”

“Between extreme poverty and the middle income countries, yes, so there was less spend there.”

“The eradication of extreme poverty will be a continued objective under this Government.”

“Can I pick up on that point? In your highest pay quartile, the gender distribution is about 10% apart between men and women. It is not unique to you. It happens across industry and it is usually because women are leaving to have children and then not coming back into the top echelons. What are you doing to encourage th…”

“I am coming back to the point you made that your partners and in-country deliverers had digested the news that we were back down to 0.5% rather than 0.7%. My worry is, therefore, that there is no push to get back to what is a statutory target of 0.7%. Is that your feeling, too? Are we stuck at 0.5%?”

“Part of the £22 billion black hole was actually ODA spend on in-country refugee costs. The figure was £2.6 billion. I am interested in how the 0.5% of GNI was arrived at. You, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister vigorously resisted the two fiscal tests in Parliament when they were proposed by the last Conservative Go…”

“Do not you feel that if two issues are of such critical importance, they should have their own Ministers?”

“Turning to money, Minister, were you satisfied with the ODA settlement in the autumn Budget?”

“It is not a question on the circumstances; it is a question on the fiscal conditions that the Government have chosen to use to set the 0.5% and not yet get to the 0.7%. How did you arrive at that 0.56% that we are at currently and where is the ambition to get to the 0.7%?”

“That is right.”

“They are rules that you vigorously opposed, as did the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.”