Speeches by Davies.

“I thank the Chancellor for her statement, because this is a worrying time for not just our national security, but our economy. I am pleased to hear about the work going on with the Competition and Markets Authority in respect of consumers of heating oil, but may I suggest that she has a conversation with her colleagues…”

“Do you find that you are able to be totally independent as a public body?”

“This Government have a plan to roll out perhaps 150 nationally significant infrastructure projects over the course of this Parliament and they have done over 30 already. To what extent do you think the designation of nationally significant infrastructure projects bypasses protection for peatlands as a vital habitat?”

“Have you ever suggested to Government, through Natural England as the independent adviser, to have the carbon calculator?”

“Are we quite transparent, when we have a wind farm on peatland, about how much carbon-capturing peat we have lost? Is that information readily available?”

“Do you think that we would be able to find that out ourselves quite easily, or would you perhaps let us know?”

“We have some questions about the relationship with infrastructure and how we manage the trade-offs with the natural world, or peatlands more specifically. This is a question that Governments have been thinking about for many decades in this and comparable countries. Mr Wilson will ask some questions about this too. Bui…”

“We know that one hectare of peatland can sink 5,000 tonnes of carbon. Do you know how much peatland we have lost overall to wind turbines and whether the balance has been tipped in favour of reducing our dependence on carbon-generating fuel as a consequence of that?”

“Are you able to say which they are, or is that information available?”

“Q6. Like the Prime Minister, I had the transformative benefit of a music education as a young person, although he had his some while before I had mine. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] After more than a decade of decline in music in schools, the Government’s new national centre for arts and music education and measures coming th…”

“Are there any of the national infrastructure projects coming forward at the moment that affect peatlands that you are worried about?”

“Q10. The regeneration of Belper mills—a large site with buildings, including grade I listed ones dating from the start of the industrial revolution, at the heart of the east midlands’ only UNESCO world heritage site—took a significant step forward last week, when planning permission for its redevelopment and conservati…”

“This Committee allocated a debate on the spending of the Ministry of Justice on criminal justice at the last estimates day, in summer last year. Do you expect this debate to cover similar matters?”

“Local government reorganisation in Derbyshire might see Amber Valley borough council split in half, along with the cost and difficulty of working out how to disaggregate the authority and the services and private finance initiative contracts it still manages, but an outcome is needed that will work for the next 100 yea…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, the publication of the local power plan and the £1 billion investment that will support community groups to provide green, sustainable energy and help their financial sustainability. We have considerable expertise in Derbyshire when it comes to using water to create pow…”

“Does that include funding cutting edge lab research? I know a lot of this monitoring is the sector just doing it by itself and reporting its information to Government or to the Government’s agencies.”

“On innovation, would you be able to say a bit about what the Government are doing to fund the expansion of UK lab and incineration capacity to support the monitoring of the whole PFAS situation but also its destruction?”

“We have some further questions about remediation if that is okay. As part of this inquiry, we visited a site that has been affected by PFAS. Frankly, I do not know how that business has survived given the money that it has had to put into mitigating the effect of a product that it legitimately made because it had a pub…”

“On incineration, we know there are not very many sites in the country that can undertake that work and the price has got more and more expensive. I think it is £16 to get rid of six litres of fire foam. Is there any market oversight function that Government could lean on to stop manufacturers trying to do the right thi…”

“Will national standards be introduced for PFAS destruction?”