Speeches by Maguire.

“I sincerely thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for asking the urgent question. Highly skilled, experienced coastguard volunteers are being badly let down by the Government, and I cannot imagine other rescue service personnel being treated in the same way. No one could argue th…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for dairy. I welcome the fact that the Government’s farming road map explicitly designates food production as an issue of national security, but I am deeply concerned that their water White Paper proposes a blanket extension of environmental permitting…”

“I wanted to pick up on the hon. Lady’s point about the complexity of the scheme, on top of the additional costs for small businesses. I have a fantastic vineyard in my constituency called Camel Valley, which has talked about spreadsheets being almost matrix-like—branded, non-branded and so on. It is so complicated for …”

“”

“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to prepare a strategy for expanding the provision of Minor Injuries Units and Urgent Treatment Centres in rural areas; to require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament annually on the implementation of the strategy; and for…”

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“I thank my hon. Friend and Cornish neighbour for giving way and join him in commending the Cornish coastguard agencies, particularly Boscastle, Bude and Padstow in my constituency. Boscastle had its fair share of disasters in 2024. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are other options, such as statutory retainers, and…”

“I will be brief. My local fishermen in North Cornwall have been waiting three years for the inshore fisheries and conservation authority and DEFRA to implement a byelaw to restrict vessels above 12 metres in the inshore Cornish waters within 6 nautical miles. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is urgently needed and w…”

“Unfortunately, Cornwall was unsuccessful in the latest Pride in Place funding round. Does the Minister agree that Cornwall desperately needs a proper devolution settlement so that Cornwall council can fill the many empty shops in Bodmin, in Launceston, elsewhere in my constituency and across Cornwall? The council does …”

“I know that lots of financial institutions invest heavily in financial investigators. I do not feel that it should be all on you to do that work at all. John, you mentioned earlier there being a multi-agency approach to these big operations. I am keen to understand what barriers exist to the co-operation between tradin…”

“So it is multi-agency, but you usually send an officer out first as a preliminary customer. I think you mentioned a test customer or—”

“I want to quickly follow up on Paul Kohler’s question first, if I may. Lee, you mentioned that when financial institutions freeze accounts, these businesses cannot operate any more. Do you find barriers to that happening? It seems incredible to me that we have these cash-intensive businesses, and I know lots of them us…”

“But what issues have you found? You said earlier that you see a massive difference once those accounts are frozen in that they literally cannot engage in illicit activities any more. Where is the disconnect? Why is that not happening even before you get involved—and certainly once you do get involved and tell the banks…”

“If you suspect a business of being engaged in these types of criminal activity but it is not within the remit of trading standards—I am not quite clear where the boundary would be for where it goes beyond trading standards—what would you do at that point?”

“Finally, when trading standards officers are going about their business, particularly before the multi-agency approach kicks in, are there risks involved to those agents? If so, how are they managed?”

“Thanks for coming in to speak to us today. My first question is to all of you. To what extent is retail crime linked to serious organised crime?”

“And this is where the person was taken round the back of the shop and offered those goods.”

“Moving on, how do these illegitimate businesses try to conceal their illegal activities? You have already said that trading standards are spread really thin. They need to investigate it, but what kind of concealment is going on to hide these activities?”

“You mentioned illicit goods. What kinds of things are you talking about? You mentioned cigarettes. Were illegal drugs also hidden in that case of the toilet system, for example?”