Speeches by Foord.

“5. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on support for the green energy sector in Scotland.”

“Growing up, it was second nature for us to rinse out our milk bottles and put them out for the milkman to collect the next day. It was a very simple system, and it worked. Then came the rise of single-use plastics, and for a while we convinced ourselves that recycling was enough. We felt that as long as we put our plas…”

“I commend the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing the debate and for putting himself out there by calling for a sugar and salt reformulation tax. I will add that it is not just through penalties that we will tackle diets in this country; it is also through incentives. Today I want to talk about some incentiv…”

“It is welcome to hear that this partnership agreement is a binding treaty. As such, it contrasts with the Budapest memorandum, which was non-binding and not worth the paper it was written on. There is a lot of talk about how Ukraine is on an irreversible path to NATO membership, but it will be difficult to get a consen…”

“I commend the Chair and the Defence Committee for turning their scrutinising eye to the global combat air programme. The Chair talked about the benefits and risks of new partners, and explained that we need to weigh the benefits against the risks. In previous multilateral fighter jet programmes, there has been an overe…”

“I do not question the Minister’s difficult inheritance, but the Labour party adviser Dan Neidle suggests that the plan to slap inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1 million should be replaced with a much higher threshold with a clawback mechanism, perhaps for land over £20 million that is sold. That would tackle …”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“For 75 years, NATO has stood as a bulwark against territorial acquisition, and NATO is stronger when all its members stand against that. What discussions does the Foreign Secretary plan to have with the President-elect of the United States about the status of Denmark, Greenland and Canada? Will the Foreign Secretary re…”

“2. What discussions he has had with NATO allies on strengthening that alliance.”

“Twenty years ago, the Save Darfur coalition was one of the biggest international social movements of its time, but today the campaigning voices of charities and NGOs on the conflict in Sudan are not being amplified in quite the same way, certainly not by Governments. Why does the Minister suppose this is, and what more…”

“I want to talk a little about the numbers and proportions of staff over the five-year period around covid, between 2018 and 2023. I understand that the British Council employed 30% fewer teachers at the end of that period than at the beginning. What are the reasons for that, please?”

“I appreciate that those are examples, but what makes you suppose that there is demand in those places for those sorts of things? One thing that made me question it is that there is actually very good disinformation training and education in Nordic and Baltic states; they are very far advanced in that area. In fact, do …”

“Over the same period the number of senior managers recruited by the British Council increased by 22%.What were the senior managers being recruited to do, and how has that changed the nature of the British Council’s business?”

“How did that change the output and what the British Council was producing?”

“But it seems to have been going in the wrong direction. I wondered how you would account for the gender pay gap having doubled over that five-year period?”

“The statistics that I am looking say at that it was 10.9% in ’17-18 and 20.7% in ’23-24.”

“Finally, do you have information on the pay gap in relation to diversity?”

“Until 2019, you published an annual gender pay gap, but I do not think it has been published since then. Why did you stop publishing the gender pay gap at that point?”

“Hospices in Devon were already struggling before the Government’s Budget last autumn, which introduced a hike in employers’ national insurance. To talk first about the national picture, we have heard that a third of funding for hospices tends to come from the state, through the NHS. However, in Devon, it is less than a…”

“You estimate that 25% of the overseas students arriving in the UK have been influenced by the British Council. How do you measure that, and what evidence do you have for it?”