Speeches by Buckley.

“The Cabinet Office would say that if you could show the cross-departmental saving, you can then transfer across the budget line. I think you are talking about mainstreaming these roles under the public health function in a council, which is then back-funded through the Department of Health. Your suggestions will be rea…”

“I want to pick up on some points that you have each made about funding issues and how the changing funding landscape for councils has put pressure on their ability to tackle this. Councillor Porter, you just touched on some capital funding around EV chargers and private investment, but you talked earlier about the stru…”

“That is really interesting—thank you. Tom Parkes, do you have any thoughts on cross-departmental savings or joint-funded initiatives?”

“Shropshire is the only county in England without a direct train service connecting it to London. I stand here today alongside my neighbours from Wrexham, Ruabon, Wolverhampton, South Shropshire, The Wrekin and Nuneaton, who share my request to reinstate the line that connects six underserved towns back to the capital. …”

“That is really helpful. Ms Chandler, you made a powerful point about how moving the framing into the security sphere escalated it in a different arena, so why do you think that so few assessments have been published in this area?”

“That is really interesting.”

“Mr Laybourn, I was interested in your delayed disclosure comment. I know that you have been involved in some other reports in this area. Could you help us to understand what similar pieces of work exist around the world, whether published or not?”

“Let me ask you a different question. We were also briefed about reports in America—one that was published and one that was not. Why is there no collaborative international report that brings everything together? We are talking about a global problem.”

“Dr Redicker, do you agree with the assessment that this has been a collaborative exercise and that, by moving this into the security sphere, we are understanding greater impacts through a different lens?”

“Professor Sutton, do you have any advice for the Government as they enter that room?”

“Just for clarity, Professor Sutton, when you say “support”, you mean time, advice and funding to enable farmers to make this transition?”

“Taking you back to your first comment about the United Nations convention and the fact that the UK Government are the only one looking to make that voluntary, not mandatory, what message would you as experts send to the Government to advise them as they go into the next negotiation?”

“It sounds like we need to send a strong message to MHCLG about the role that it could take in leading local authorities. You did touch on the new towns. Do you see an opportunity there for doing something at scale?”

“You have given a lot of detail there specifically about agriculture and how other sustainable practices could have a knock-on effect in the long run on air pollution. Do you think current strategies around air pollution consider adequately not just agricultural emissions, but other rural emissions, or do you feel that …”

“Are you suggesting that there should be a statutory consulting team that could feed into proposals for new developments or that could be consulted on new towns? Give us some suggestions that we can feed back.”

“So we could propose you as an adviser to MHCLG on that topic.”

“Are you suggesting that deprivation levels are more of a factor than urban or rural?”

“That is fascinating. It sounds to me that economic geography is more important than density of geography, but that still leads to the same dilemma for policymakers. How do we make policy across devolved nations and countries where we have this different experience for different populations?”

“What an excellent suggestion.”

“Thank you. I think you have inspired Jenny as well to come back in and comment on this.”