Speeches by Newbury.

“Absolutely. It is great to hear that we have some of the best minds holding the water companies to account and keeping them honest. It is concerning that, whether through incompetence or a lack of transparency, you are uncovering, even with a small team, instances in which things are not being done and the rigour is no…”

“You have referred to the fact that not everything is within water companies’ control—there could be groundwater contamination, or a third party could be involved—but around 45% of incidents are within their control. Do you think that is an acceptable level? What more do you think the companies could be doing to control…”

“Thank you, Marcus, for your time this morning and this afternoon, and thank you for your candour in your responses. Your evidence is genuinely going to be very useful to us. As you said, against a backdrop of a sector with a lot of problems, the quality of public drinking water has remained consistently high over the y…”

“You are right. In an age when there is more publicly available information, as you said, on things like storm overflows, as well as more misinformation on social media, there is a question for us all as to how we can leverage social media to get the positive story out there: that we have very safe, world-leading tap wa…”

“Can I pick up one final point? It is something that you mentioned then, Marcus. I can tell that you are a man who deals in facts and data, but we know that perception can often be just as important, and public perception of the safety of our drinking water is on a downward trend. Perhaps it is a symptom of declining tr…”

“If you wrote to us with it, that would be great.”

“What would those tools be? What would help you get best practice out to companies that are not performing well?”

“You have referred to the fact that not everything is within water companies’ control—there could be groundwater contamination, or a third party could be involved—but around 45% of incidents are within their control. Do you think that is an acceptable level? What more do you think the companies could be doing to control…”

“Do you think those messages are getting through to the water companies? You just told us that South East Water, certainly, carried out risk assessments that were not reflective of the reality.”

“Merry Christmas to you and your team, Mr Speaker. Alongside many colleagues on the Government Benches who are passionate about farming, I will continue to argue for a rethink on inheritance tax, but I back this Government and their mission to improve the profitability of our farms. We are speeding up planning, tackling…”

“All I want for Christmas is a generational boost to animal welfare. That does not have the same ring to it as what the queen of Christmas sang, but given the widespread public support for animal welfare, maybe we could give her a run for her money with that one. Our British farmers lead the way globally on high standar…”

“The excitement in the run-up to Christmas has been tempered this year by a particularly nasty outbreak of flu and respiratory syncytial virus. My one-year-old was very ill with RSV in recent weeks, and my husband and I had a real scare when our GP told us that he needed to be taken into hospital. After brilliant care i…”

“I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, our fantastic House staff and all hon. Members a very merry Christmas. It is a time to reflect on the year that we have had and on the year ahead. In Cannock Chase, there is cause for celebration. Though many of us face uncertainty, there is plenty of hope for optimism in 2026. I will …”

“The Conservative party welcomed the Cass review on its publication, including its clear recommendation that this trial take place. Eight years ago, the then leader of the Conservative party supported self-ID and declared that trans women are women; now, we have dog-whistle statements such as, “If we leave these childre…”

“Just finally, we have talked quite a lot this morning about the SPS agreement and how that might mean we have to hold back on some things that we might like to make progress on, because we need to see what the outcomes of that are. Will that affect the work on a BTB vaccine?”

“I am getting the sense that, because of the ongoing trials, you will struggle to give us a timescale on when you think a commercially available vaccine might be on the market.”

“On that recommendation that we expect might come from the taskforce around the vaccination of turkey, geese and ducks, even though it is not the silver bullet that we hope it would be, would you be minded to implement that recommendation, should it come?”

“Absolutely. The infection has to be really severe before an animal shows any symptoms, doesn’t it? In fact, we have heard about bulls that are slaughtered and nobody had any idea that they had TB, but when they look at the carcase, they are absolutely riddled with it. You mentioned the refresh. We are expecting a new B…”

“I really hope that can be looked at quite swiftly because that would start to make a difference, not for every farm—some could not afford it—but for those who want to manage it on farm themselves and not have to keep going out to the taxpayer for compensation for slaughtered animals, which carries a cost to them as wel…”

“Can you understand why many in the livestock farming sector feel that there is an ideological approach to this, given that they are banned from carrying out tests that they pay for on their own herd in order to try to manage it?”