Speeches by Lake.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on opening this debate in such a powerful way. I had to do some sums earlier on, because I seem to recall that the very first time I spoke as a Member of Parliament was in a deb…”

“I am pleased to hear the Minister say that the Government are awake to the evolving nature of the threat, especially in cyber and on social media platforms. One of the things that I hope they look at is the various ways that social media can be used to directly or indirectly benefit political parties.”

“Very briefly, Mr Millington, on the Cambrian line, which you were talking about, it is very good to hear that the work to prepare the line for the new rolling stock is progressing well. I don’t know if you are in a position to give us a rough indication as to the timescale we are looking at. Are we talking about months…”

“That is roughly when we might expect some of the newer rolling stock to be in service at Aberystwyth, for example?”

“Thank you.”

“Mr Millington, you mentioned in your opening remarks some of the challenges that you are facing in terms of the resilience of the network due to severe weather events. Can you elaborate briefly on whether the increased expenditure on fixing damage caused by severe storms, flooding and so on makes it difficult for Netwo…”

“That is very useful. On the point you mentioned about the resilience spending, you gave an example earlier of the 10 miles of track from Pembroke that you cleared from trees. Is that a new pattern or way of working in terms of making the track more resilient or adding more gap either side of the railway? Is that an exa…”

“It sounds as though there is quite a lot of work required in response to storm damage but also just making the lines more resilient to climate change and severe weather events. Do you anticipate that you will get more in the next control period to try to meet some of these challenges and the backlog that you mentioned?”

“From what you are saying, it does sound as though you will need a little bit more resource to deal with all these tasks.”

“That is very reassuring; thank you.”

“Thank you very much. That is very interesting.”

“Forgive me, Lord Hendy, for I fear this is probably one of those examples of a historic debate. But you will be aware that our predecessor Committee in the last report on infrastructure in Wales did look at the matter of HS2 and its classification as an England and Wales project. I was a member of that Committee, and s…”

“I applaud your consistency. It is not something that could be said about previous Administrations. Looking to the future, and with all the historic underfunding arguments in mind, I am very pleased to hear that the Department has put in their submissions to the comprehensive spending review. Without knowing whether or …”

“Lord Hendy, on the current iteration of the priorities that have been agreed by the Wales Rail Board, you could argue that they were simplified and facilitated by the fact that a great deal of work had been undertaken, both in terms of your own review and the Burns review, so that it was a lot clearer as to what the pr…”

“That is reassuring.”

“I am very pleased to hear the Minister emphasise that the withholding of humanitarian aid is a direct contravention of international humanitarian law. What steps are her Government taking to work with partners in the region and in Europe to apply pressure on the Israeli Government, to ensure that the flow of critical a…”

“Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that there seems to be a disconnect between some of the statements made by the Government about the impact, or lack of impact, of the measures on small and medium-sized enterprises, and the fact that, week after week, small businesses and family businesses tell us, as constituen…”

“I am very interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s arguments against devolving the administration of the Crown Estate to Wales. The previous Government— his Government—devolved those same powers to Scotland. Can I ask him, very simply, why it works for Scotland, but is too complicated for Wales?”

“I am grateful to the Minister for outlining his concerns about devolving the Crown Estate to the Welsh Government—he listed a number of them. Am I right in saying that he believes that the devolution of powers from the Crown Estate to Scotland has fragmented the market, and is in some way to the disbenefit of people in…”

“I thank my friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. The plan is quite simple: we could look at what is happening at this very moment in Scotland.”