Speeches by Strathern.

“7. What steps he is taking to increase access to the sustainable farming incentive for small and medium-sized farms.”

“Alongside the failure to go after some of the evil perpetrators of these crimes without fear or favour, another devastating failing of the grooming gangs scandal was the criminalisation of some of the young people involved by a system that all too often failed to see them as children and victims first. How is the Solic…”

“I share many of my constituents’ despair and anger about the intolerable suffering in Gaza. Last year, I had the privilege of meeting one of my constituents, Becky, to hear about her heartbreaking experience of delivering medical aid in Palestine. Devastatingly, a year on, the situation is much worse, with Gaza now the…”

“7. What steps he is taking to help increase levels of aid entering Gaza.”

“The European convention on human rights is an important bedrock, protecting not only vulnerable people’s rights here in the UK, but also our strong international relationships, which were crucial to securing the returns deal with France, and co-operation with Germany and other European partners on finally clamping down…”

“Many of my constituents share my utter disgust at the way in which water companies have been able to profit from degrading our rivers and chalk streams. It is fantastic to see bonuses already banned at polluting Anglian Water and to see that we are following up by taking action and sacking regulators that were asleep a…”

“One way to drive down energy costs, including for energy-intensive industries, could be to help cut curtailment costs by encouraging the co-location of new energy-intensive industry sectors with some of the renewable sectors that we are currently having to pay to switch off. As we start to roll out more data centres ac…”

“I had the real pleasure of visiting York Road nursery school in my constituency this morning to celebrate its securing Eco-Schools green flag status—with distinction no less. As well as being a sobering reminder of my inability to hold the attention of four-year-olds for very long, it was a powerful reminder that futur…”

“Given the importance of family hubs, I know the Secretary of State shares my disappointment that neither Central Bedfordshire nor Hertfordshire previously received a single penny of family hub funding. It was vulnerable families in the towns and villages in those areas of my constituency who were paying the price, so I…”

“Having raised with the Minister the need to do more on paternity and kinship leave in particular, I very much welcome today’s statement and the upcoming landmark review. I recently had the pleasure of hosting a number of parents at the Victoria pub in Hitchin to talk about the challenges caused by the current paternity…”

“I thank my hon. Friend; she will be a powerful champion for the many residents in her community who are falling on the hard edge of this challenge. Sadly, she is far from alone. Far too many MPs from right across the country have been speaking to me about the issues that their constituents have been facing, too. Indeed…”

“Absolutely. The certainty and fairness my hon. Friend calls for is the bare minimum we should expect for our constituents and the bare minimum that families should have when moving into a new property, often one they have saved up for over a long time to take that big, exciting step. I know his constituents will be all…”

“I know my hon. Friend is a tireless champion of his constituents who are impacted by this issue. He is spot on: this fleecehold stealth tax—because it is in essence a stealth tax our constituents are being asked to pay—is not just unfair to residents, but means they are all too often ultimately reliant on management co…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered unadopted estates and roads. It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler, and a real pleasure to have the Minister present to respond. I am proud to be part of a Labour party that takes the housing crisis, which affects far too many families across t…”

“Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman gives an example of the kind that I think will be familiar to all too many of us. Essentially, an unadopted part of our constituency—be that a road, or common ground within an estate—falls into this limbo state, where no one step ups to be accountable for it. Without action or some kind o…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman. Again, he will be a powerful champion for his residents at the hard edge of the challenges with unadopted estates in his constituency. The example he highlights is powerful, because it is testament to the fact that more and more families living on unadopted estates are simply not getting the…”

“Before I move on to the amendment I want to speak about, I thank the Minister for the speed with which the Government have brought forward this Bill. It addresses important issues around protecting retail workers and tackling shoplifting and antisocial behaviour—issues that communities such as the towns and villages th…”

“A lot of us have been inspired by my hon. Friend’s campaigning before she arrived in this place, and her intervention is a powerful example of why. It is exactly that moment—that lack of belief—that far too many victims of spiking are encountering when they go to the authorities at the moment, and it is that lack of be…”

“I thank the hon. Member for all the work he has done on this important issue through tabling the amendment, not just now but in Committee. I do not want to put words into the Minister’s mouth, but I am pretty sure she will be able to articulate some of those officials’ views back to him when summing up. However, I want…”

“Any and every instance of child sexual exploitation should shame all of us, but I think what so many of us found particularly horrific about the grooming gangs scandal was the fact that those crimes continued to be perpetrated because of a failure to act by stakeholders and agencies that had completely indefensible pre…”