Speeches by Dollimore.

“We know from the evidence Arun has submitted that 56% of those qualifying for APR under the current regime had not received any income from farming in the last five years. Do you think that reflects very wealthy individuals who are not genuinely farming and paying for very expensive legal advice in order to take advant…”

“Just to touch on those points, Stuart you mentioned expensive legal advice that people might be taking. I will not ask you what your hourly rate is.”

“Just finally, you did not touch on energy prices and the impact they have had. Has that been a big issue?”

“David, Arun, any reflections on that?”

“Jeremy, you also mentioned that the changes we are talking about today have not impacted those institutions that do not die. I was quite surprised when speaking to local farmers to learn that a lot of farmland in my constituency in Hastings and Rye is owned by an Oxford college: All Souls College. I understand this is …”

“Does that happen often in your experience, Jeremy?”

“The land is genuinely being farmed. Yes, that is clear.”

“I am hearing from you that when various different claims have been bandied around about a percentage that may or may not be affected by these changes, some have rebutted those figures by saying that those who are not impacted are those people with pony paddocks or whatever, but what I am hearing from the panel is that …”

“I just want to bottom out this point that has been touched upon around pony paddocks and whether there is a bit of a myth around that at present. Colleagues have referenced that perhaps if somebody had a house, two fields and some ponies, they might currently be on the list of people benefiting from APR. Can the panel …”

“Would that not be, on the previous discussion, about institutions that do not die holding much of that land?”

“So why would they be paying APR?”

“We know from the evidence Arun has submitted that 56% of those qualifying for APR under the current regime had not received any income from farming in the last five years. Do you think that reflects very wealthy individuals who are not genuinely farming and paying for very expensive legal advice in order to take advant…”

“Parents, teachers and students in my constituency were horrified to find out that the University of Brighton Academies Trust has been taking a whopping 20% of the Government grant meant for our local schools and education. What is the Minister doing to resolve these issues and make sure that every child in Hastings and…”

“rose—”

“The right hon. Lady talks about the figures. Does she accept that her Government’s record was one of leaving £300 million of the farming budget unspent in the Treasury coffers, not helping farmers?”

“My colleague on the Select Committee has great expertise on the farming industry. He will therefore know that, for the last 14 years, the record of his party in government has been one of failure for our farming industry, with 12,000 farms closing since 2010 and energy bills skyrocketing because the Conservative party …”

“On that point, the way it has worked when we have had these situations is that there will be a few select water stations opened. Traffic descends on those causing massive gridlock—it happened in both incidents in my patch, and I know it has happened in other places—which then causes wider implications. Then vans go rou…”

“There has been a lot of discussion about the monitors on pipes to monitor sewage discharges and obviously a lot of work going on to increase the number of them to make sure that all the pipes are monitored as part of the Water (Special Measures) Bill. Previously, the discharges have only been measured by length of time…”

“It is the lived experience of people in our communities as well.”

“I want to turn to another section around interruptions to water supplies and water outages, which Ofwat regulates. For the public who may not understand the terminology here, that is when the taps stop working; the taps to your house run dry. Of the 17 water companies that Ofwat regulate, how many are meeting their tar…”