Speeches by Dinenage.

“I am going to ask my shortest question first. Would you like to see greater support for comedy by the Government and the Arts Council? If so, what would that support look like and what would its priorities be?”

“Already a number of either existing or emerging national bodies are being set up to support comedy and the creative industries more widely, such as the Live Comedy Association, CRAFT, which I have already mentioned, and CIISA, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority. How much confidence, Ola, do you hav…”

“Maybe by taking on some of the battles that Ola mentioned around the transparency of pay and the gender pay gap.”

“To what extent do you think people have heard of CIISA and understand what it does?”

“Yes.”

“My constituency is Gosport, which is just across the harbour.”

“Thank you so much for joining us; it is great to see you all. As my declaration of interest, I should say that I am a political patron of CRAFT and I am the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. We did a bit of work on live comedy around May last year. Some of the evidence we heard talked a lot about the fin…”

“I don’t mean to bang on about this, but the fact is that the Government’s approach is too narrow. It is focused on taking down illegal content when it should be the responsibility of the company to prevent harms in the first place, rather than to deal with them after the event. We do not design any other sector’s regul…”

“I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way on that point. I am not sure whether she will come on to this, but the Government have tabled amendments on online safety, and have identified that the next frontline in this war is artificial intelligence. As she knows, we have already seen children taking their own li…”

“Gosport is not a rural area, but it is reportedly the largest town in the UK without a railway, so people rely on their cars to get around. We all know that the Chancellor cannot control events in the middle east, but being in government is about making choices. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the choice is whethe…”

“It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. At the risk of dangerous levels of cross-party agreement breaking out, I echo what the Minister said about the important role that the Churches Conservation Trust plays in protecting some of our nation’s most significant historical churches. This debate is ti…”

“My constituents will welcome some of these headlines, such as clinically urgent cases being seen on the same day and more GPs, but what is being done to help accommodate them? Stubbington surgery in my constituency has excellent staff, delivering really great patient satisfaction, but they are hampered by really subopt…”

“On the Secretary of State’s watch, the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training in Gosport has now reached around 5%—the highest in 15 years. Is that any wonder when so many of the job opportunities that used to be there for our young people, such as in retail, hospitality, and hair and beaut…”

“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and I am about to make exactly that point. I am grateful to him for teeing it up so beautifully for me, because it takes only one business to do the wrong thing to erode trust, but unfortunately the case of Elkin and Bell is not the only case. There have been similar cases at Lega…”

“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; better regulation is exactly what we are pushing for. In fact, everything needs to be better when it comes to the services governed by those organisations. As he says, the vast majority of funeral directors up and down this country work with incredible professionalism, great prid…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for listening to me on this issue when he was the Justice Minister, when I first brought his attention to the situation. The points he makes are absolutely right. Over the past couple of years I have met the two voluntary trade bodies for the funeral sector, the National Society of Allied and Ind…”

“I am afraid that it will be a rather morbid debate this evening. We spend remarkably little time in our lives thinking about the practicalities of death, and it is probably part of human nature that we do not dwell too much on the inevitable future fate that awaits us. That means we put far too much implicit trust in t…”

“The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is crucial to know which Department will take the lead on this work and ensure that it happens, because while I think the Minister will be responding to the Fuller report, we are also awaiting the outcome of a Law Commission report that was kicked off in 2022 by the last but one Ju…”

“I do not think that the size of a business is necessarily any reflection of its professionalism. We know that a large number of small, independent funeral services up and down the country work with incredible professionalism. The hon. Gentleman is also right that nothing should be introduced that is unnecessarily burea…”

“The Chancellor’s words on defence simply do not reflect the reality, at a time when the world has never felt more unstable. Every corner of our armed forces is being asked to find cuts. People in Gosport need only look out of their window to see that all our Type 45 destroyers are laid up in Portsmouth harbour, and thi…”