Speeches by Billington.

“Is that a bit like your idea, Jake, that Great British Energy should temporarily act as a buyer of last resort? Can you explain that a bit more?”

“Zoë and Marna, I wonder if you can talk a little bit about what features of the Scottish Government’s CARES scheme—which, Zoë, I know you mentioned earlier—have made it more successful at supporting shared ownership than equivalent schemes in England.”

“You talked about 20 MW of shared ownership in Scotland, is that right?”

“Going to your point that what community ownership can do that other people cannot is the difficult bits—which are very important for us in terms of the warm homes plan, demand management and all those things—has there been any modelling of those community projects? For example, say they are generating 20 MW but they ar…”

“I would just point out, however, that when we are talking about measuring impacts and so forth, if we have a clean energy superpower target of 2030, many of the things that you are talking about that are community benefit are not a metric that is measured in that mission. Community energy’s other benefits—the community…”

“Can I follow up on that? I have always been interested in the idea of shared ownership because of my scepticism that developers are nice guys—funnily enough, I just don’t think that is necessarily the case. Why should a community be confident in going into shared ownership with a developer that has big, fat lawyers, lo…”

“Yes. I was just going to follow up slightly on a couple of those points. First, I am interested in understanding, if we were to incentivise shared ownership, how that would accelerate the deployment of clean energy generation at a scale for us to hit the 2030 target. How much would this particular set of recommendation…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is indeed a very worrying direction of travel from the Conservatives. We on the Labour Benches think that people should not be allowed to harass any workers. I honestly did not expect this to be a controversial aspect of the Bill for the Conservatives. Perhaps I…”

“I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare that I am a proud member of the GMB. I stand to speak against amendment 289, which would exclude the hospitality sector and sports venues from the Bill’s duty for employers not to permit harassment of their employees. The first ti…”

“No, I will not give way. This law will strengthen their hand. I say, in the words of the greatest pub manager of all time—Peggy Mitchell—to the proposers of the amendment, “Get outta my pub!””

“I would like to emphasise that I listened closely to the opening speeches when the hon. Lady’s colleagues were talking about amendment 289. I heard clearly, for example, some confusion over whether sexual harassment was a crime or a civil offence, so I will not take any lessons from the Conservatives on their understan…”

“I would just like to remark, in support of my hon. Friend’s observations about the experience of being a female Member of Parliament, that as candidates we were advised by a bunch of white men about security by this place. We looked at each other, we female candidates, and observed that almost everything they were sugg…”

“I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement, and indeed the fact that there is a plan. Although the Tories now accept that they did not have a plan, which is at least an important admission, the result of that lack of a plan is that have been left with uncertainty for both workers and consumers. In East Thanet, we need better…”

“Last Saturday, women from across East Thanet came together for a conference on tackling violence against women and girls. They gave their testimony on what they most want to see improved: public services, in particular mental health provision; the quality of policing; the lack of reliable, affordable, safe public trans…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way during her extremely powerful speech. Will she remind everybody of the importance not only of the fact of rape, but of prosecuting and convicting the perpetrators of those rapes, so that we remember that this is not simply about a passive violence against women and girls, but about…”

“It is indeed true. It was powerful to see people talking about the strength of increased representation in the workplace by trade unions, giving them greater protections. Housing, housing and housing—my hon. Friend the Minister will recognise that it is key for the kind of security and safety that people, women in part…”

“I appreciate my hon. Friend’s efforts in getting the debate held. I have previously raised in the House the possibility of holding the Church of England accountable to the public through being subject to the strictures of the Freedom of Information Act. I was advised that that was unsuitable because it is technically n…”

“Some 13% of households in England—over 3 million people—are officially in fuel poverty. Does the Minister agree that the last Conservative Government did not just fail to meet their housing targets, but left a legacy of high household bills?”

“I understand what the Minister is saying. However, we have a situation where the institution is compounding that abuse, by the way that it is protecting the people in power or the people in power are protecting the perpetrators, thereby further hurting victims. I understand that the Minister cannot tell the Church of E…”

“We are talking not just about changing attitudes and culture, but about changing safeguarding structures. While power is held by a small number of people who are refusing to let go of that power, it is becoming increasingly apparent that it is impossible to change that culture, so the structures of the Church itself ne…”