Speeches by Holmes.

“I welcome the clarity in the Minister’s opening remarks on the clause. While the theory of generating renewable energy, and deriving income by selling electricity generated from renewable sources, on public forestry land is positive, several concerns need to be addressed that do not lend support to the Government’s ini…”

“The Minister has satisfied me with his answers and is adopting a constructive tone regarding the clause, but I want to press him on the criteria used to determine ministerial consent. He is right to say that we do not want mission creep, and that we would usually expect minimum amounts of development around visitor cen…”

“We welcome clause 25, and I welcome the Minister to his position. He has a lot to live up to after those clauses, and I will continue to be nice to him. I say well done also to the other Minister for the constructive way he has been working on this Committee. Opposition Members do appreciate that. Because we are not st…”

“I do not know which newspaper the hon. Gentleman reads, but it is obviously not a very good one, because it takes the comments of my hon. Friend the shadow Scottish Secretary and acting shadow Energy Secretary out of context. My hon. Friend did say that the target date was not based on evidence, but he was talking abou…”

“We will oppose the clause. Our reason for doing so is that this chapter of the legislation is a massive power grab and piece of centralisation. The whole Bill—in particular its planning reform elements and this clause—reeks of this Government’s centralising zeal, as I said on the Floor of the House on Second Reading. I…”

“We welcome the clause and the clarification and certainty that the Minister has given, but I want to put some questions, along similar lines to those we have asked before, about transparency and limits or caps on the fees that authorities can charge. We believe that without clear limits, there is a risk of inconsistent…”

“May I say, Mrs Hobhouse, that you are absolutely on fire? We are getting through things very quickly, and I will adhere to your instructions. The clause updates the objection and decision-making timelines under the Highways Act 1980. Although the goal is to align with other planning regimes, several concerns remain. Fi…”

“I beg to move amendment 83, in clause 22, page 29, line 33, after “benefits” insert “of £1,000 per year for ten years”.”

“On that point—depending on the Minister’s answer, I may not have to make a speech and detain the Committee—the Minister has outlined that the strategic highways authority is National Highways; does he envisage that for some roads, particularly across England, the county council is the strategic highway authority, and w…”

“We agree with the Government on clause 39. However, if local authority members need to give a majority vote on the first round, it makes the Minister’s claim that the measure will reduce bureaucracy seem a tad overstretched. We will not press the clause to a Division, but circumstances do change between the first and t…”

“I wonder whether the Minister has given any thought to political proportionality when it comes to any future national scheme of delegation. I will give him an example. Forgive me if this is slightly out there; if so, I can write to him, or we can have a conversation in the Lobbies later. Say a local authority was 87% m…”

“She won’t answer it.”

“The hon. Lady is correct to say that there are areas in which we could have gone further. Some of that could have been met by actions we brought forward, such as a new housing ombudsman and making sure that regulation was better, but I do not think we worked at pace to do that as fast as we could. We need to learn from…”

“Good luck to him—I hope he sends his sponsorship details to every Member in the House. He outlined a very important case. Whatever party and constituency we represent, we will all have received the bog-standard response from a housing association or council saying that residents who have damp and mould have had their m…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I welcome the Minister to his place and congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) on securing this debate. It was the English Army officer and playwright Guy du Maurier who wrote that every Englishman’s home is his castle. I…”

“I am delighted that the Leader of the House has given time for a general debate on VE Day. It is vital that we remember the sacrifice that each and every one of our communities made through the loss of servicemen for the liberties won for each and every one of us. We will never forget them. If I may, I want to pay trib…”

“May I please ask the Leader of the House to outline the forthcoming business?”

“I would like to move new clauses 53 and 54, but I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about them first.”

“Clauses 18 and 19 are consequential to the previous clauses, and consist of simple process amendments. The Minister will be delighted that we welcome the fact that clause 19 amends the Electricity Act 1989 to reflect earlier transfers of functions to Scottish Ministers. That is exactly as it should be, and we will not …”

“I appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention. I understand that I may not be the Minister’s favourite person, but I am trying to help him—I actually think what he is proposing is very good. We support any measure that allows an income stream to be spent on local people and within devolved Administrations to make processe…”