Speeches by Maynard.

“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?”

“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?”

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

“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?”

“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.”

“Live Nation—we’ve done that one—has massive market shares across the whole music sector. What about doing a market study of each of their market sectors? That would be a good start to see.”

“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…”

“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…”

“Good, but why are so few investigations being done?”

“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…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I did not know that, so I thank my hon. Friend for informing me. How can we ask others to get their own house in order when we enable these entities on UK sovereign territory to beggar their neighbour on a global scale? The UK Government bear responsibility for this lack of transparency, as British overseas territories…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this debate. I also thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) for all his work on this issue and for his good speech today. Indeed, I have enjoyed the contributions from all hon. Members so far. The common theme has been e…”

“Yes; I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Direct legislation should be a last resort, but it is necessary and we need to move quickly. SAMLA came into force in 2018, and we are now nearly in 2026. This is just playing for time, which is bad. Since 2022, the UK’s register of overseas entities regime has required…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“Given that it has been widely reported in the press that the UAE is arming the RSF, does the Minister have a view on the following two points? First, if any party is exporting weapons to the RSF, we would be in breach of our export licence criteria if we are exporting weapons to that party. Secondly, it is irrelevant w…”