Speeches by Davies.

“I should say that I have signed this application. I think it is an important debate, particularly given your current experience, Ben.”

“Today’s announcement that £2.5 billion will be invested in the small modular reactor programme is fantastic news for the country. It will help bring energy bills down, power homes and create jobs. It is amazing news for Derby, too, because the technology behind the SMRs has its roots in the technology developed at Roll…”

“I hugely welcome the £2 billion investment in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire that has been announced today, because the east midlands has consistently been at the bottom of the table on funding for public transport. Yesterday, along with other Derbyshire MPs, I was pleased to welcome representatives from Arriva, Stagec…”

“You are right to say that children are expected to leave primary school with 25 metres of swimming proficiency, but I suspect nobody ever checks up on that. I wonder whether, through this debate, we could ask about requiring Ofsted to ensure that is happening. I know we have lost more than 1,000 swimming pools in the l…”

“You are very welcome to add my name.”

“Trust, integrity and transparency must be the watchwords of our politics, but those principles were worn extremely thin under the previous Government. What steps is the Leader of the House taking to redouble our commitment to trust and integrity, because our constituents expect no less?”

“My hon. Friend could be describing my constituency of Mid Derbyshire, many parts of which are poorly served by buses. Does she agree that the way forward is to give local leaders the power to determine routes and support them to work with private companies?”

“Earlier this year, along with a cross-party delegation of MPs on the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I visited Faslane. That was a very important visit for me, because the nuclear reactors on the V-boats are made in my constituency, but it was particularly concerning to hear about deployments that are now lasting ov…”

“I know the hon. Lady is a champion for rural communities and her constituents. The Government are looking carefully at public transport, but a national strategy for public libraries, which I will come to, could draw upon the issue she raises. Many of our libraries have quietly evolved into digital learning centres, ent…”

“The Minister is being very generous with his time. Central to what he is saying is transparency. Does he agree that enforceable transparency obligations would reduce legal uncertainty, deter infringement by increasing the legal risk to AI developers, and enable faster redress by allowing the courts to establish precede…”

“rose—”

“I do agree. We need more money for libraries, but we also need to find ways of collaborating and innovating, so that we can do more with less. The hon. Member makes a good point about rural communities; I thank her for that.”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the future of public libraries. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Public libraries are at the heart of our communities. They have incredible value, as I am sure we will hear from colleagues today, but they also have an important and underutilised r…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When the Conservatives ran Derbyshire county council until a matter of days ago, they signed off £625,000 of cuts to the library budget over four years. They did keep all the libraries open and they removed reservation fees for much of the stock. Credit where it is due—I welcome that…”

“I thank colleagues from across the House for contributing to this important debate. We have heard stories of how libraries have transformed individuals’ lives. I was particularly moved by what my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), and many other colleagues across the House, said. We have learned a…”

“I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a good point. People might not think to use the library, but if something else gets them through the door it might prompt them to use it again in future. Despite the hard work done on mitigation, adaptation and commercialisation, cuts to public services since 2010 have meant that,…”

“Does the Minister envisage that any model of enforcement around transparency will be compulsory and not a voluntary system?”

“I rise to speak to new clauses 4, 16 and 17, but first let me say that this is a very ambitious and weighty piece of legislation. Most of us can agree on sections or huge chunks of it, but there is anxiety in the creative industries and in the media—particularly the local media, which have had a very torrid time over t…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) for securing this important debate. A study by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers found that people working in the music industry could lose up to a quarter of their income by 2028 as a result of generative AI. Those losses w…”

“Thank you for raising this very important issue. I know we had a debate in Westminster Hall on 19 March about Down’s syndrome and the Down Syndrome Act 2022, which has not been implemented thus far. Health was answering that debate, and I see that this debate is probably sufficiently different from what came at that ti…”