Speeches by Moore.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for bringing forward this really timely and important debate. As she rightly and eloquently illustrated, fly-tipping is an absolute crime. It blights our landscape, risks pollut…”

“It absolutely is action that needs to be condemned. Why? Because those who are being impacted are the hard-working residents of Birmingham. They are dutifully paying their council tax—despite its having increased as a result of Labour’s mismanagement of the council—yet they are expected to be taking their waste to an a…”

“Dare I say it, but the mismanagement under the Labour administration in Birmingham is the absolute result of what residents are now being faced with—an increase in council tax across Birmingham and a significantly negative impact on the current level of service, with their rubbish not being collected. I fear that the w…”

“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. If you are a resident in Birmingham paying your council tax, you want action. You do not want talks after talks, discussions after discussions. Residents have been impacted for too long—a month in certain circumstances. I was in Birmingham two weekends ago, and the level of rub…”

“How bad does it need to get for the residents of Birmingham before the Government step in and take stronger action?”

“I have to say that I am completely infuriated by today’s statement. Here we are, on the very last sitting day before the Easter recess, and the Government have all but admitted that no real progress whatsoever has been made on their promise to launch five local rape gang inquiries before Easter. It gets worse: for more…”

“I note again that the hon. Member has not condemned the actions, yet who is being penalised but the residents of Birmingham as waste piles up outside their houses? The BBC was reporting on that very action last night. It reported not only on the action being taken by Unite trade unionists, but on the residents who are …”

“It is great to speak in this Easter debate, and I would like to use this opportunity to thank a handful of fantastic organisations from across the constituency. It is really difficult to pick out a few from across Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden and the Worth Valley, an area that I am incredibly proud to represent. I start w…”

“8. Whether she plans to include more local people in discussions on development in their area.”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that this causes inconvenience not only to the many commuters who use the A1, who want better connectivity north of the border, but to the landowners who have been moved around in the negotiations for years? This Labour Government’s decision to scrap the funding allocated for the A1 upgrade no…”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just north of the border that these cuts are being made? South of the border, we have seen this new Labour Government cut the local service delivery grant by over £100 million. The grant is specifically allocated to assist rural councils in providing much-needed services, such a…”

“I am pleased that the hon. Member brought that up. Just in 2021, Bradford council, through its statutory responsibility to provide feedback to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government —it was the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities at the time—reported that it was in sound financial he…”

“I receive countless emails and letters from local people across the constituency about the shocking state of our roads. People are rightly frustrated about potholes, and about the little and long waits for repairs forced on them by Bradford council. This is perhaps one of the most important issues that all of us, as MP…”

“Will the Secretary of State give way?”

“Across my constituency, local people are hugely frustrated at Labour-run Bradford council inundating our communities with hundreds of new houses, while not investing in local services and roads. Despite protests and valid concerns, the council has steamrollered through developments at every stage. Yet when vast numbers…”

“I welcome the announcement on better transparency in how local government is spending money on potholes, but the challenge I have in the Bradford district is that, according to the answer to a freedom of information request, only 4% of highway spending over six years was spent in the Keighley and Ilkley constituency. T…”

“It is a figure that has been referenced since nationalisation initially took place, and has been well recognised as the amount of money that has been invested into our water companies by the private sector, for the benefit not only of Thames Water but of all the water companies across England. What is the Minister doin…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but I simply refer to the fact that since privatisation about £250 billion of private investment has been put into our water companies, not only to improve infrastructure but to help with service delivery—£250 billion that would otherwise have had to come from the taxpayer. M…”

“That brings me nicely to my next point, which is the strength of the regulator. Ofwat has the powers to link dividends to environmental performance —a measure that was awarded to Ofwat—and to ban bosses’ bonuses for executives, but those powers are there should Ofwat wish to use them. What is the Minister doing to ensu…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Yes, that is the point: for any Government, regardless of political colour or make-up, to deal with the challenge, they need to understand the true extent of what they are dealing with. It is frustrating that north of the border only 4% of storm overflows are being monitored…”