Speeches by Aquarone.

“May I ask whether Stephen has any comments?”

“I hear that at some level, but you will forgive me for labouring the point. I do not think you can invest incrementally in transforming a network proposition. You have to go to the very biggest extent immediately, for people to buy into the opportunity. It really is one of those rare examples of, “Build it, and they wi…”

“Do you accept that there is a significant requirement for public subsidy to make these routes work, at least in the first five or six years? That is what we saw in Ireland; the change came four or five years after the initial investment was made.”

“Overall, though, if you bring all the different pots of funding together and think what a transformative vision for rural public transport could look like, it sounds at the moment as if there is not enough money.”

“That makes a lot of sense. I recognise the description of the financial constraints, from almost every Minister I have spoken to since the election but, of course, this is a case of investment in increased social mobility, accessibility, decarbonisation, reduction in road miles and potentially economic growth. I see pu…”

“Stepping back from who pays for it, one of the core principles of the Connecting Ireland programme is about socially necessary services, whatever that means. In my view, it is an incredibly unhelpful definition that causes great confusion, because surely the ambition should be, and the whole point of public transport i…”

“Norfolk is a car county, we were told.”

“2. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of rural broadband coverage.”

“Many rural villages in my constituency still suffer from poor broadband access, with no clear date for when it will get better and more demands for huge expenditure to get them connected to the network. I think particularly of residents in Banningham, who have suffered from poor broadband access for years and feel they…”

“Unquestionably, and a slightly more sympathetic approach should be taken to historical instances in which householders’ surface water drains have been connected to foul water systems, which they may not even realise. For developments that have been built since that law, it is absolutely unquestionable that developers s…”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) on securing the debate. As in much of the country, we in North Norfolk have been told by the Government that we need to identify significantly more sites for housing. Let me be absolutely clear: we do need more homes, including homes that local people can …”

“I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Dr Ding Col Dau Ding was raised and educated in North Norfolk and became a neurosurgeon before travelling to South Sudan to practise medicine and save lives. In 2017, he was found dead in his family’s flat, and they believe that he was murdered. The official Govern…”

“Elaine, you spoke about the role of private finance in rolling stock. It has been a bit of a delicious lightning rod for private investment. Does anyone have specific thoughts about where private finance could add value, particularly to enhancements, for instance? Is there a greater role for it or a different role for …”

“I suppose whether it is a railway network or a hotel, there is clearly sense in having a separation aspirationally between stuff that is maintenance and stuff that is big projects. What I am interested in knowing is this. There are three subsets: there are big projects; there is stuff that we are not allowed to do to m…”

“Okay, so it is only a part of the works that are going on in the railways.”

“On those efficiencies, does that mean you are face to face with them and crunching down on price, or is it that you are hoping that they can spread their interest across a longer and more certain period and drive costs down? Where are the efficiencies coming from within the operating model of the supply chain?”

“Is there anything else that could give the supply chain greater comfort or certainty?”

“I am sure we will delve more into what happens within it in the course of the morning. When it comes to the pipeline and one of the bigger themes of this inquiry, which is industry readiness and the view that industry has of what is coming down the tracks—an inadvertent pun—can you tell us a bit about how you liaise wi…”

“Not quite belt and road, but clearly a role.”

“Before I ask my main question, I would like to get some clarification. You said that renewals are a big part of the control period process. There is maintenance, operations and various other things. Electrification is a little bit of that. When you go into the control period process as a whole, are you wrapping up all …”