Speeches by Snell.

“T4. In Stoke-on-Trent, survivors of rape and sexual assault are supported by the local charity, Savana, which is dependent on rape and sexual abuse funding and funding that it receives from the police and crime commissioner to provide its counselling and independent sexual violence advocate service. Will the Minister h…”

“I would like to place on the record my congratulations to my hon. Friends the Members for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan), for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) and for Huddersfield (Harpreet Uppal) on their amazing maiden speeches today. I listened on Wednesday to the contribution from the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (…”

“No, there is no time—I am terribly sorry. I say this as one of those pesky trade unionists the Conservative party seems in such opposition to: when the Conservatives talk about the significant pay for trade unions, first of all, it is not for the trade unions, but for the members of those trade unions, all of whom are …”

“Keele University and the University of Staffordshire, two of the wonderful universities around my constituency, have been warning for a long time of the dire financial circumstances they face. We often forget that they are also major employers in my constituency, so I welcome the announcement of this financial support—…”

“I am grateful to the new shadow Chancellor for giving way. I could be wrong, but was he not the Secretary of State who took through the legislation to suspend the triple lock—the one and only time it has been suspended—which has since cost pensioners £500 a year every year?”

“Will the hon. Lady give way?”

“T4. The Minister will be aware that the dire financial inheritance bequeathed by the last Government means that there is rightly a renewed focus on how we spend public money. Will she tell the House what work she is doing across Government to ensure better use of public money, drive down waste and improve efficiency, i…”

“I draw the House’s attention to my registered interest as a governor of a special educational needs school. The Minister has rightly pointed out the failure of the SEN system over many years, but it is important that we recognise the herculean effort made by teachers and support staff in schools, and it is not those in…”

“My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on an issue that is clearly important to so many of us. Does he agree that even if the birth of a child has been straightforward and simple, two weeks, and the paternity pay that goes with it, passes very quickly? If there is a complication in the birth—if the mother becomes…”

“My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) is absolutely right. We will not mention individual cases today, but we all know of individuals who have struggled doughtily against the huge available resources of large international corporations—public sector bodies in some cases—that have sought to use the weight a…”

“I ask the Minister and his colleagues across Government to look at the way we fund and support our regulatory bodies. Often, the failure reported by a whistleblower would have been prevented from happening in the first place by a properly funded and resourced regulator. As much as anybody else, he will know that times …”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his summation. I will make a couple of final points. I absolutely understand that the office of the whistleblower did not make its way into our manifesto, but I say to the Minister that the circumstances that led us in opposition to support to such a suggestion have not changed. …”

“The Minister is nodding. I hope Hansard will record that fact for the purpose of my follow-up letters. The Minister is right: I have no doubt that the Government will take seriously the protections that whistleblowers need, and that will require development and the evolution of our current protections under PIDA. That …”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered protections for whistleblowing. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for today’s debate, Sir Mark. This week is Whistleblower Awareness Week, so it is a very timely debate, and one that is long overdue. For as long as there has been misconduct in public activit…”

“My hon. Friend probably has unparalleled experience in this House, through her important scrutiny work as both a member of and Chair of the Public Accounts Committee; I was happy to work with her on many inquiries when I was a member of that Committee too. Could I tempt her to tell us how many millions on public procur…”

“The hon. Gentleman tempts me to stray outside the scope of the Bill. Madam Deputy Speaker has been clear that the Bill is specifically about hereditary peers. The Government have committed to reform the appointments process for the House of Lords. Everything does not have to be done in the same Bill. As the former Depu…”

“I thank the shadow Minister for giving way. He has diligently listened to all the debate this afternoon, and I thank him for that. He talks about a package of reforms. The last reform that his party brought forward in 2014 was a very small reform, with the expulsion of people for non-attendance, the right to resign or …”

“Will the shadow Minister give way?”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving in to my indulgences. This is an argument that could quite easily have been made during the passage of the original 1999 legislation: that the expulsion of the hereditaries would lead to a complete collapse of our scrutiny processes. Is he suggesting—I do not believe he is—that sin…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”