Speeches by Aquarone.

“I make absolutely no comment on the latter question, but I welcome the hon. Member’s contribution—no advance sight was given of my speech. Her presence here serves to remind us all that it is not just MPs representing coastal communities who have a stake in their prosperity. I thank her for her almost perfectly timed w…”

“I valued the comments of the shadow Leader of the House, and of my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones). I offer my condolences, and my time, on a separate occasion, to discuss the ideas for the future that the shadow Leader of the House set out. BT has threatened to close down the K6 telephone box in Sha…”

“Your guys carry stuff that does all those different tasks, don’t they, on the back of a highways van? Even with a third-party private contractor, they are able to do excavation, traffic management, reinstatement and probably the repair when you go out.”

“As a supplementary, these are two sides of the same coin. This Committee has heard, in quite a few different contexts, some of the challenges of the way Government services and/or these penalties through legislation are price-fixed and, therefore, do not quite do the job they could; £50 is not a lot of money. Is part o…”

“Thank you, Neil. Adam, you mentioned minor cost saving for the utility company but major disruption impact. As with all things, the task will expand to fill the time it is given. Can you explain a bit more about why the task expands to fill the time it is given? Whether it is five days or seven days or three days, it w…”

“Thinking specifically about the inspection regime that came in in 2023, which I know some of you have alluded to already, the first question is: has it made things easier to get fixed?”

“T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.”

“The Bacton energy hub in my constituency is undergoing a green transition, which I support because I believe in protecting our natural environment and boosting our economy through net zero—two things the Conservatives seem to have abandoned. Green hydrogen at Bacton needs wind power to be brought in from the coast. Wil…”

“It might be beyond even Deloitte to suggest that they might be commissioned to build a word processing software tool for a fee. I will leave that bit there. Thank you for that. Coming back to the question of funding, could a structured fare solution help to deliver more long-term financial sustainability for the sector…”

“That potentially helps the cost issue, but what Caroline is saying is that the outfit itself does not have the bandwidth, if it is an organisation running a £25,000 turnover, to think about what sort of coffee they are buying, let alone whether they are buying and implementing new tech. Has that extended down directly …”

“Across all of them?”

“James, do you meet buyer resistance in this regard? You would not insist on selling a whole separate scheme to every single minibus operator, would you?”

“The sudden completion of the SFI scheme will be a worry for many farmers and local people. I am also very concerned by reports that the NFU was given only 30 minutes’ notice on such a huge change. To give my local farmers the confidence that they need, can the Minister assure them that DEFRA will learn lessons from the…”

“I nearly fell off my chair at the usage stats on mobile applications. Just before I ask this potentially divisive question, I am not trying to kick the panel into confrontation deliberately. I spend a lot of my time arguing for the need for digital inclusion. I represent the oldest constituency in the country. I would …”

“Yes, but if you were going to make it more flexible, if you were going to rewrite the legislation, make it simpler and easier for operators to work within.”

“Going back to the limitations or otherwise of the legislation, for private hire it is really simple. It is zoned by district. The authority that gives you the badge is where you can collect from. If you were to think about the full scope of the possibility for DRT, which dimension would be the most sensible to make the…”

“Does that extend to the opportunity of dropping people off at bus stops, if you are actually putting passengers on a commercial service?”

“I am sure colleagues have other questions to build on some of that. To go back to what the Chair was just encouraging me to move us on to, you have touched on it, Caroline. It is the slightly labyrinthine legislative context. I have met one of my community transport operators and I could not believe some of the permuta…”

“MaaS?”

“That is just among community transport operators, of course. It is not looking at all the other non-private transport options.”