Speeches by Dewhirst.

“First, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) for his powerful remarks. I hope he did not spend too many hours trawling through 16 years of emails, but it is yet another example of his hard work and diligence in this place. I sympathise with his points, but …”

“The Chancellor has spent the last 18 months pricing young people out of jobs, and now the Secretary of State has been asked to ride to the rescue by paying companies to get the same young people back into work. The Government are effectively robbing Peter to pay Paul. Why does he think that youth unemployment in my con…”

“Things have changed over time, and I dread to think how many by-elections we might have had in recent years had we needed one every time someone was appointed to the Cabinet. I suspect that would have cost the public purse something quite significant. In the period of which the hon. Member speaks, there was a slower ch…”

“I absolutely accept that there are many different voting systems that one could employ. Those with a mix between a party list and a constituency list create a two-tier system. What if one of the individuals on the party list were to defect? How would that be resolved? It would create a system even more challenging than…”

“Absolutely. There is a real challenge here, and I agree with the point that my hon. Friend made earlier. Leaving one political party in the House of Commons and joining a distinct grouping is one thing, but independence is a challenge, as I saw on local level when I was a councillor: some councillors were in the indepe…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and to take part in this debate on automatic by-elections following Member defections. I thank everybody across the country who has signed the petition. I have brought with me a list of every MP who has ever defected. Given the lack of a time constraint, we …”

“You alluded to the role of local authorities; obviously they make planning decisions, and perhaps they are not interpreting the guidance correctly in certain cases. Is there more you could do to explain to local authorities that applications for something simple such as a slurry store or replacement of an old poultry o…”

“I appreciate that point. It is more of a problem with the replacement of old buildings. It seems to be slightly illogical when, for whatever reason, local authorities recommend a refusal, even though you are simply taking a 1970s building that is leaking into the ground and replacing it with something that is far more …”

“Can you cite an example? Let us take farming rules for water; it was not the rules themselves that were necessarily a problem, it was Natural England’s interpretation of those rules that resulted in a ministerial intervention.”

“No, you were involved as well; I was working separately on the farming side of things at the time. That was a situation where, to the farming community, you seemed to think you knew better than they did. Planning is another example; nutrient neutrality—where you cannot replace a derelict building with something new—is …”

“Natural England is not always at the top of the Christmas card list for farmers. Why do you think there has been such a breakdown in trust with the farming community?”

“I am sure anything that would permit development rights would be very welcome in certain areas. Obviously, I appreciate that you have been given a direction by Government in terms of growth, but much of what we have discussed today—Terry’s point about game bird release, issues with planning, and high-profile examples s…”

“There is a common theme running through today’s question around the conflict of policy interests and—as you said—the need to work more closely with environmental agencies, forestry commissioners and so on. Would it not be an awful lot easier if everything were brought back in-house under DEFRA?”

“In the light of the arrest of three individuals yesterday for Chinese espionage, can the Minister confirm that security vetting for all special advisers is up to date?”

“As a segue from the Chair’s original questioning, I was speaking to a recently retired DEFRA official; this was before your time, Mr Kissack, and I mean no reflection on your tenure. They described a failure of strategic leadership and the lack of a joined-up approach across the Department, connected to a culture of si…”

“You mentioned the arm’s length bodies; I think DEFRA has 34. Does that provide a challenge to accountability and responsibility in terms of delivering what you want to deliver from the Department?”

“Can you put a season on it? Spring, summer, autumn?”

“I appreciate that but, as I say, in some work streams you seem to be able to move very quickly and in others it seems to be very slow. I would just pin you down a little more on when we might see the land use framework.”

“I welcome that approach because there has been a failure in recent times to get a grip on the arm’s length bodies. They have gone off and done what they think they should be doing and not necessarily followed the policy that you might want to deliver from the centre. In relation to recent unpredictability and delays in…”

“In terms of the various policy streams and pieces of work you are doing, you referenced Baroness Batters’ report on farm profitability. That was commissioned in a short timeframe and delivered quickly, and yet we are still waiting on the land use framework and the farming road map. All those pieces of work are vital; t…”