Speeches by Maynard.

“What have they told you?”

“Okay. I refer you to the Reuters newspaper, the New York Times, and the FT, which have widely reported on this based on the evidence out there. The UAE has refused to answer questions from the UN and others. I do not understand why we are playing for time—I am afraid that is what it looks like: that we are too busy mak…”

“We currently have a two-year qualifying period for protection against unfair dismissal. That was going down to an immediate day one right. There seems to be something about a longer period taking shape in the Commons and the Lords. What do you think is the right decision? In Witney, I hear endlessly from businesses, “I…”

“Criterion 2 is international humanitarian law.”

“Sorry, but arms export controls come under your Department, yes? We have responsibilities under the conventional arms transfers principles at OSCE. We have responsibility under international humanitarian law. The Guardian, Reuters, the FT and UN experts have all reported on this extensively. The UAE has refused to prov…”

“Secretary of State, I am not asking whether our weapons are being recycled onwards. That is irrelevant; please let’s not go down that rabbit hole. What I want to say is this: if the UAE is taking, let’s say, Bulgarian arms and shipping them into the Sudan, that means we cannot export any weapons to the UAE.”

“It has been widely reported in the international press and by credible UN experts that the United Arab Emirates is arming the RSF in Sudan, which is committing terrible and severe ongoing atrocities. The UK’s arms exports criteria look beyond whether UK-exported weapons ultimately reach Sudan—that is not what we are ta…”

“I am just going to make a plea. HMRC is losing nearly £1 billion a year, which is incredibly bad news, and there are massive frictions and admin costs on business. Why would we not just go back to the easement? We can stand looking at this massive problem, or we can face facts and deal with it—and actually get money fo…”

“Thank you, Secretary of State. On speed, the carbon border adjustment mechanism is happening for the UK on 1 January. What progress have we made on an interim deal to avoid a crash?”

“Do you agree that we want all the economic benefits of being linked to Europe while controlling our borders?”

“Thank you.”

“Rejoining the customs union is forecast to generate an extra £25 billion to £30 billion a year. In 2016, nobody voted to leave the customs union. The Government’s EU-UK reset announcement in May has not changed much. Can the Government grab the obvious solution in plain view?”

“I agree 100%. That is a great illustration of just how painful and unnecessary it is. This is not benefiting anyone, not even His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The Budget is very soon and, bluntly—I do not want to stick the knife too much into my Conservative colleagues—I think the previous Government’s tax reforms we…”

“Our Committee has looked extensively into the Live Nation market shares. We have had a conversation at least twice now, haven’t we? And we still do not have the CMA looking into the market studies—in the public domain, there is a lot of information about how large those market shares are. I don’t understand why the CMA…”

“The one I was referring to was on vets.”

“That is what we are talking about here.”

“I believe it is the CMA’s responsibility—is that correct?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for bringing us this very important debate; it is much appreciated. The overall logic of more alcohol resulting in more tax makes sense, and the taxation of wine needs to be stable, fair and w…”

“The CMA has been looking into it.”

“Okay, so why not do some quick and dirty market studies at scale so that we discover where abuses are going on and get into those, rather than these enormous two to three-year investigations, which are enormously expensive? Let’s have a look around lots of different markets, because there are obviously abuses going on.”