Speeches by Chowns.

“Moving on to drinking water discolouration, Welsh Water has twice the level of the industry average in terms of complaints about discolouration. How are you tackling the problems that cause these complaints?”

“I want to come back to the capital investment point in a minute, but just returning to the issue of the response to the incident, I understand there were some households without access to drinking water for several days. You have offered some compensation of £30 per household affected per 12 hours and £75 for businesse…”

“But if you can get such catastrophic incidents as this, that perhaps widens the scope of what you need to be preparing for. On the question of responding to unexpected catastrophic incidents like that, what lessons have you learned in terms of response?”

“I wanted to ask about the Conwy incident because obviously it was disastrous for the households and businesses affected. You were saying this was not one that you were expecting to burst, which in a way is even more worrying because you are presumably putting contingencies in places for things where you know the infras…”

“Thank you very much, Alistair. It is good to be here. I should declare an interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Water Pollution. We are segueing quite nicely into my questions, which are around asset health resilience, impacts on customers, investment and so forth. Welsh Water is meeting some t…”

“I thank the Minister for his statement and share his deep concern about the violence over the weekend. He mentioned the more than 16 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance and the pledging conference next week. Will he explain how the UK can support a safe, secure, sustainable transition in Syria given the …”

“As the Green party representative on the cross-party commission on social care, I was deeply disappointed at the cancellation, with only a day’s notice, of last week’s planned initial talks. Since social care is in crisis, surely it should be a matter of urgency to get these talks rescheduled, but I have as yet had no …”

“I thank the hon. Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) for securing this debate on such a crucial topic. Public trust in politics is at an all-time low; only 12% of people trust political parties, and only 15% of the population think that political funding is transparent. There is clearly a problem at the heart of Bri…”

“I welcome the Government’s commitment to no new oil and gas licences, and to putting workers and communities at the heart of the transition to a climate-safe economy. It is a bit disappointing to hear that so many Conservative Members still live on planet flat earth, with an ostrich approach to our energy future when w…”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, during my urgent question on Gaza, the Minister responding, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West), who has responsibility for the Indo-Pacific, said that the Minister with responsibility for the middle east, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the hon…”

“I share the horror, outrage and deep disappointment and disillusion- ment of many hon. Members in the House, across many parties, and of people across the country at the Government’s terribly short-sighted and counterproductive decision to fund greater investment in defence through slashing the development budget. Like…”

“I have indeed.”

“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the situation in Gaza.”

“Over the weekend, the Israeli Government took the decision to block the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The Minister talked about that aid, but it can no longer be delivered. Israel is once again using starvation as a weapon of war, and today we hear that it has also announced a so-called “hell plan” that would se…”

“Within the broader fiscal situation, these are not huge sums of money that we are talking about in terms of your budget, but there is potentially a really significant impact. I understand that you gave evidence to our predecessor Committee a year ago in which you called particular attention to the limitations on the ca…”

“On the specific point of the criteria, I could not agree with him more. It is really problematic. In my constituency of North Herefordshire, we have a banking hub opening in Leominster, now that Lloyds bank has left. However, in Kington, which does not have a bus service to Leominster, there is a fantastic post office …”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“I have some questions for you regarding resources. The first is on staffing—perhaps to Natalie first and then to you, Glenys, if you want to add anything. I understand that a previous Secretary of State capped the maximum number of staff that the OEP can have. I understand that there is a headcount cap of 65 full-time …”

“Indeed, and you have slightly pre-empted that. It sounds like you would very warmly receive a potential recommendation from this Committee that the headcount cap be removed, because it sets an administrative restriction on your ability to use the resources that you do have to maximum effect. Moving on to the wider ques…”

“Members across the House recognise the need to invest more and to invest differently in defence and security, but it is unbelievably counterproductive and short-sighted to fund that by slashing aid to the poorest and most fragile countries, or by squeezing already stretched departmental budgets. Why will the Prime Mini…”