Speeches by Dixon.

“Apologies for coming late to the session. I was very interested to hear, in your response to Rupert’s question, that you are thinking about all sectors. I want to bring up two sectors that we probably do not normally think about when we are thinking about growth. The first is farmers. Jessica, you were talking about en…”

“I hugely welcome the investment into general practice, particularly the flexibility to employ often under-employed GPs who want additional hours and shifts. I also welcome the Minister’s comments about innovation and AI. Sadly, I have had representations from Grange Park surgery in Burley-in-Wharfedale in my constituen…”

“T5. As the ongoing conflict in the middle east is demonstrating, drone technology is an essential military capability. Businesses around Saltaire and Baildon in my constituency are at the cutting edge of both space technology and radio frequency, which I know the Minister will understand are critical to drone warfare. …”

“Sorry—just to clarify, what is your robust modelling? You keep talking about this 23%; what is that?”

“I have a quick follow-up on this point. Steve asked a really excellent question about whether it would be possible to come up with a cost-benefit analysis of the value for money relative to other schemes that might try to close the disability gap, and indeed, as we reform PIP, where that personal independence payment i…”

“Indeed. Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to raise that.”

“We could follow those up specifically to make sure that reducing job aides to 20% is not inadvertently reducing support for people with BSL needs, which should be at 100%.”

“Yes, that may be the case. One of the examples is a business owner. If she does not get the BSL support and she has to give up her business, that will have consequences for the other 24 people she hires. It would be possible to get some examples from the RNID.”

“Apologies to everyone for my late arrival. Further to the figures relating to support workers, particularly for deaf people, the support of a BSL interpreter is one of the categories that has increased most proportionately, yet the feedback coming from the deaf community is that they are experiencing reductions in the …”

“I recently visited Leeds Crown court, where I saw the benefits of some of that investment in a victim support suite, which ensured that victims, particularly of violence against women and girls, were safe and secure. Does my hon. Friend agree that both the investment and the reforms that we are considering are necessar…”

“No—I withdraw.”

“Will the Minister take a brief intervention?”

“The hon. Lady is making her case very personally and passionately, describing the harms to young people’s mental health that result from the predatory algorithms that the tech giants have devised to create addictive content for children. I, too, think that there is cross-party agreement on the need to look very careful…”

“I thank the Minister for his remarks, and I hope that part of the consultation will involve looking at research. The Born in Bradford study is a huge cohort study that has recently looked at social media use by 12 to 15-year-olds in the Bradford district. It found that they are using social media for 3.36 hours per day…”

“I thank the hon. Member—I will call her my friend, as she gave way to me on the last sentence of her speech. She has made a powerful case for cross-party working, hearing different perspectives and bringing forward change quickly, but that is the point of consultation: to find out how we should do something, get the vi…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“Our politics are increasingly fragmented. There is a real threat that an extreme minority party could win a majority of seats with just a fraction of the popular vote at the next general election—the situation is urgent. Some 60% of the public now support proportional representation. Will the Minister meet me and other…”

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

“That would be the end of April? I am just trying to be as specific as possible.”

“Finally, on the recurring payments, you have talked about the end of February for these prioritised cases to get payments and that that will go into a normalised process by the end of March. I do not think that I heard a date by which you expect the recurring retirement payments to be normalised.”