Speeches by Morello.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) on securing this important debate. I have been struck when listening to all the speeches so far by the fact that so often when we talk about planning, we speak in terms of bricks and mortar and …”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“Given the hon. Gentleman’s concerns over that Liberal Democrat-run council, I am sure he would welcome the opportunity to join me in applauding Liberal Democrat-run Dorset council, which is currently opening up its local plan to public consultation, so that communities can get involved in shaping the plan and we can de…”

“Over the weekend, I was at a village fête. I will not name the primary school, but I was approached by the head, who told me that with the expansion of the number of hours and the rate that they are being paid, the school will close within 18 months. Even though, by the standards of its sector, it had a reasonable buff…”

“My hon. Friend and neighbour’s constituency, like mine, is extremely rural; he will know that the cost of delivering services in rural areas is four to five times higher than it is in urban areas. PIP allows people to live independently. Both my hon. Friend and I see integrated care boards that are under extreme financ…”

“Do its actions not meet the criteria for being added to the enhanced tier of FIRS?”

“But the core of my question was whether it is your view that Ukraine must accept the loss of territory to achieve peace.”

“I felt that a lot of the conversations I was having on the Hill were with Senators and Congresspeople who were echoing the President’s line that Ukraine must settle and accept loss of territory. To what extent do you agree that that must be the cost of peace, or do you believe that we must return Ukraine to its full so…”

“The Committee was in Washington fairly recently. Almost to a tee, conversations with Republicans on the Hill were that there would be no further military assistance, and that the best that Ukraine could hope for would be more sanctions on Russia. Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal have brought forward the s…”

“But you do envisage that there will have to be some asset sales, do you? Are those being driven by the maintenance of the estate, the budget available or the political priorities of where we need to be?”

“The spending review confirms that the settlement seeks sustained investment in the overseas estate, moving away from the reliance on one-off asset sales. However, the investment spending—the capital departmental spending limit—is cut by an average of 4.2% per year from 2024 to 2029-30. My question is: in reality, do yo…”

“Thank you. I want to talk about the maintenance of the overseas estate. The National Audit Office has said that 933 of the 6,500 overseas properties did not meet its target condition score, and that the maintenance backlog had reached £450 million by November 2024. Given that that was 2024, could you update us on how t…”

“I have some questions about the overseas estate, but before I get to them I have a specific question about the overseas employment framework. The autumn Budget requires the FCDO to deliver efficiency gains of £76 million a year by 2029. The FCDO has identified areas where it can achieve those efficiency gains, one of w…”

“I do. Earlier, we spent some time talking about the China audit with the permanent secretary. The other week, Foreign Secretary, you presented the national security strategy to Parliament. That document said, “Instances of China’s espionage, interference in our democracy and the undermining of our economic security hav…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) on securing this debate. It is unusually cruelly timed, as I feel that I have not stopped sweating in about three days and quite frankly I can think of nowhere I would rather…”

“I would struggle to think of a policy that would be worse for microbusinesses. Meanwhile, transport and parking infrastructure across rural West Dorset is stretched to breaking point, something made worse by the 42% surge in population during peak season. If visitors cannot reach our businesses or cannot park, it is lo…”

“The hon. Gentleman has red kites in his constituency, but we have sea eagles on the south coast. They have recently been reintroduced but sadly there have been cases of them being poisoned. Given its rural nature, I was somewhat surprised that my constituency of West Dorset had one of the highest numbers of signatories…”

“After a year of being a Member of Parliament, it is wonderful that not a week passes without my discovering a new arcane practice that seems designed to stand in the way of doing things well and at speed. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gloucester for taking the opportunity to get rid of at least one regulatory bu…”

“I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate during English Wine Week. I could not allow her to list the places where we produce wine without mentioning beautiful West Dorset, which has 11 small wine producers, many of whom have been in touch with me about what this Parliament can do to help small producers in …”

“The Minister mentions the ageing demographic of the south-west. I do not know if it is actually a fact, but one of my favourite things that I have ever been told about the population of West Dorset is that if we were a country, we would have an older population than Japan—we would be the oldest country in the world. Th…”