Speeches by Norris.

“I do not think that it is necessarily a new burden; it is as much about wiring the system up much better. I know it from my own town and my own city that these organisations are doing this anyway. There just seems to be that gap with statutory services that disappear immediately the moment there is a problem. Outside o…”

“To give you an assurance, Mr Powell, we are very interested in RBKC and its process, as I know you and members of the council are. The Deputy Prime Minister has met with the leader, as have I. I meet with the leader monthly; I am meeting them again on Thursday, to see progress. RBKC were not particularly referenced in …”

“The machinery of government change we have made reflects what was in the report. That is the transfer of fire functions from the Home Office to MHCLG so that building and safety and fire—as it has been, as it has moved in and out between MHCLG and the Home Office—are consolidated under one roof. The exception to that i…”

“That is such a great question—it is the important question of the day. We are now getting to the point where mayoral authorities in many parts of the country have been well established over a long period of time. Year on year—every May—more come on stream. We are very shortly going to get to the point where the entiret…”

“Absolutely. I have met with Roy Wilsher already. He forms part of the ministerial advisory group that I will be relying on to develop policy. We will be working very closely with the inspectorate indeed, obviously with appropriate gaps between the Executive and the inspectorate.”

“We cannot say it is enough if we see the degree of complaints and dissatisfaction that we still see. We should be open to any and all ways of trying to close not only feedback loops but, most importantly, action loops. Another important thing we inherited from last April is stronger consumer standards, so people have r…”

“First, I think it reflects well and probably speaks to the improvements made within LFB that that is, from the top, what they want. My experience has been that they have invited transparency at every turn. I wish we saw more of that. It is a good way of building confidence in the future that when changes have to be mad…”

“The finances of resilience is one of those really interesting and never-talked-about issues. If we interrogated Hansard, I suspect this might be the first conversation in quite a while on this point. For very small amounts of money, we do very big things in this country. It is not just local authorities. It is the comm…”

“Thank you for having me this morning. I recognise that characterisation from my own mailbag, as I suspect colleagues will too. It still seems too hard for tenants to get the change that they need, or to be listened to, and organisations perhaps see that as either inconvenient or unimportant to them. That has to change.…”

“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell, and to speak for the Government in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) on securing it. All the interest from Members shows how important it was. He made a very thoughtful case on behalf of his community and…”

“I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this debate and for the way he led it. He said that it was his first opening speech—it was an excellent one. I admire both the poise and the clarity with which he spoke in his first Backbench Business debate. There are clearly more excellent debate…”

“That is an important point. Rural communities can be coastal communities and vice versa, but not always, and their challenges manifest very differently. The challenges that come from being a community at the end of the line can be significant and profound, and we absolutely accept that. I turn to the point that the hon…”

“That is an excellent question. I will make sure that colleagues, through the Minister for Faith, Lord Khan, are able to have that opportunity. We are very good conduits of information and insight, because we see this every day in our constituencies, and, by definition, we cover the entire community. That is an excellen…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the kind offer of support. I have to say, I am not generally one for policing colleagues’ diaries, but I hope that during this period, colleagues from all political parties and none are able to use their platform positively to promote the important work of Britain’s Muslim community …”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed) for securing this debate during such an important time for Muslim communities. What a pleasure it is to follow a speech that was thoughtful and reflective, but also challenging to us all in this place and in particular to us as a Govt. I look forward t…”

“I am grateful for that, and for the conversations that I have had with the right hon. Gentleman. The difference between his area and the other 74 is that in his case, the connection is with a town council, rather than a local authority. As he knows, I am a great proponent of town and parish councils. He bears a heavy w…”

“I greatly enjoyed my visit to Rugby. It took me more than an hour to realise that the great ovoid-shaped public art installations were rugby balls, hence the rugby pun. It was, perhaps, not my sharpest day. However, I really enjoyed the session we had with local business and community and the local authority. It was im…”

“We are very enthusiastic about fan ownership and we are, through the fan-led review, taking forward many things related to football. The community ownership fund had its final round just before Christmas, which in many cases had a sporting element to it. The shared prosperity fund, through the local authority, can supp…”

“Yes, that is not an unfamiliar ask that colleagues have made. As I have said, we could not support boundary changes that really change the nature of an area—if we went up to a population of 1 million people, it would cease to be the programme it was. However, if there are common-sense changes that could be made, we wil…”

“Yes, absolutely. When my hon. Friend came to visit me in my office, I felt that he and his colleagues had come rather as wallet inspectors and that I was not going to get away with the shirt on my back. I have to be candid: as I said then, I really did not know whether we would be able to find the funding to deliver th…”