Speeches by Gilmour.

“I am very proud to represent some fantastic small businesses in my rural constituency. Mr Barclay, the owner of CardByMeLove in Tiverton, has been left to shoulder an administrative burden that is not of his own making, chasing missing parcels and placating disgruntled customers. To make matters worse, he has faced an …”

“The west Somerset side of my constituency bears many of the hallmarks of a forgotten coastal community. In Somerset, 7.5% of young men aged 16 and 17 are not in education, employment or training, which is significantly above the national average in England. Does the hon. Member agree that when young people grow up with…”

“T6. Members of the armed forces are the only uniformed service without a professional body to represent and support them. Will the Minister give assurances that the Armed Forces Bill will include provisions to establish such a body, ensuring that serving personnel and veterans have access to legal and welfare support w…”

“As so many of my colleagues have rightly said, our thoughts today should be first and foremost with the victims. I hope that no political party in this Chamber would use this as an excuse to cover the backs of some of the less fragrant Members of the House of Lords. The fact that Lord Mandelson was, as ever, interested…”

“I have thousands of WASPI women in my constituency, which is already very deprived. I cannot express how angry and disappointed they feel today. I am afraid that I will have to use strong language: this is simply gaslighting by this Labour Government. They know full well that it was not about whether the letters were s…”

“The Chapel in Cotford St Luke in my constituency is a fan favourite, but because of the decisions of this Government, it is dying. It has been hit exceptionally hard by VAT and the business rates regime, as is the case for many establishments in our part of the world, many of which rely heavily on tourism. Can the Lead…”

“Thank you, Ms Butler. It is a pleasure to serve under you. I thank the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) for his kind words. I should start by declaring a couple of interests: before I came to Parliament I was head of strategy for the Environment Agency, specialising in water flooding and the water framework…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his intelligent and incisive comment. Mandatory medical markers help to support the rural community. They ensure that if someone is struggling, the licensing process is equipped to respond swiftly and sensitively. The public understand that. Some 70% of firearms licence holders support manda…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate. We have all watched with great sadness the recent shootings in the United States—scenes that should have shaken any civilised society. Thankfully, Britain is not a…”

“Thank you, darling Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. As vice-chair of the Country Land and Business Association’s rural business and rural powerhouse APPG, I fully support the idea of a centralised licensing system. It is interesting that the chair of the APPG is a Liberal Democrat MP like me, so I am pretty c…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous. As the Member of Parliament for Tiverton and Minehead, I represent two water companies, Wessex Water—who are no angels—and South West Water—who I have been chasing for several months in order to get a meeting on behalf of a constituent whose bakery was flooded to such an ex…”

“Why not?”

“I cannot pretend to understand the complexities of AI bots or the stuff that we have talked about this afternoon, but I do understand the impact that sexual abuse has on children and girls in my constituency. On Saturday, I was talking to a grandmother, who told me that her granddaughter had been groomed; as a conseque…”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not a tax on passive wealth, but that it punitively, cynically targets productive enterprise? The Government expect to raise roughly £1.4 billion from the inheritance tax changes, but analysis by Family Business UK suggests that behavioural responses could produce a net fiscal los…”

“The hon. Gentleman is also a near neighbour of mine in Devon. Does he agree that the changes to agricultural property relief feels like a double taxation that burdens farming families in their old age? One can reasonably reach only one conclusion: this Government neither understand nor value this country’s farming comm…”

“That is good for the next generation, is it not? They are the ones who have it.”

“It is interesting that Blaise Metreweli, the new head of MI6, said almost exactly the same thing today about computer skills and digital skills. It is obviously not just the civil service.”

“That is good. Presumably, it will also be able to identify where the skills gap is weakest and where you are using consultants, and therefore where you can up the internal skills and reduce the external expenditure on these very expensive consultants.”

“At the beginning you gave us some what I think is quite good news, if it comes off, about workforce planning. When will you be able to publish the strategic workforce plan for the civil service? I appreciate that is an absolutely enormous job. Given the amount of money involved on the consultant side and the amount of …”