Speeches by Buckley.

“That is really welcome news. If you have not already submitted that in your evidence, would you mind putting that in writing to the Committee? People will follow our inquiry through the webpage and it is a chance to give them a bit of information.”

“That is fantastic. We heard some feedback from Nansledan about the difficulties of small and medium enterprises—the smaller developers who are trying to get house building—and how best they can get support from Government agencies. What support do you give to SME and micro house builders? What role do you think they co…”

“Will that become a prerequisite or an accreditation for the best in class?”

“Do any of the other panellists have a view about the unfavourable treatment of VAT between new build and retrofitting? No? You’re all very polite. We will move on to a different topic. Mr Boylan, your strategic plan says that Homes England supports biodiversity net gain and blue and green infrastructure, but it does no…”

“Beyond what you are responsible for with all your expertise, what other incentives do you believe could be brought forward by the market or by other arms of Government if you could wave a magic wand?”

“How do you feel about whether lowering VAT on retrofit products might stimulate the market?”

“Mr Boylan, Homes England is known as the Government’s housing and regeneration agency, but how does your organisation split its resources between building new developments and regenerating old ones?”

“You said that the MoD is monitoring this problem through the land quality framework. Do you mean that it is marking its own homework? We heard how the Environment Agency and HSE are responsible in other areas, and Ofwat has strategic overview of monitoring everybody else’s water or pollution. Could you clarify the inte…”

“Linsey, we have heard a couple of times about issues specifically coming from military sites. Is there no current statutory requirement or liability for military sites to conduct any of this monitoring or mapping, or to produce reports about the impact of activities?”

“Professor Depledge, this is your area of expertise, so perhaps you could bring us up to speed.”

“I am interested to hear your description of the controls and regulation before PFAS come to market. Once PFAS are already there, we also want to understand more about the monitoring. Dr Cloy, how is current PFAS exposure monitored and mapped in the UK, and how do you feel about that?”

“I want to push back on that slightly. We have seen with other types of pollution—particularly water pollution, but also air pollution—how monitoring can expose the levels of risk of harm and the result in how people’s health deteriorates. That generates quite a lot of public interest and then a policy response. There i…”

“How do you think mapping can inform targeted interventions or remediation? We are policymakers, and we want to put recommendations to Ministers. Do you have any thoughts about that?”

“To push back on that, there are obviously sensitivities around the data and access to military sites.”

“That is interesting. The military not only have exemptions for use but, instead of being a hotspot, are a sort of not-spot. They can do their own survey, and they do not have to publish it unless forced to do so. Would it be better if a third party, an overarching agency, were able to do that, or if the military were r…”

“So we would have to disaggregate the variables to show the different impacts. We would need to find a more affluent area that has also been exposed to PFAS to be able to demonstrate the link. As you said earlier, there are gaps in the scientific research. Dr Cloy, do you want to come back before we wrap up this section…”

“I think that leads us back to you, Linsey. Are there any studies, or any concern at all, about the exposure of military personnel? They often live on site, don’t they?”

“Excellent. That is a model that could be replicated across PFAS. This is my last question, and I will accept any takers. In the UK, are people living in deprived areas considered more at risk from PFAS? You all referred to the online report with the mapping. Has that exposed whether this falls differently in areas of d…”

“Dr Cloy, will you comment on that, and on any other gaps that you think might be in the data, whether that is gaps in the data itself or in transparency?”

“Do you think there are any current gaps in the data, or where we do have good data, is there anything we could do around transparency and accountability? We heard the specific example in the MoD, where there is a gap, but what about the rest of the data? Are there any issues?”