Speeches by Blake.

“It is a privilege to speak in the debate, and I thank the co-sponsors and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it to happen on the Floor of the House today. I also thank everyone who has spoken so far and so bravely, whether that is sharing their own experience or that of their constituents. These debates have…”

“Does the hon. Lady agree that it could seem counterintuitive to the public for new testing to be illegal and to require the Secretary of State’s intervention, and for testing in herds considered not to have TB to therefore not be possible, allowing undetected cows to be left in herds?”

“I thank my hon. Friend for outlining the argument so well. Badger culling has proved to be ineffective, unscientific and inhumane. Does she agree that we should not see an increase in culling or supplementary culls in no-risk areas, or the extension of any current licences?”

“I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees that, as employers have told me, increasing the qualifying period will make the UK less attractive to international talent. That is particularly important for science and research in our universities.”

“Just briefly on risk, you are focusing on high-risk areas. I completely understand that. Because we do not know enough about the harms, as our witnesses highlighted, are there potentially more resources needed to go down to what you would consider medium risk? How are you evaluating medium risk as well?”

“Monitoring is one gap that we are aware of, but the other recommendation that our predecessor Committee’s report focused on was giving a greater amount of the budget to mitigating pollution. You have only received an interim settlement. The third road investment strategy is now due next year. How certain are you that y…”

“Are you supporting citizen science in flagging any issues? I know the water companies support that, although I am not sure how successful that has been.”

“Okay, that is useful. Are you confident that the methodology has identified all the high-risk sites? The numbers that you have cited sound quite different from what we have heard from other witnesses.”

“That is the identification, but how many of those high-risk sites now have mitigations active and in place?”

“Thank you, Chair. It is useful to clarify that. Moving on then to pollution, which is the other issue we have been highlighting today, our predecessor Committee’s recommendations on water quality in rivers focused on accelerating improvements to highway drainage and the Government accepted that a level of increased amb…”

“So you are doing good contract management, in your opinion.”

“Is that true for all the trees that you have?”

“I just want to pick up on what all this has cost in terms of the A14. In particular, what has so far been spent on putting this issue right? Going forward, what are the estimated costs of keeping on putting it right, if that makes sense?”

“I could talk to you about this all day, but I will bring Ms Hillier in. Is there enough monitoring in the years following development to ensure planting is successful and remedied? That is the key thing for me. Should there be more focus on remedying, if there is not?”

“That is really helpful. Just quickly, do you think that nurseries are prepared for the needs that climate will bring in terms of what they are currently cultivating?”

“Do you think that we need to educate the public about the fact that the trees that they are used to seeing might be replaced, or new trees that come into an area might be different, and the reasons why, so that people can understand that a bit better?”

“Mr Martin, we have already covered this, but I wanted to explore it a little more thoroughly. What policies could be encouraged to make sure that the right tree is planted in the right place, rather than just the largest number of trees or whips, for example, and that climate resilience is also involved in that policy?”

“Given that so much of the UK is now at flood risk, do you see these risks or the patterns of these risks changing over time? How are you going to stay fleet of foot on that?”

“I mean specifically on maintaining the mitigations that you have.”

“Finally, we have spoken about getting the mitigations in place, but, once they are in place, do you have the resources to maintain these, given that you are probably going to have to deal with more things to maintain?”