Speeches by Timothy.

“It is quite conspicuous that you are the first two witnesses, I think, who actually run businesses yourselves, and your evidence is rather different from much of the— Luke Johnson: Has any of the other witnesses ever created a single job?”

“Q Okay, you don’t want to answer that; I will ask another one. One of my concerns about labour market regulation relates to the use of substitution clauses by firms like Amazon and Deliveroo, where they give a licence to a courier and the courier is then entitled to share that licence with others. The expectation is th…”

“It is about employment rights. We have been discussing P&O throughout the whole—”

“Q I thought that I would quickly clear up the disagreement that seems to have broken out between the two sides of the Committee, so I have gone through the record of Tuesday’s session. Paul Nowak said: “It is very likely that we will see increased unionisation as a result of the Bill”––[Official Report, Employment Righ…”

“Q I think that you, like all the other witnesses from the trade unions, were quite pleased with the Bill, and understandably so. I know you said that you felt shut out over the 14 years of government until the general election. I want to ask about your engagement with the Department and with Ministers, and indeed with …”

“Q Further to a point that Mr Turner made, my recollection of the session on Tuesday was that re-unionisation was first mentioned by Mick Lynch, but we might want to check the record about that. You are obviously pleased with the legislation, and I know you think it could go further; I just want to ask a little about ho…”

“I apologise for my late arrival, Mr Dowd. Two airbases in my constituency of West Suffolk, Lakenheath and Mildenhall, were recently targeted by drones; residents were concerned to hear aircraft being scrambled in the middle of the night to intercept them at the weekend. When the Minister responds, I would be grateful i…”

“Q My concern is for people who are more at the margins of the labour market. We have touched on this a bit, but I think it is really important that we understand that employing anybody has a risk. If you were to multiply the costs when things go wrong, the risk may not be taken in the first place. In the hospitality se…”

“Q The impact assessment says that the costs of the Bill are around £5 billion, but earlier we heard that that is actually probably an underestimate and it is likely to be a lot higher. Could you tell us a bit about where those costs will tend to fall for your sectors in particular and how they will relate to other chal…”

“Q Employment standards are obviously important and can contribute to higher productivity, but also, if you guarantee and legislate for certain standards, there will be trade-offs, because that brings cost and opportunity costs through lost time. Real improvements to productivity come from things like investment in tech…”

“It is ridiculous that Britain should even contemplate taking some of the 61 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on Diego Garcia as part of its agreement with Mauritius. There are serious concerns in Whitehall that some of those Sri Lankans have criminal records, and there are allegations that some of them may be involved in chil…”

“Q I have three very quick questions, which I think you can answer very quickly. You are obviously very pleased with the Bill, and I know that countervailing power is important and matters. First, would you characterise this as a fundamental act of rebalancing between capital and organised labour? Secondly, as the Bill …”

“On the Prime Minister’s plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030, can he guarantee that in that timeframe there will no power shortages, no blackouts and no energy rationing?”

“The Ely and Haughley upgrades are vital for getting freight from Felixstowe off roads and on to rail, reducing congestion on the A14 and providing much-needed relief to villages such as Kentford in my constituency. Can the Secretary of State commit to a timescale for their commencement?”

“I begin by declaring an interest, in that I am an unpaid trustee of the Index on Censorship and write a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph. We are all here for this debate because we share a belief that free speech is the bedrock on which free societies are built. The right to voice one’s conscience, criticise those…”

“Two years ago, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said that 3,000 officers were not deployable for reasons of physical fitness, and 500 officers were not deployable for reasons of misconduct allegations: that is more than 10% of the Met’s headcount. Will the Minister tell us the latest numbers? Does she plan to make …”

“The Prime Minister has pledged to smash the gangs, and the Minister appears to be very confident in her position, so can she tell the House which metric we should use to judge whether the gangs have been smashed and the channel crossings ended, and by what date that will happen?”

“Can you answer the question?”

“You’re in charge now.”

“In Suffolk, the national insurance increase creates £11 million of additional pressures on adult social care alone. I do not think the Minister understands that she is not just engaged in some party political knockabout with Conservative Members; GPs, hospices, care homes and pharmacies are watching this debate and are…”