Speeches by Hobhouse.

“You are still talking about a baseload not covering intermittency. The baseload is exactly the reason that many sources of renewable energy cannot be used because they get turned off rather than being used. We cannot turn off nuclear. I hear that new nuclear can be turned on and off again. Is that correct?”

“How does nuclear deal with the intermittency of renewables? That is one of our biggest questions, is it not? People are coming in with storage, batteries and all the rest of it.”

“We are moving on to AMRs, or advanced modular reactors. Maybe it is helpful to remind ourselves of what is what. When we talk about small modular reactors, I have heard that they are actually not that small. They are pretty big. What about AMRs? I think it was mentioned by you, Sam, that the backbone of the British net…”

“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Turner. I congratulate the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing this debate. Cricket is not played much in Germany, so I had to come a long way when I married my cricket-loving husband who spent most of his summer weekends either playing or liste…”

“One in three rape trials end up being postponed, in some cases more than six times, and 73% of rape survivors say that police treatment worsened their mental health during the process. What improvements will be made in how the police treat rape survivors?”

“For many, Christmas is the season of joy and connection. But for victims of domestic abuse, it can be the most dangerous time of the year. Reports of domestic violence typically rise by around 20% over the festive period. How is the Department working with employers to ensure that staff are proactively informed about d…”

“The politically motivated conviction of Jimmy Lai is yet another chilling sign of the breakdown of human rights and freedom of speech in Hong Kong. The Foreign Secretary will know that I was refused entry into Hong Kong to visit our son and his young family, and I never got any explanation why. Where does this recent d…”

“I am enormously grateful to the Minister for leaving plenty of time for Martin Rhodes to wind up.”

“There is plenty of time, but I remind the Minister to leave a couple of minutes for the hon. Member for Glasgow North to wind up.”

“Order. May I encourage the hon. Member to wind up?”

“I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to speak. I am going to call the Front Benchers at 2.25 pm at the latest. I do not think I need to impose an official limit on speeches, but it would be brilliant if Members keep their remarks within eight minutes.”

“The normal order is two minutes to wind up.”

“The Minister mentioned earlier the disaster of Brexit, and I will add the loss to the UK economy of £250 million a day in tax revenue, according to research from the House of Commons Library. We Liberal Democrats want the Government to focus on a golden opportunity to grow the economy by considering a new customs union…”

“Transparency might drive costs down because suddenly people have nowhere to hide, where you were talking about some of the profits are—”

“Again, that only goes to show that it is a system that is not really fit for purpose and does not serve the consumer.”

“The Chair knows that I am always getting very impatient on the last question. I want to go back to investment costs in the network. You have ultimately already answered earlier in the session that we are now paying for the lack of investment in previous years, mainly because they often did not want the bills to be high…”

“Q6. In Bath, parents of children with special educational needs, which are often very complex, are crying out for special school places. Funding to build a brand new special school at the Culverhay site in Bath was secured, but the Government have frozen the funding for almost 18 months without any explanation, leaving…”

“Another very small question, but maybe it is a big question. The decentralised and flexible system that is required for the energy future that you mentioned earlier, is the market able under the current system to cope with that?”

“I also have a question of understanding relating exactly to the two paragraphs or now three paragraphs before. Were you suggesting that we hold something like 5% of gas in storage for a windless and sunless day and then we can bring it in? The problem with nuclear of course is it has to run—you cannot turn it on and of…”

“Transparency might drive costs down because suddenly people have nowhere to hide, where you were talking about some of the profits are—”