Speeches by Adam.

“I think it has been comprehensively covered.”

“Likewise. I was aware of it prior to that but, thankfully, have not had the need to use it. But if there is, now we are part of the alliance, we would be able to navigate that quite comfortably, I think.”

“Procedurally, all I can see is advantages to it.”

“In terms of procedural, no. In terms of the mechanisms that go behind being part of a political party, then obviously that opens up a whole different can of worms.”

“It is not something that I have spent too much time thinking about. I am not advocating for it. It is not something that has really crossed my mind. Obviously, not being part of a political party means that we are at a disadvantage with what we could spend our resources on in terms of assistance, and so on. There are p…”

“I think it was a bit of both. I suspect that outside it gave people something, “There is a unity among the independents”, so they were pleased that we were working together. Procedurally, we would hope that with our numbers there would be certain changes as well going forward.”

“Sorry?”

“I think similarly, prior to being elected, with due respect—I am sure Iqbal will say the same—we had not even heard of each other, Iqbal, Ayoub and Adnan. I think I had heard of Adnan, but I did not know him. We had come into this completely independently. We campaigned on a lot of similar things, on NHS and so on, but…”

“It is very difficult to say because before the alliance there was only about four weeks, and I was still getting lost getting to the Chamber at that stage. We had the recess and then we formed the alliance. I honestly cannot compare and contrast. I would not be able to say whether I have noticed any difference in the p…”

“I will just emphasise one point: the word that Iqbal used is co-ordinate. We can co-ordinate a lot better now as an alliance, because we are an informal loose alliance. We can discuss things and co-ordinate certain projects and statements and so on. The other thing is that we do not have a Whip. We can vote as we will.…”

“No.”

“I was not aware of that.”

“It is still very important, because Select Committees are one aspect of a huge fraternity here. Therefore, it was so many other things you see before a Select Committee when you wish to be elected. I am sure somebody does get elected primarily just to be on a Select Committee, but there are a lot of other representatio…”

“I knew that, but I still stood.”

“I was aware.”

“I have tried in one and I was not accepted.”

“I am part of multiple APPGs, which I find very useful, and that creates cross-party alliances as well, but for Select Committees it feels we are not able to contribute the expertise that we bring. We are still as elected as any other individual from any political party. We hold the same mandate, so I feel that is one a…”

“When I submitted initially, I probably did not have as many parliamentary colleagues that I knew across the parties and the Chamber. I think that has changed now. I have not cognisantly felt that reticence on these issues at all up to this stage.”

“No.”

“That is one area where I feel that I am not asking the right questions because they keep being returned to me from the Table Office: “How is it that you want this question to be articulated?” We have submitted multiple written questions, and we get that response back the majority of the time. As for putting my name dow…”