Speeches by Bryant.

“Try being Welsh and liking rugby at the moment.”

“I again welcome you to the Chair, Sir Roger, and it is good to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris). He is actually named in my documents from the Department as “Joe Hexham”; that is probably how he will be presenting himself at the next general election as well, I should think—unless boundaries ch…”

“I will give way to the hon. Lady because her request to intervene is timely.”

“Wait a second! Because I fully accept the fundamental point that was made right at the beginning by the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton: broadband is essential to nearly every form of engagement in modern life—finding out where you are, finding out which is the nearest chemist that is still open, logging on to…”

“It is a delight to be here, Dame Siobhain, and I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) on securing this debate. I am not sure I will be able to answer the questions of all the Members who have come to this debate in my speech. Some Members have raised concerns at DSIT questions a…”

“I do not want Opposition Members to think that I have had an audience with a Labour Member and not with others. There is a universal service obligation on the Minister here. For most of the issues that have been raised, I think the most useful thing would be to book in a time for officials from Building Digital UK to g…”

“That may be the case, and that is one of the specific things we can take up with BDUK. I should explain the whole process first. Of course the Government do not want to have to pay for the roll-out of broadband across the whole of the UK. That would be an enormous big-ticket item. Nor, for that matter, do we want to pa…”

“Another new Member wants to make a contribution.”

“I hope that I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman a little here. I know the highlands of Scotland very well: I spent many of my childhood summers in Aviemore, and I know the Cairngorms well. It seems to me illogical simply to put big masts in places of extreme natural beauty just for the sake of saying that we hav…”

“That is an interesting intervention from the Chair! I think that Portcullis House is a matter for the Speaker and the Administration Committee. But there is a serious point here: in many cases if we could get to 5G standalone universally, some of these issues would not apply, because we would be able to do lots of thin…”

“The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I am the Minister for Telecoms, and that includes—”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2024. As ever, Mr Dowd, it is a joy to see you in your seat and, as usual, in a very fine suit. The regulations we are discussing today were laid before the House on 12 September. In our manifes…”

“As I said, I welcome the hon. Gentleman. I hope he stays in his place—I do not mean that I hope he stays in the room for the rest of the day, though. It is good when people actually know something about the subject they are talking about in debates in the House, so it is good to have him still in his place. [Interrupti…”

“Absolutely; that is a well-made point. Indeed, several other artists are moving in the same direction and I encourage more artists to go down that route. In the end, we need to get to a place where the face value is the face value and where other people are not racketeering on the back of that. Sometimes, the artist ge…”

“I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, because I will try to answer all the questions. I will come on to his questions later. One key matter that we will have to get right—if and when we bring forward legislation in this field—is enforcement, because there is no point bringing forward new lews if we cannot en…”

“And yet so far. Change is coming. I say to all the people I have referred to—Gigsberg, Viagogo, StubHub, Ticketmaster and all the rest—that change is coming, so they should start getting ready for it, because that is what we are determined to deliver.”

“It is a great delight to see you in your seat, Mr Rosindell, not least because we have been knocking around these parts as MPs for about the same time. It pays to hang on in there, doesn’t it? It is a great delight to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody) on securing this …”

“Hang on. In the words of Shania Twain, “That don’t impress me much”. My hon. Friend the Member for Cramlington and Killingworth asked what we can do under the current legislation. It is a frustration, certainly for this Minister—I am not sure that previous Ministers felt it—that although several different bodies could …”

“The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that spending review issues are a matter for the Treasury—let us see what comes out of that review. I have had lots of representations, and he makes a good point.”

“Yes, I agree with every word that my hon. Friend has just said. He put it extremely well. He probably ought to be the Minister, and perhaps he will be soon. He is right. I also want to say that we should have shared infrastructure wherever that is possible. Legislation already makes provision for some of that to happen…”