Speeches by Lam.

“How long do you think it will take from then?”

“I understand that the DVSA is looking to replace, or perhaps has replaced, their driver services platform, which is basically booking and instructor registration. Has that happened? How is it going?”

“The Government have made many claims about this policy that are not credible, but I wish to address only four. First, they outrageously claimed that they would not do it. The Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), said last year: “We have no intention of changing APR.” H…”

“I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. My farmers tell me that these inheritance tax bills will take decades of profit to pay off, so they will keep doing the job that they were doing yesterday, but with a fraction of the cash that they had before—which was not a lot to begin with. Finally, I want to address t…”

“What I have been told by my farmers, based on the tax advice that they have been given, is that the bills—and not just the inheritance tax on decades of profits—will be completely unaffordable. Farming is hard. It is not like any other industry: it is a culture and a way of life. It is lonely, revenues are uncertain, p…”

“I will not, as I am coming to the end of my speech. It is absurd and shameful that this Government, looking to fund their union pay rises and vanity energy projects, are putting this pressure on those who do the back-breaking work of growing our food. Farmers already have appalling problems with mental health and suici…”

“There are targets, obviously, that the Department and the DVSA set for waiting times. I think the target for March this year was seven weeks’ wait. How was that target arrived at? How was it set? What would have needed to happen for that target to be hit?”

“Is seven weeks still the target now?”

“Is there one particular thing that you feel led to missing it by such a margin, or is it the cumulative effect of all the things we have already been discussing this morning?”

“In rural areas like the Weald of Kent, our churches are vital public buildings, providing somewhere not just for the spiritual life of our villages and towns, but for their civic life. Given the impending withdrawal of the listed places of worship grant scheme, what is being done to support churches like St Mildred’s i…”

“3. What steps the Church is taking to mitigate the impact of the potential withdrawal of the listed places of worship grant scheme in March 2025.”

“More than 13,000 non-crime hate incidents have been logged by UK police forces in the past year, including against schoolchildren as young as nine for classroom insults. This is estimated to have taken 60,000 hours of police time and undermines public trust and confidence in policing. The last Government tightened the …”

“T3. I was so pleased to go to His Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Kent’s cadet awards recently to hear about the fantastic work of our local cadet forces. What might the Secretary of State have to say to the brilliant young people I saw there to justify the recent decision to cut funding for state school cadets?”

“Secretary of State, in the rail discussion that we are having, and in the bus discussion, you have talked about the size and significance of your planned reforms. Could you talk a bit about international comparators and whether other countries have successfully carried out this kind of reform and have systems that we m…”

“Do you have a sense of how long it will cover, or will it not work like that?”

“It has been covered.”

“Yes.”

“Secretary of State, you have mentioned a couple of times what the main aims of the strategy will be. There are also a couple of points about the timeline, both when you are looking to publish the strategy and the period of time that it will cover.”

“Q Can I ask a bit more about “from time to time” and what we consider that to mean? I am thinking specifically about the fact that I have a few large churches in my constituency that might have one or two events a year when they might have 200 people present. Are they included or excluded? Debbie Bartlett: To clarify h…”

“Q But we have moved away from this literal idea of size and capacity. Debbie Bartlett: Yes.”