Speeches by Kirkham.

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“Does the Minister agree that part of the problem was caused by the Conservatives, who did not welcome the introduction of the minimum wage in 1998, saying that it would destroy businesses, and later when in government split the minimum wage so that people over 25 got more than people under 25, which is causing the ineq…”

“I thank the Minister for that answer. I have very vulnerable constituents who have raised concerns about the draft EHRC guidance on transgender people. Many are scared and fear rising transphobia and discrimination. What steps is she taking to ensure that we protect the rights and dignity of everyone in society, and su…”

“3. What steps she is taking to ensure the provision of safe spaces for transgender people in the context of the draft code of practice issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.”

“If implementation were to happen in, say, mid-2027, do you think that we would have given businesses and ports enough notice for the changes to happen immediately or would we have a transition period after that?”

“Since Brexit, our checks have changed for the rest of the world. We are looking at risk-based checks now rather than what we had before. When we have a common SPS area, will that change those border checks for the rest of the world and the sectors that rely on them—such as fresh fruit—or will we go back to the EU regim…”

“Some local authorities particularly have invested in infrastructure that is now likely to become redundant bearing in mind the new burdens doctrine. Will those local authorities that cannot now recover their costs be compensated?”

“Just quickly on the intelligence point, when we went to Dover we were told that it was already getting intelligence about which vans were coming in and were given numbers and so on. What would change with the SPS? How much more intelligence would there be? We could not see huge amounts of evidence of that to be honest.…”

“There have been a lot of policy changes and changes at the border in recent years, four in the last six years, and the Port Health Authorities have been struggling with the clarity of those changes and the time to prepare for them. We are obviously all looking forward to a new border system when the SPS comes in. How s…”

“Of course so much money was spent post-Brexit.”

“Have the people who were removing them and inspecting them had extra training? Part of the problem was that the people were not really aware of the exact specifics of those plants and were damaging them unintentionally.”

“How will that impact on our ports, airports and seaports? Will they have to build that inspection capacity, and how will we stop it adversely impacting on trade?”

“In the meantime, DEFRA rejected our proposals for a hybrid point of destination and border control point inspection for plants. The industry has been really struggling and saying that some inspections are damaging plants. Is this going to go on until the SPS agreement comes in? What immediate steps could we take to red…”

“Why the delay?”

“The Government are simplifying a very complex system, so that we can take forward a railway that is fit for the future, and I really welcome the measures on timetabling, tickets and the merging of the 17 bodies. I also welcome the 30-year long-term rail strategy, which is a fantastic idea. Rail is so vital in Cornwall,…”

“When we went to Sevington, to be honest there was not a huge amount of activity going on. There were not a lot of lorries coming in and out. We asked some questions about Sevington and non-attendance was a problem initially. You said to us that non-attendance had gone down so we asked for attendance data to show that. …”

“Cornwall Marine Network in my constituency is a small and medium-sized enterprise members association that provides training and apprenticeship support. It recently celebrated providing 5,000 new jobs and apprenticeships. It will welcome the Government’s youth guarantee and the news that SMEs will not have to pay for a…”

“I welcome the real progress made on the pre-1997 fund. I do not have as much specific technical knowledge as most hon. Members in the Chamber, and I was not on the Bill Committee, but I have looked at the amendments and would like to comment on them, as I was lucky enough to chair a local government pension scheme comm…”

“Q15. Under this Labour Government, NHS waiting lists are coming down. I welcome the commitment to refurbish Truro Health Park in my constituency, one of the first new neighbourhood health centres in the country. Cornwall is already leading the way with new neighbourhood health teams, and upgrading Truro Health Park wil…”

“It is important that we look very closely at the measures, as we in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said in our report. Family farms are obviously very important and we need to consider them deeply when thinking about food security. This is a long game. Fixing what is broken will be a hard path, but t…”