Speeches by Kirkham.

“We have lost access to some of the digital systems the EU had, such as the rapid alert system for food and feed. That has obviously created challenges for you. Could you explain to us what those are and how you have managed to address them?”

“There is a lot to do. Someone else will ask you about that. We are thinking that there might be an agreement in 2027, so there is a lot to do quite quickly. I was going to ask before that about your current relationship with EU counterparts, such as the European Food Safety Authority. Has that changed over time? Where …”

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“My constituents’ baby, Bran Tunnicliffe, sadly died last year. His parents shared their experience with me, and described the wait for a coroner’s report as a lottery that depends on which hospital, pathologist and coroner is involved. I know that there is a shortage of pathologists in the UK. Will the Secretary of Sta…”

“Mainstream schools in my constituency are taking steps to provide their own inclusive, in-house SEND provision. Penair secondary school has been creating a forest school on its land, and some of my heads have expressed their desire to create area resource base units in their schools. Does the Minister agree that such t…”

“My constituency is lucky to have good school libraries such as the one at King Charles school, run by talented librarians like Emma Seager, who can get anyone reading. They also provide calm, supervised spaces for students. I was delighted to hear the Chancellor’s commitment at our conference to having a library in eve…”

“Will the right hon. Member give way?”

“I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I, too, was a Unison rep, and I have taken contributions from Unison and other unions towards my election expenses. The point my hon. Friend makes is very real in Cornwall too. Migrant care workers were left on a bench in a village from the …”

“I am a former teaching assistant, and many teaching assistants were working under a form of zero-hours contracts. Does my hon. Friend agree that this Bill, as well as bringing back the negotiating body for teaching assistants and support staff at school, will greatly help them by taking away the zero-hours contracts un…”

“Since I was elected last July, I have become closely acquainted with the long-distance London Paddington to Penzance line, which a number of my colleagues have mentioned. There was a big storm in 2014, and we were properly cut off for eight weeks; we could not get in or out of Cornwall by rail, because there is only on…”

“As a member of the Committee, I attended the trip to Dover where we saw just how much meat could have been coming in in the white vans that were flooding in. Border Force is very busy and has numerous duties, and the powers and hours for the Port Health Authority were far too limited; it was obvious that it was not abl…”

“I congratulate Cornwall on being in wave one of the Government’s innovative roll-out of the neighbourhood health services. We are one of 43 areas making that shift and we have provided services locally, such as community health and wellbeing workers, which have been very well received and which make a difference. May w…”

“The IPC has declared only four famines since it was established in 2004. In August, it declared one in Gaza City. It said: “this Famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed”. The non-governmental organisations I have spoken to have been unable to get any aid into Gaza since March. Save the Children has 4…”

“I was just going to ask about ownership; are you going to come on to that next?”

“Just very quickly to say that I had some correspondence from a witness at our last evidence session who went with Greenpeace to the conference and was very complimentary about the UK delegation’s tireless efforts throughout the negotiations. I just wanted to pass that on. He mentioned that the major divergence between …”

“That leads into what I am going to talk about, which are other types of pollution such as agriculture and pesticides. Agricultural pollution affects 45% of water bodies, so it is a big issue. The ELM targets were 65% to 80% of landowners and farmers adopting nature-friendly farming on 10% to 15% of their land by 2030. …”

“Jon Cunliffe’s review was a big chance to look in the round at the water industry, and we have touched briefly on state nationalisation. That was obviously something that was ruled out initially, but there are other methods of ownership. We went to Germany and spoke to their Minister for water; it has many small munici…”

“Herds are bigger, so the amount of slurry is larger and farmers have been struggling to cope. I wanted to make the point that they do not have the money or the infrastructure because it has not been built up over time. Coming back to the pesticides; I have some constituents who are very concerned about this, particular…”

“It was probably me.”

“I suppose the other point was agricultural pollution, pesticide pollution, but of course there is runoff as well from roads and all sorts. Again, that means working across Departments so it is a bit more difficult. What plans do you have to deal with that as well?”