Speeches by Aquarone.

“Thank you for calling me to speak, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) on securing this debate. A young lady called Imogen wrote to me recently to tell me about her concerns over swimming safety. She notes that Norfolk has many beautiful rivers, but she worries about people…”

“Parishioners in the Matlaske benefice have raised over £3,000 to support the people of Gaza. They were visited last year by a priest from Bethlehem, who shared how this conflict is impacting people there. They hope for the return of the hostages, and for peace for the Palestinian people. I will not ask the Minister to …”

“Farmers in North Norfolk are facing a litany of struggles. They feel let down by the previous Government for selling them down the river with dodgy trade deals and years of cuts to the farming budget. They feel let down by the current Government’s continued pursuit of the damaging family farm tax. Farmers’ major strugg…”

“The hon. Gentleman has helped me make progress because the issue is all about attitude and mindset. In Norfolk, a former leader even eagerly told the council that Norfolk is a car county. If only the council had realised earlier that its pipe dream of a quarter of a billion pound link road through a site of special sci…”

“I certainly agree. Much as I will slag off Norfolk county council at times, at least it has someone driving a bus, in contrast to her council. The problem is how the issue is being treated by those in power. It is not the fault of bus operators; I have been grateful for the time and engagement that they have provided m…”

“I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have campaigned politically in North Norfolk for nearly a decade; all the while, people have been sharing with me their frustrations with our local public transport network. Since the age of 11, I have been watching different opera…”

“I am grateful to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing this debate—the application for which I was pleased to support. I would like to tell the House about Philip, who wrote to me, in his own words, in “desperation”. He is a proud armed forces veteran and was recovering from a rec…”

“The connectivity challenge is a huge issue in rural areas, especially for businesses. I recently visited a local tourism business in Bacton that relies on multiple copper landlines—a very vulnerable set-up, given the upcoming switch-off of the public switched telephone network. That business has had outages and enginee…”

“To be clear, we are focused specifically on non-urban areas in this inquiry. We are very keen to hear, in particular, how that works as we go forwards. I am in danger of running into other people’s questioning areas, so I will leave it there. Thank you both very much.”

“To be clear, when you talk about transport authorities, you mean combined mayoral authorities.”

“I appreciate that, and in a moment we will come on to giving local authorities the power to decide what a socially necessary route is, but are there other mechanisms you intend to use to support local authorities to improve connectivity? I will challenge you on one of the things you said, if I may, Minister. I get that…”

“I very much hope you can inspire that ambition to be shared across our rural communities. That is clearly a job in itself. Of course, the backstop to ambition is a minimum level of service requirement. Can either of you tell us about the Department’s view on introducing things like a guaranteed minimum service level fo…”

“Norfolk doesn’t. Norfolk is a car county. That is what their leader told us three years ago.”

“Minister, it is good to hear about the importance of empowerment of local leaders, but that does not necessarily mean that they have the ambition for this that you sound like you have. Certainly, when this Committee sought to find a place to visit—to catch a bus, let alone talk about buses—we had to go to Ireland. We w…”

“There are improvements, but it is not going to take cars off drives in rural areas.”

“Given what we have heard so far about the role of Government policy, and the autonomy and ambition that you are seeking to pass on to LTAs and local leadership, I am interested in the bit that is in the middle, which is the Department itself. What sort of role, Stephen, do you see the Department’s team that you look af…”

“Thank you.”

“Part of the challenge, let’s face it, is that bus services, through fare revenue, are unlikely ever to become sustainable, whether in London or in rural areas. The price of running the service in Ireland is very high. The difference it makes, though, is not to the public purse but to the private purse, because a househ…”

“But you would agree that socially necessary routes require significant public subsidy.”

“I don’t speak on behalf of the Chair, but I am sure the Committee would be interested in hearing the results of those pilots as soon as they become available.”