Speeches by Tufnell.

“4. What recent progress he has made on implementing the industrial strategy.”

“I like my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies), and Plaid wants to be taken seriously as a party of government, but it fails to recognise the importance of the role that renewable energy will play. Does the Secretary of State agree with RenewableUK Cymru, which recently concluded that Pl…”

“Do you think that more stringent enforcement and unlimited fines actually hinder that process rather than help it?”

“From a performance point of view in terms of investment in that infrastructure, if a water company is saying, “Look, you’re fining us, we get caught in the cycle,” what is your view as an agency on that argument?”

“I will try to rattle through these. In April last year, you were quite candid in talking about your appetite for risk in terms of enforcement. You said the EA had an issue with legal risk. Philip, I wanted to ask about enforcement undertakings and particularly whether you think that these are sufficient for improving l…”

“Yes, let us start with water.”

“You have mounted a robust defence of the Environment Agency this morning. I have looked at your CV in terms of you being at the Home Office, Border Force, then there is Treasury, now the Environment Agency. You have seen politicians come and go. We have been talking a lot about the growth agenda and the priorities of t…”

“Have you used your new power to impose unlimited fines?”

“You mentioned the government-proposed changes in respect of automatic fines and lowering the standard of proof. Do you think there is a danger of overreach when more inspections of monitoring may actually be more of a deterrent?”

“Do you think that will have an impact on compliance?”

“Finally, are you sympathetic to that argument in respect of the doom loop that water companies get themselves into?”

“You referred to social capital as one of the restrictions on former industrial communities. Do you view planning as one of the key barriers, with the level of complexity that is often required to get these projects off the ground?”

“I want to continue on the theme of community ownership, but not in respect of the valleys, as I represent Mid and South Pembrokeshire. I have seen great examples of community-owned renewable energy in onshore wind and wind turbines, often requiring huge input from fantastic capable volunteers. What do you think the mos…”

“So the rate of return is not there and, on top of that, there is no facility or mechanism by which those propositions can be passed through to private sector investors—or if there is, it is not working as well as it should.”

“We have talked a lot about the physical infrastructure and the need for public money, whether that is the UK shared prosperity fund or the former funds in respect of the European Union. I wonder what role you think there is for local authorities to be more proactive in providing investable propositions to mobilise on t…”

“In terms of that divergence, presumably this is an active conversation that you are having. It could potentially be quite harmful in respect of farmers and producers if there is significant divergence.”

“From a Welsh perspective, you could buy a precision-bred seed, but you could not cultivate it in Wales.”

“Finally from me, in terms of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act and how this relates in terms of the devolved Administrations, I am particularly concerned from a Welsh perspective. How are you working together, and with those Administrations, to manage the implications of that, particularly around the processing of…”

“What about in terms of additional red tape, additional burdens and those concerns that you have in respect of those negotiations?”

“We talked a lot about the SPS agreement, about dynamic alignment and potential exemptions to that, precision breeding being potentially one of them. Do you expect to make amendments to your draft guidance in the event of that? How are you preparing?”