Speeches by Milne.

“Q13. In my constituency of Horsham, my local council faces a tax bill of half a million pounds from the rise in national insurance, and my local hospice, St Catherine’s, has had to mothball a brand-new ward. What message does the Prime Minister have for all the public services that are outright losers at the hands of t…”

“It just seems strange that we ended up with one being recommended that was never going to get approved.”

“I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate. Just a few weeks after my election, I received a letter from my constituent, Jane. She is a mother who has had to endure the unthinkable pain of burying her 17-year-old son. Will died in a collision in June. He was a smart and po…”

“Will the Minister confirm what compensating measures the Government will take, if airport expansion is to go ahead, to ensure adherence to carbon budgets? They must have already been agreed on by now.”

“On the funding of local arts and theatres, my constituency has a wonderful local theatre called The Capitol, which is owned and managed by the district council. However, our council is likely to be merged with some debt-laden neighbouring councils, with some of the responsibilities my hon. Friend has outlined, and that…”

“The key stewards of our landscape for hundreds of years have been our farmers: no one has done more to make our countryside as beautiful as it is or has a bigger stake in protecting its health for the future. Does my hon. Friend agree that the path to net zero and sustainable local food production lies through our farm…”

“Farmers have made their inheritance tax plans in good faith, based on existing rules. In effect, the measure is a retrospective change to tax law, so will the Minister agree to at the very least delay its implementation until the effects are properly understood by both farmers and the Government?”

“I agree with that and I will talk about it in the next panel, in fact. Thank you.”

“The Government have said that you did not properly take into account all the relevant evidence. In particular, it was claimed that 90% of women understood the change in 2006, but that was a survey based on a sample of just 170 women and is contradicted by multiple other figures. For example, the DWP found in 2007 that …”

“We probably do not have time for that right now. The 90% figure is relevant because it affects the scale of the problem. If one person has been maladministered, it is not an issue. Another key issue in the debate has been the impact of sending letters, whether earlier letters should have been sent, and so on. The Gover…”

“Yes, indeed. We talked about how these days you might send a text. Texts have impact because they are personalised. The figures have not distinguished between generic letters and saying, “This is you. This is your particular issue.” Thank you.”

“Do you feel that whatever might be said about current finances, the Government should have left the door open for action in the future when finances might permit?”

“The Government have stated that they do not accept the ombudsman’s report and that, even if they did, they do not have enough money to pay compensation anyway. It does feel like killing one bird with two stones. In the light of this difficulty, what solutions or actions can you take from this point?”

“The triple lock has done a fantastic job of raising UK pensions to more or less the middle of the pack since it was introduced under the coalition Government. However, it is at heart just a mathematical formula. Do you think it is still the right mathematical formula? Or do you, for example, think it needs some social …”

“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on calling this vital debate. EHCP provision is a national crisis, but how it plays out locally varies enormously. In East Sussex, 87% of EHCPs are issued within the 20-week target, but hop across the border to my area of West Sussex and it is just…”

“Last week I met with a GP in my constituency, and she described very much what the hon. Gentleman is talking about: at the end of the day, after blitzing through 25 patients, back to back, she sometimes found herself sitting in her car, simply too tired to drive home for half an hour. Does he agree that we are expectin…”

“It has been suggested to me that perhaps some psychologists are not always brought in at an early enough stage. We wait until claimants are a long way down the line before they get referred, they are already in a lot of trouble and then their difficulties have become greater. They have been out of work longer, perhaps …”

“Do you feel that that system is working well enough that the right claimants are being identified by the staff on the frontline?”

“You have already partially answered my question. Obviously you have psychologists across a lot of jobcentres. What is the mechanism for referring claimants to them: how do they get involved and how are they brought in?”

“There has been a lot of discussion about whether to introduce a statutory safeguarding duty to the DWP. Broadly, as far as I can see, the Department is, shall we say, less keen and external bodies are more keen on the duty. Where are you coming from? What do you think? Do you think it will be a net positive or a negati…”