Speeches by Buckley.

“Just following on from that, the former Government’s delivery plan for previous carbon budgets resulted in a High Court ruling that deemed it unlawful and inadequate. Does the current Government’s response to your advice to date, including the recent carbon budget and growth delivery plan, give you confidence that the …”

“We are aware that you have repeatedly pushed on that electricity price, so I am sure that you are pleased to see not just the 150, but also addressing that imbalance between electricity and gas.”

“I want to flip that. We are trying to think about how this would affect different Departments of the Government. You touched on potential alignment, which could be an outcome, but not necessarily if you are just exchanging data. There is also a business opportunity around how that affects exports and imports, and obvio…”

“It is interesting to hear that you talked about alignment, about enforcement, and you also talked about data sharing. I am sure if you followed the earlier pitches today, each of the different areas that we have explored all asked: what is happening in the other countries? How do we compare to the EU? It feels like tha…”

“They usually work in partnership. They design, plan and they bring a committee together every three months to look at it and bring in the police, the ambulance, the fire to ask if they are on the right track. I suppose the missing bit is that they might not be doing this complex multifaceted planning. They are thinking…”

“Back in the olden days I used to work in a council, a couple of different councils, and we always had the emergency planning team, and then it became a person and they had a plan and they were part of a network across the country of other such people. Is there any reason why that person, team, plan could not be trained…”

“That is very clear. We can make sure that that recommendation gets through to Government today, based on your advice. I have a final question, and then we will all wrap up in time for votes. Dr Megson, the Government have announced, through the environmental improvement plan, that a PFAS plan will come out in the new y…”

“Thank you, that is very helpful. David Henderson, can we talk about the water sector? The Cunliffe review recommended, as you know, a single integrated water regulator. Would that be a useful step, in your perspective, for that regulator?”

“By support, you mean that they need adequate resourcing in order to deliver efficiently?”

“Are you suggesting that there could even be efficiencies within government, should that be simplified?”

“You could argue that there are even potentially three, with the Department of Health, because when we get on to the health implications, if we can demonstrate cost savings to the health service, that can sometimes justify increased regulation. Vicky Robinson, how would you address that question around the multiple regu…”

“Is a ban more efficient, so that you are costing the Government less?”

“It was more on the pollution measurement and data comparison that they are working on, rather than the UK. Are there any other thoughts before we move on?”

“You have each mentioned various examples from other European countries and from the regulation that is coming through the EU. Does any of you have a view about whether there would be any value for the UK in considering rejoining the European Environment Agency to be part of that regulatory landscape?”

“Looking for the Holy Trinity?”

“We will move on to the UK regulatory system and get into some detail on that. The PFAS management currently involves multiple regulators—drinking water, which we have touched on, food safety, environment, health and chemical registration. Does this multi-agency approach create challenges for the development, consistenc…”

“For a final word, back to you, David Henderson. Is there anything you would like to see in the new year in that UK plan on PFAS?”

“The plan is that the fines pay for the investigations, like recycling. Vicky Robinson, what do you want to see in the new year?”

“I am surely the luckiest MP in this House, as I represent the charming, thriving border town of Shrewsbury. We are in a strategic location: we serve as a hub for Shropshire, we are on the edge of the industrial west midlands and we are the gateway to Wales. Our railway is a major transit point for Welsh services operat…”

“Our task is to move witnesses towards recommendations. Might you have a view on the use of smart grids? Might you have a view around VAT on energy efficient products that you want to share with the Committee?”