Speeches by Kirkham.

“Last year, Dr Mohammed Mohsen was offered a position in the acute medicine department at Royal Cornwall hospital in my constituency. He was due to start that role last year, but due to the ongoing conflict and travel restrictions in Gaza, he has been unable to travel to the UK. Would the Minister meet me to consider hi…”

“Was there a late realisation that the budget had been completely spent?”

“These extra 3,000 that were in draft were not originally going to be paid out and now are. Where will the costs come from to do that?”

“The Minister said that, and that was why the scheme was reopened. My question is where that money will come from, because obviously that has not been budgeted for.”

“That was going to be my next question. The SFI will be reopening and be redesigned. We have had previous evidence that that will be reconsidered in July. There are a number of farmers, particularly those smaller farmers, who did not have the advice to apply initially. What is the timeframe? When will that scheme be reo…”

“Do you mean early in the new year next year?”

“I was going to start with the SFI scheme. When the current scheme was closed, there was an error. It was a computer error, it seems. A message was sent to people when they saved their draft to say that they would have six weeks before the scheme was shut and they would be warned, and they were not. That scheme has now …”

“My question was just very quickly on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Natural England is going to have responsibility for writing and delivering environmental delivery plans. I was going to ask about the resource within Natural England to be able to cope with that. Can it cope with that? Where will the extra resou…”

“Helena may have covered this when I was out, but we were struck by the fact that only one preferred bidder, KKR, has been accepted by Thames Water, and that it seems to have been trying to negotiate with Ofwat to reduce some of the penalties that it may face for some of the breaches of the rules. Is this acceptable?”

“Negotiate with the regulator?”

“It is more about it being let off penalties as well, to make itself more saleable.”

“This is just a quick point about the fishing and coastal growth fund. That works out, I think, as £30 million a year over the 12 years, which is great. In Cornwall, for example, our shell fishers all down the Fal and across Cornwall have gone bust, basically. They have gone out of business because of this. Will this fu…”

“We looked at this and trust has been damaged with the farmers because of this very swift closure. How will the Department rebuild that trust going forward?”

“From next year, the Government will be permanently lowering business rates for retail and hospitality businesses. Does the hon. Member agree that it would be good if the Minister confirmed that that permanent lowering will be in relation to rates as they currently are rather than pre-covid rates or last year’s rates?”

“The hon. Member is talking about the resumption of the community ownership fund for pubs. Would the Minister consider other options, such as the British Business Bank, and look into how other funds could be used for this purpose?”

“Cornwall has a thriving maritime sector, particularly in Falmouth, that is well-served by training establishments, such as Cornwall Marine Network and Falmouth marine school, as well as leading apprenticeship programmes across Falmouth. Much of that centres around our Port of Falmouth. Will the Ports Minister meet me a…”

“4. What steps she is taking to support the maritime sector.”

“There is real concern from families in Truro and Falmouth that changes to the adoption and special guardianship support fund are being brought in before the impacts are fully known or assessed. Match funding is going from the fund, which is used for emergency support packages for the most complex cases—including childr…”

“With no discussion at all with the creditors?”

“Is that the case?”