Speeches by Kirkham.

“Could you give us a timeframe? In terms of somewhere like St Agnes, which is not on the initial programme, how long do you think it will be until they are not having sewage disposed of on their beach?”

“There will always be problems with agriculture and other things; that is true.”

“I want to carry on with that a little. I am from Cornwall, which relies really heavily on our beaches particularly, for tourism, for our economy, for health, and yet South West Water has the worst performance among sewage companies for pollution incidents last year—hugely worse than other ones. We have surfers getting …”

“I can hear the whole of Cornwall almost screaming at me that it is getting worse. Last year, it got a lot worse than it had been previously. How come it is getting worse? How come there are these CSOs disposing on to beaches when it has not even been raining? What can we do about that quickly?”

“The answer is that nobody really knows whether TODCOF is being used.”

“It may have been; it may not have been. We do not know.”

“I wanted to ask about social tariffs because I asked about this at a previous session and it concerned me. You said you gave a lot of support to your customers. I was looking at Ofwat’s PR24 determinations and they state that you are expecting to increase the social tariff provision from 2% of households to 5%, but tha…”

“Even if you increase it by the amount you are talking about—up to 5%—it is still just over half the average. Why so low? Why so few?”

“So the amount has gone up for each customer rather than the percentage of households rising to the average, is that right?”

“My last question is about TODCOF, which allows medium-risk products to come in without any checks. This is done apparently in exceptional circumstances. Do you have any evidence about this? Do you know when that is being used so far?”

“We went to Sevington last week and it seemed there was lots of facility there. There were 40 routes to come in and lots of inspection chambers. We do not know how many inspections are taking place completely. You say that you can be there for hours and hours, and it is really difficult to get through. You were talking …”

“I was going to ask about IT systems, if I can get my head around them. I am struggling, to be honest. I will start with the driver notification system. There was at one stage meant to be an app, was there not? That has not happened. How are drivers notified? There is a pre-notification in IPAFFS, but it may go to the i…”

“My next question was going to be about the single trade window. Can anybody else tell us about the impact of not having that?”

“This would change that. Katrina, did you have something to say?”

“Our coastal communities are likely to have higher deprivation living alongside great wealth. They are often creative hubs. Cornwall attracts many artists and musicians, and Falmouth has the world-class Falmouth University, which grew out of a 100-year-old art school. People come from all across the country and the worl…”

“Access to justice is a real issue in Cornwall, which is in effect a legal aid desert. In my previous life, when I first came to Cornwall, I ran an employment law clinic at Citizens Advice in Falmouth. Citizens Advice does great work, but it struggles with funding and recently had to stop its drop-in surgeries. Cornwall…”

“You are looking at the smart metres to be 40% coverage by 2030, is that right?”

“I agree with my hon. Friend. This matter affects the entire country. Unison, for example, has a campaign about migrant care workers, so, yes, this is a national issue. In Cornwall, those care workers are often given the early morning and late evening shifts with no flexibility. Some sit on benches, stranded in Cornish …”

“Local government funding will, of course, be increasing to take that into account, and funding for adult social care is rising and will rise further in the next three-year settlement under this Government. To return to my speech, in Cornwall we have seen the rise of care workers coming from other countries to work on s…”

“I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare my Unison membership, although I am also an ex-solicitor. I am going to address the Government amendments relating to enforcement, rather than trade union rights. We have a large demand for social care in Cornwall, as is the case in the con…”