Speeches by Carmichael.

“The impact I hear from SMEs in my constituency, predominantly in the visitor economy, is that they are anticipating cutting the hours of part-time staff or laying them off and reducing the number of seasonal employees that they will take on. Will the Minister take those concerns seriously and work with Ministers in the…”

“I note the Minister’s complaint that he inherited an uncapped budget. Can he tell the House whether that was something that he just noticed on Monday, which meant that he had to close the scheme without warning on Tuesday? On 14 January, the director general from his Department in charge of food biosecurity and trade t…”

“It is just over 32 years now since the MV Braer was grounded off Shetland, but for us the memories are still very fresh. We know exactly how those communities on the east coast of England who are braced for what may be coming will feel. We might not know what happened, but we can be pretty certain that at some time, so…”

“Three years ago, the sale of Chelsea football club realised £2.5 billion, which was to be used for the benefit of Ukraine. Today, that money remains frozen, and as Lyra Nightingale of Redress said this morning, there is a total lack of transparency about who has it and when it is going to be released. Can the Prime Min…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because he has come to a very important part of the debate. First, we need proper resourcing of the GCA as it currently exists. Secondly, there is a structural problem with the accountability chain here. The GCA effectively governs the relationship between the middle link,…”

“Viewed from Washington, the idea of carving up the map in Europe might look like a pragmatic deal, even if history tells us that that always ends badly. Surely we in Europe understand that no matter what we give Vladimir Putin, he will always want more. Is that the context in which the strategic defence review is being…”

“The hon. Gentleman is speaking about exports. We know the damage done to the Scotch whisky industry when we last suffered tariffs as a consequence of US trade policy—nothing to do with President Trump, it has to be said, but due to an old trade dispute. Surely this is the point at which the Government should be thinkin…”

“Would the hon. Gentleman allow a non-promotional intervention?”

“rose—”

“Does the Minister not understand that by penalising family farming at the same time as offering the 20% threshold, he leaves a situation in which purchasing land is still an attractive option for those who wish to shelter their wealth? He penalises those he wants to protect while protecting those he seeks to penalise.”

“I do not think I can listen to many more people say that. When I questioned the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee before Christmas, he specifically said that what rich people do with their money within the rules was a matter for them, and that the policy did not have a target audience. Does that not point to an i…”

“As Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, I have not been short of opportunities to speak about this issue in recent months, so I shall keep my remarks short so that others might place their constituents’ concerns on the record. I should declare that I am a farmer and landowner. That is ente…”

“May I take the Secretary of State back to the subject of illegal meat imports? On Tuesday the Select Committee was told that at Dover this work, which covers only 20% of arrivals, is being done in live lanes, despite the fact that there is a border control post at Dover that is sitting unused, and the funding for Dover…”

“T10. I thank the Minister with responsibility for energy consumers for agreeing to convene a roundtable tomorrow on the subject of radio teleswitching switch-off at the end of June. The problem will be particularly acute in communities like mine; we are well behind the rest of the country when it comes to smart meter r…”

“I do not think anybody would disagree with the comments by the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) about the redevelopment of the facility at Weybridge, but I suspect that once avian influenza is in the wild bird population, as it is here, even the best facility in the world will struggle to contain …”

“Does the Minister agree that the manner in which the Post Office allowed the information about the closure of directly managed branches to come into the public domain was unacceptable? What is he doing to ensure that the Post Office treats communities with better respect than that in the future?”

“The right hon. Gentleman touches on something that piqued my interest in this subject 20 years ago, when my constituent the late Biz Ivol, who was a sufferer from multiple sclerosis, told me that the only relief she got from multiple sclerosis was by her own—shall we say—non-prescribed use of cannabis. She described mu…”

“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) on taking the initiative to secure time for this debate and on the way in which he opened it. We are all familiar with the old maxim, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I have lost count of the number of post office debates I have taken p…”

“If people are looking at a £400,000 bill, which is what they would pay on a £3 million farm, and they earn £25,000 a year, they will still struggle to make that payment in 10 years; in fact, it would be downright impossible. That is how the land gets sold.”

“The Minister is shaking his head. I wonder whether the hon. Lady would join me in inviting him to intervene to explain why that fact is wrong.”