Speeches by Curtis.

“What percentage of homes are built to that standard?”

“Why do you think the market is not doing this already? If the point is that we need to regulate, why is it that developers are not already seeing this as an important thing to be doing? Why is it that people buying homes do not see it as important?”

“I am MP for Milton Keynes North.”

“The taskforce recommended that all new homes should adhere to the M4(2) standard of accessibility. Millie, why do you think this is so important to meet the needs of an ageing population?”

“Do we know the rough extra cost to developers of building a new home that meets that standard?”

“I am always very nervous about putting regulations in place that cover all new properties. If you have too many restrictions on the development of everything, often—as we have seen—it can dramatically decrease house building numbers overall. Is there a middle ground where we can increase that number, which I agree is d…”

“1. What steps she is taking to help ensure that the transport system supports economic growth.”

“Every French city with a population of more than 150,000 has a mass rapid transport system, yet over 30 UK cities or towns of that size still lack it. Research from Centre for Cities shows that poor connectivity holds back growth and productivity by limiting mobility. A key reason why we have so few is cost, because bu…”

“Q14. Milton Keynes has one of the fastest growing tech sectors in the country; one in three people now work in tech jobs at firms such as Red Bull Racing and the AI company Aiimi. Eleanor, a student in my constituency, is in the Gallery today. Can the Deputy Prime Minister let her and this House know how the Government…”

“Yes, MHCLG.”

“Thank you, Chair, for giving me the opportunity to present this application. We want to have a debate to scrutinise the performance of the Building Safety Regulator amid growing concern from both the commercial and residential development industries about the significant delays in regulatory approvals. These delays are…”

“I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for calling this important debate. Let me start with what I think should be seen as positive news and welcomed across the Chamber: the once-in-a-generation increase in funding for social housing. We in the Select Committee have heard about some of the dire consequences of the h…”

“Milton Keynes is proud to be a growing city, but too often under the previous Government new homes did not come with the infrastructure required for the new communities. Will the Minister please set out how the new strategy will help to support the infrastructure, in particular GP surgeries and hospitals, that will be …”

“I am MP for Milton Keynes North.”

“You talked about the 20% of embedded management companies. As far as I can see, there is a significantly larger section where there is effectively a resident management company, but the directors on the board of those are from the developer and that process never gets handed over. So it is still effectively impossible …”

“I will come to you next, Carys. The best way of solving this problem is to minimise the extent to which it becomes one in the first place. Not specifically on leasehold, but particularly on the leasehold/freehold problem, we seem to have an increasing number of bits and pieces on these new-build estates that are not be…”

“Do you think there should be better guidance from Government or do you think councils should be better at adopting more, or working out an increasing amount that they can adopt?”

“It seems like there are two issues that are causing problems here. One is local government finance—the lack of money in local councils means that they would quite often be comfortable not taking these on because they cannot afford it. The other one is the planning process, because ultimately, I assume you could use the…”

“But would you accept the premise that, if it was an open market and everyone was going for the best deal, it should be the same percentage of FirstPort that is using it as the industry as a whole? And if it was higher, that would imply some sort of bias towards FirstPort using a broker that is within the parent umbrell…”

“Would you accept that, if that was true, that would be indication of a problem?”