Speeches by Buckley.

“It is a local council officer who will go out with the building reg form and sign it off. It goes back to your local councils, which have had budget cuts of 40% over the last 15 years. So you are still on a waiting list. Do you not see any consequences or implications if there is a deficiency at local council level?”

“Can I take you back to the existing requirements? You can think of the existing requirement to sign off on those planning applications and the Section 106s but we are talking here about a larger scope, aren’t we, a larger scale coming through the same funnel? Do you see a problem there if local authorities currently do…”

“You have referred throughout the session to the role of local authorities in this process. We often hear about the challenges local authorities have around capacity, in particular thinking about how they provide adequate assessments of environmental implications from proposed developments, building applications and so …”

“My constituency is the beautiful, historic town of Shrewsbury, and we are famously surrounded by what we affectionately call “the loop”—the River Severn. In the past, we enjoyed the benefits of having such a beautiful, natural resource flowing through our town centre; it is fabulous for tourists and other people who en…”

“As I was saying, many of my campaigners have lost all confidence in those water companies. Although I understand their strong feelings, especially given that Severn Trent Water has given out large bonuses and is about to increase our bills by 46%, I also recognise that the Water (Special Measures) Bill will do exactly …”

“Thank you. We have heard Pippa Heylings talk about how at the end of a big planning application, sometimes it is the affordability that is squeezed out on viability. From my background as a local councillor, I know that sometimes resourcing is a factor in that decision because after many years of negotiating with an ap…”

“Thank you very much.”

“With pleasure, because I think that they can bring forward different suggestions and experiences that could inform that strategy. I am sorry about your husband’s situation.”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for securing this excellent and pertinent debate. All Members come with horror stories from our own constituencies, after families have been in touch with us. I mentioned that in Shrewsbury it was the family of Harvey Owen, who died with three ot…”

“Rural roads are often winding, unlit and poorly maintained, all of which require additional driving skills. Many young people in my constituency find themselves needing to drive at 17 to access education or other opportunities, and we have a higher prevalence of young drivers being killed. I am thinking particularly of…”

“Thank you for letting me speak today. The proposal is, “That this House has considered measures to protect young drivers.” In my constituency of Shrewsbury, the story of Harvey Owen and his three friends, who all died aged 17 on the way to Wales, shocked the whole town, but actually, it is not an unfamiliar story. In r…”

“Yes, I would.”

“Prior to the change they had an uncapped APR. What they did with nature was outside that. Now their total liability for all their activity is at £1 million, and that includes all their agricultural activity plus anything they choose to do on nature. It cannot be the case, looking at their global activity, that there wi…”

“The problem is their total liability—”

“We understand the scope question, but the total value of investment will still have an impact, won’t it?”

“Understood. That is separate—that is the DEFRA budget. I just want to be absolutely clear: has your Department done any assessment of whether there will be any negative impacts from the APR on your schemes?”

“But instead of being without a cap, it now has a cap of £1 million, and that will include BPR and APR for the entire business. Any farm that is going to engage in nature business will also have farmland, equipment and things that will easily hit the £1 million. We need to be quite pragmatic about the possible impacts o…”

“They have brought them into scope—”

“You use the word “expansion”. They have now brought in a cap of £1 million. Previously it was uncapped, so it is the opposite of an expansion, isn’t it?”

“To go back to the first scheme, I reiterate that if you want to help scale up and stimulate demand, and if we all want to help farmers in the current climate, we need to reopen the scheme and we need to meet that demand as soon as possible. I hope you will take that message back. Moving on to my next question, nature r…”