Speeches by Holmes.

“Will the Minister give way?”

“This honestly feels like groundhog day. Once again, the Minister has come here and said that this Bill is doing local government reform and devolution from the ground up. Will she therefore answer my question once again? She has heard many Members tonight say that local authorities do not want to reorganise. If they do…”

“Very briefly.”

“The Secretary of State really needs to do better than that. With local government reform not being in the Labour party manifesto and with the Prime Minister last week refusing to rule out further cancellations of local elections, will the Secretary of State now rule out—not “intention” but rule out—cancelling the next …”

“My right hon. Friend tempts me; I agree with her wholeheartedly. It is crazy that the Government are embarked on one of the largest sets of planning reforms in the country at this time. Fair funding formulas are being announced, and many planning reforms have been announced over the past few months, but the authorities…”

“The last Conservative Government worked with local authorities to devolve responsibilities to them, but I can give the hon. Gentleman an example of when a Labour Government gave local people a veto on devolution: the former Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Prescott, asked people whether they wanted devolution. When they sai…”

“Here we go again: it is the Secretary of State’s “intention”. I remind him that he actually leads his Department and can set the legislation going forward. He needs to accept that the uncertainty created by this Government in relation to local government reorganisation, on sizes and funding, has meant that leaders have…”

“I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin). In Committee, the Minister outlined that she wants this process to be a happy one, but may I ask her to confirm one point on the Floor of the House? If local authorities do not wish to go through local government reorga…”

“May I begin by welcoming the Minister to her place? We spent a long time together on the Bill Committee, working cross-party, along with many other Members on both sides of the House. They included the Statler and Waldorf of the Committee, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and the hon. Member for B…”

“The answer is clearly no, because otherwise it would not have had as many holes as it had in Committee, and it would not have as many holes as it has today. If it were a Bill from a Government who genuinely sought cross-party co-operation on what could be a very exciting programme of devolution for local authorities an…”

“My hon. Friend is entirely correct, and, indeed, in the Bill, there are plenty of other examples—which we discussed in Committee—of the Government not genuinely devolving to mayors, local authorities and combined authorities powers that they would actually quite like, but giving them the powers that they want them to h…”

“Very briefly, but I must then make some progress.”

“The hon. Lady is right to recognise the advances made as a result of our having named neighbourhood officers. Will she therefore congratulate the Conservative police and crime commissioner, Donna Jones, who brought in that policy before the hon. Lady’s Government did?”

“23. What steps he is taking to reduce the time taken to procure drones for the armed forces.”

“I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Minister may be aware of Domo Tactical Communications, a drone manufacturer in my constituency that I have raised in written questions before. Will he uphold the visit that was due to take place by his predecessor before the reshuffle? W…”

“I thank my hon. Friend, who is nearly my constituency neighbour. He is absolutely right to pay tribute to Hayling Island RNLI lifeboat and the coastguard rescue team based in his constituency. It is important to realise, as I will discuss later in my speech, that although the RNLI does an amazing job, there are indepen…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for independent lifeboats. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this important debate to Westminster Hall, and grateful to hon. Members attending the debate for championing their loc…”

“I could not have put it better myself, and of course I pay tribute to the organisations that the hon. Lady set out. It is good that she has an RNLI lifeboat and an independent lifeboat working in lockstep in her constituency, to ensure that her constituents are protected. I know a bit about that independent lifeboat be…”

“The hon. Member, my friend, makes a very good point. When writing this speech, I wanted to talk about the nuts and bolts of funding, and the operational difficulties that some decisions have involved for independent lifeboats. He is right, however, that we have to talk about the fantastic volunteers, who will be called…”

“I have been known to have some scampi and chips in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and I agree that it is beautiful. I challenge her to say whether it is as beautiful as Hamble Valley, as my constituents would expect, but she is absolutely right. I join her in paying tribute to the Runswick bay crew. The hon. Lady hit th…”