Speeches by Gale.

“I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on her good fortune in having secured a place in the ballot and been able to introduce a Bill that I believe will be very important. I am proud to be a sponsor of it. It is deeply flawed in places; we all know that. I have been in this place for quite a lon…”

“Give me time, young man. At the risk of going down that path, I should like to take a short ramble down memory lane. I was brought up in Poole, in Dorset. My grandparents’ house had a lilac tree in the garden. In flower, it was smothered in red admirals, peacocks, tortoiseshells and all manner of butterflies. At night,…”

“As one of few who can remember when the dinosaurs became extinct, I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her generous remarks earlier. Is this not about the future of our children and our grandchildren, and about the kind of world we grow up in? Let me take her back to her remarks about farming, as the Secretary of State f…”

“With great respect to the hon. Lady, who is fortunate to represent a beautiful place, the Poole that I knew is not the Poole that she now knows—not even in the town, never mind in the countryside. Although one or two places such as Branksea island, to give it its proper name, may have improved—the overgrowth was taken …”

“Mr Western, I probably ought to indicate that I have proudly served in the past as a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee, although I do not regard this as just an Anglican issue at all. Further to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), the support for these buildings—for our c…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point. It has been raised earlier in this debate, and it worried me. Our parish churches are, of course, important, but is it not true that our cathedrals are also monumentally expensive to maintain? Is not the grant every bit as valuable to, for example, Canterbury cathedral in the…”

“Will the Minister accept that the volume of tourists that he has just referred to is essential to many listed buildings, particularly places such as Canterbury cathedral? That volume of tourism also, of course, adds to the cost of maintenance.”

“Before the general election was called, there was a clear indication from the Government that they intended to fund the—only—£25 million reconstruction of the maternity unit at the QEQM hospital in Margate, which emerged from the Bill Kirkup report. I will be grateful if the Secretary of State can tell me whether it is…”

“I am sure that the Foreign Secretary’s statement will be as welcome in Kyiv as it is in this House. He referred to the 200,000 refugees in this country. Further to the point that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) made, many of those people would like to return home, but home is a war zone, pa…”

“As we are in the business of name-checking, I am delighted to say that after a period of lamentable closure, the Half Moon and Seven Stars in Preston, the village I live in, will be reopening its doors at 5 o’clock tonight, celebrating, I think, Pubs Day today—neither the hon. Gentleman nor I will be there, unfortunate…”

“Does my hon. Friend not accept that, while it is not remotely surprising that some developers are resistant on the grounds that the Bill will add to the costs of building property—it indubitably will—we should recognise the flipside of that coin, which is that it will enhance the value of the property and make its mana…”

“The Bill does accommodate exemptions, and my hon. Friend makes a case in point. In the village I live in, we have thatched buildings, and I would like to see more of them. There may be cases where an exemption should be permitted, but looking at the Bill as it stands, it seems that these loopholes are wide open to expl…”

“Up to a point, I agree with the hon. Lady, but only up to a point. I do not want to see the fine buildings of Kent smothered in hideous installations, so we have to find a way technically of making the panels acceptable. I accept entirely that retrofitting is much harder than new build. It is possible to inset photovol…”

“If the hon. Gentleman can tell me of a photovoltaic tile that is acceptable to the people who are enforcing regulations relating to listed buildings, I would be delighted to hear it. That is what I was trying to come on to before I was interrupted. Kent, a wonderful county, has very many grade II listed buildings, and …”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) on his good fortune in securing a place in the ballot in order to introduce what is, without doubt, a very important Bill. I am, however, concerned about the scope of the Bill, and I will come to that in a moment, if I may—I do not propose to take very long.…”

“The right hon. Lady will know that I would not for one moment question her integrity, and certainly not her intent. However, I am perplexed by the methodology. Baroness Casey has one or two other things on her plate at the moment, but if she is able to deliver this audit in three months, that can only be a good thing. …”

“Setting aside the matter of grooming gangs, the Opposition amendment on today’s Order Paper sets out very clearly why the Bill that we will be debating is so deeply flawed. If it is to become an Act of Parliament, it will have to be completely rewritten in Committee. The Prime Minister has made much from the Dispatch B…”

“Shooting Star and Demelza House are two children’s cancer hospice charities that make a significant contribution to the national health service. Is it not absolutely ludicrous that money given for charitable purposes should effectively be siphoned off to the Treasury instead of being used to provide the support to chil…”

“Order. To make it easier for Members, I have asked that the clock count down, rather than up, so it is easier to work out how much time you have left. You can now see that very clearly indeed.”

“I am sorry to intrude on the Minister’s time. As I understand it, the extension of the children’s hospices grant will not meet the costs of national insurance for children’s hospices. Will she ask the Treasury to clarify that, and if necessary, discuss it with the executives of the children’s hospice movement?”