Speeches by Carling.

“I was having a look at those earlier, and I think that they are a great step in the right direction, but they are a little hard to access in some circumstances. There is also limited central information on the overall picture of the public inquiry landscape for people who are interested. With the four major inquiries t…”

“More widely, what role do you see the Cabinet Office fulfilling when it comes to ensuring that the Government do better in how they implement inquiry recommendations?”

“Well, perhaps. I certainly was. In response to the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee in February last year, the Government fully accepted six of the seven recommendations aimed at them, which was great. There was a commitment to publish guidance on inquiries, including advice on engaging victim and survivor …”

“I commend the Minister for bringing forward these brilliant measures to protect leaseholders. Constituents across Hampton own the freehold to their homes but pay several levels of service charge—first, to managing agents such as FirstPort, which is supposed to be responsible for unadopted roads, and secondly, to Hampto…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the biosecurity aspect of this issue. My farmers, too, have been significantly impacted by foot and mouth disease in the past, and I know how important an issue that is. She puts her point on the record. I was talking about potential arguments around food prices. Researc…”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that if we can unify our import standards with our domestic standards, that problem disappears in many ways? The standards will be the same and therefore we will not have labelling that might undermine our farmers.”

“I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I remember doing that scheme myself last year. It was incredibly valuable, and I encourage other colleagues to do it. The NFU is doing a brilliant job. Polls show that consumers do not want low-welfare imports either; nine in 10 people support banning them. That may be unsurp…”

“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who makes his point well. I will touch on EU regulations later. Our Labour Government have a stellar record on this issue so far. In negotiations with India, we refused to lower protections on goods such as pork, chicken and eggs. In talks with Korea, we have secured new commitments…”

“I am glad to have a couple of minutes to wind up after what has been an incredibly valuable debate that has covered a whole range of topics. I start, of course, with the hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst), who, I think, agrees with me—there were various bits of discussion there. I referred exc…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of import standards on the agricultural sector. I am delighted to have secured today’s debate. I am very grateful to all colleagues who signed my application, and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time. I am happy to take interventions during my sp…”

“You talked quite a lot in your evidence about the duplication—“man marking” is the term you used—of ALB functions by Departments. What do you think the solution is to that? Is the correct answer always to close the ALB, or is it to find some other way?”

“Is there essentially a need for clearer definitions of things like “operationally independent”, and some of the other terms that we are seeing?”

“Okay. What is the key issue with the sponsorship teams? Is it the level of seniority and expertise? Is it a question of resourcing? How could we improve the sponsorship teams?”

“That is a problem. Do you think there is enough clarity around the respective roles of Departments and ALBs? Do Departments really know what sponsorship should look like and all the functions that they should be carrying out?”

“If it was 250, that would be fewer than the number of ALBs, right? You would have less than one person sponsoring each one.”

“That is helpful, and I agree. How effective would you say departmental oversight is at the moment of the public bodies they cover? What are the key issues with that? Do you want to add anything more?”

“That is a useful couple of ideas to think through. In some of the evidence we have seen, you commented on a shortage of resource in the Cabinet Office and the teams that examine ALBs. I put a similar query to a senior civil servant at the Committee’s last session, and the response was essentially that they feel the Cab…”

“Sure. The guidance is vague, but the Cabinet Office and the Treasury can both veto the establishment of new ALBs, so why is there still so much inconsistency? Could any other safeguards be put in place that are more effective than what we have right now?”

“You flagged inconsistency in the ways that ALBs are established, with those that perform similar functions often having different status or classification, and often different governance arrangements. Is that mostly a legacy problem? Or is it still happening with new public bodies?”

“Do we know enough, then, about the public bodies we have? If we do not, how do we improve that? For example, should the Cabinet Office collect and publish information around all public bodies—despite some of the issues you just touched on—rather than just ALBs?”