Speeches by Coleman.

“I congratulate the Minister as heartily as everyone else has on bringing the UK back into Erasmus and ensuring that people from all backgrounds, including university students, can once again enjoy the opportunities that the Tory Brexit took away. Part of my Chelsea and Fulham constituency ranks among the 12th most depr…”

“Simply within the public sector, if you had been able to make the money available to keep hospitals properly maintained over a number of years, that would be the comparator that you would need to use. I think it is a wholly unjustifiable statement to make. I have one last, very quick question. Are ICBs going to be nego…”

“Forgive me for coming back on that, but if you had spent the same amount of money as a PFI scheme costs to maintain—”

“I think there is great strength in somebody starting to negotiate and just saying, “No, we can’t negotiate. You’re asking too much,” and walking away from it. Is there a danger that civil servants would feel under so much time pressure that they might not be prepared to walk away or close down projects?”

“That requires quite a lot of time, and the pressure on building 120 and getting them operational by 2030—”

“That is a very important point, and I appreciate you making it—I felt that you might—but isn’t there a big difference between building something on time, which is meeting a political imperative, and seeing what happens over years to come: whether there are problems, how they are dealt with, whether civil servants have …”

“Are you saying that we are getting private sector people in to train up the civil servants in negotiating, or are we going to be doing what we did previously, which was effectively taking advice from the private sector all the time while we negotiated? Inevitably, they will be acting in different fora from the very peo…”

“You have both read the White Fraiser report, I presume. Have you read it? Samantha Jones indicated dissent.”

“No? Okay, well that is possibly the most comprehensive report on what went wrong with PFI. It is only two years old; it was published in July 2023. I do not see how anybody can take forward what is going on without learning properly from the past. It identifies the problems that you have identified, but the No. 1 probl…”

“I am most grateful to the Minister for his statement. I hugely welcome the Government’s determination to increase trade, especially in the aftermath of Brexit. That is what it is all about: expanding and clarifying the spending limit for UK Export Finance. As we have heard, UK Export Finance has a very proud history of…”

“I am immensely surprised to hear that intervention—almost as surprised as I was to see Liberal Democrat Members put forward the customs union idea the other day! We struck a deal with the EU in May. We need to implement that deal. We need to see through the deal we are negotiating on food and drink. We need to talk abo…”

“The Chancellor said recently that an “ambitious” youth experience scheme with the EU would be good for growth and good for business. The Centre for European Reform has estimated that such an agreement could add nearly 0.5% to UK GDP over 10 years. Can the Minister reassure my constituents that the Government will maxim…”

“3. What recent progress his Department has made on negotiations with the EU on a youth experience scheme.”

“Jim, because of time, if you would not mind, would you write to us with that same information?”

“The Food and Drink Federation having meetings with Ministers across any areas, yes.”

“Extraordinary. How many meetings have you and the Food and Drink Federation had with Ministers and civil servants over the past four years? Would it be 50 or 60?”

“Did nobody in Government insist that there should be more of a gap?”

“Did you say a week between you leaving Government and joining the big lobbying organisation for the food industry?”

“How much gap was there between you leaving Government and joining the Food and Drink Federation?”

“Kate, I noticed that you used to work for Government and, if I am right, you used to work for the Department of Health and then the Food Standards Agency.”