Speeches by Young.

“The west of England growth strategy identifies the Severn estuary growth zone as having the potential to create more than 15,000 jobs. It is important that the half-hourly rail services on the Severn Beach line are maintained to support them. Similarly, the half-hourly trains serving Yate support both jobs and access t…”

“3. What steps she is taking to improve railway services for passengers.”

“The UK remains one of the chief facilitators of the export of Russian gas, with UK-owned or UK-insured vessels having enabled the export of £45 billion-worth of Russian gas since the start of the war. Will the Secretary of State finally agree to ban the provision of all UK maritime services for the transport and insura…”

“Looking at farm sizes and land values locally, I fear that family farms will still be paying the family farm tax. What evidence is there that £2.5 million realistically reflects the value of a typical family farm in a constituency with higher land values, such as Thornbury and Yate?”

“My constituents are concerned that high-risk violent prisoners are increasingly being placed in Leyhill open prison, putting local residents at risk when they abscond. Will the Minister review the process for assessing prisoners prior to a move? With new rapid deployment cells expected to be online at Leyhill by the su…”

“Merry Christmas to you and all in Parliament, Mr Speaker. What work is the Attorney General undertaking through their superintendence of the Crown Prosecution Service and in collaboration with the Home Office to reduce delays in prosecutions for rural crime and to ensure that prosecutors are equipped to support effecti…”

“3. What steps she is taking to help to ensure the effective prosecution of rural crime.”

“Hinkley C is funded through contracts for difference and Sizewell C through the regulated asset base model, and we are going to start paying for that through our bills this month. Sam, what impact are these models likely to have on consumer electricity bills in the long run?”

“Do you feel that any of the challenges that you identified that prevented the Horizon site have been sufficiently addressed?”

“Sam, you have already covered this to some extent. What are the anticipated benefits and challenges of deploying SMRs at Wylfa compared to traditional large-scale nuclear plants? You have already talked about some of the general benefits that you see for SMRs. Are there any that particularly relate to the site?”

“Fiona, do you think that these models provide sufficient protections for the taxpayer if construction costs increase more than expected, which we have seen, for example, with Hinkley?”

“Some people have thought Wylfa for the large scale and Oldbury for the SMRs, out of the two sites, and yet we have ended up with SMRs going at Wylfa.”

“Doug, does the Government’s choice of SMRs at Wylfa signal that they have effectively given up on large-scale nuclear projects?”

“Is it not possible that your assumptions about things such as our ability to provide enough storage, for example, could be wrong? Any of these assumptions could be wrong. We have to work with the information we have at the moment.”

“Stephen, in your evidence you noted that there was a potential for other Government projects to be crowded out by the money allocated to nuclear. What projects do you think we should be worried about?”

“Do you think that there are other protections there specifically? If construction costs spiral and it is more than you are predicting at the moment, do we have protection? I think that what Sam was saying is that, under contracts for difference, you remove that risk from the taxpayer, but what about under the regulated…”

“Potentially, it could increase, and we are not protected from that.”

““A monstrosity”, “the giant greenhouse”, “like living next to a large prison” and “like ‘War of the Worlds’, it just kept getting bigger and bigger”. Those are just a few of the words that my constituents in the village of Pilning have used to describe a gigantic new warehouse being built close to their homes. In a deb…”

“In the light of the strategy’s departure from decades of shared assumptions, will the Government revise the 2025 national security strategy, and if not, why?”

“Residents of Pilning woke up one day to find piling work taking place on the edge of their village for a massive, stadium-sized warehouse, which they have dubbed the mega-shed. It now looms over their homes. Not only is it over 20 metres high, but the land on which it is built has been raised, making it even more impos…”