Speeches by McKenna.

“Like many of my colleagues, I just want to flag that I have done work with HOPE not hate. Also, I am slightly wary that I am now about to potentially unleash Peter’s inner tech geek. Misbah and Sunder, make sure you get a chance to chip in as well. Peter, unleashing you now, what is the role of cryptocurrency in fundin…”

“Misbah and Sunder, do you have any thoughts on that as well as to what we should do?”

“That is absolutely fine. In that case, just from that whole discussion around political funding, crypto or otherwise, it got into how there is a lot of hidden money and a lot of hidden discourse that is being used to fund think-tanks. That is fine because if we could follow that, we could trace that through. How do we …”

“I am grateful to serve under your chairship, Sir John. The stories that my hon. and learned Friend is recounting completely match those that I get in my inbox and hear in my surgeries—these stories are repeated across the county. My constituency has a higher than the national, regional and county average of people with…”

“Tanni, I was going to finish with you and ask about the taskforce, but actually you have already talked a lot about that. What else do you want to deliver specifically around pregnancy? Hina, I do not know if you want to come in on that as well.”

“I know Tanni wants to come in, but just specifically on mothers returning, how much further do we need to go and what does the PFA want to see?”

“I have very few interests in this, but in terms of the APPGs, I am on an APPG in health. I have a big interest in the rest of my family, because the strongest sports people in my family are my nieces in Australia who are all competitive hockey players, and some of you will get to see their hockey club at Labrador in th…”

“Olly, I know there have been some high-profile female tennis players that have come back after motherhood, and you have introduced a Maternity Fund programme. How is that going, and what impacts has that had?”

“I would just like to give a counter. We have heard some very interesting evidence, but my own local authority has the misfortune to operate under the committee system, which was largely brought about in a deal that created a rainbow coalition with the Greens and some other local parties. Honestly, it is a dismal failur…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. The hon. Gentleman speaks with great passion, which is very much informed by his local circumstances in Hampshire. I can share my local circumstances in Kent, where the current two-tier system just does not work for my constituents. We have some great counc…”

“It is obvious. My area has a very different socioeconomic status from that of the rest of Kent—frankly, a lot of the coastal parts of Kent are very different from the centre of Kent. The authority will not be as large as Kent county council, which currently is responsible for the biggest challenges—special educational …”

“Since the announcement of £20 million for the east of Sheppey, my constituents have been fizzing with excitement. I am getting loads of responses to my online surveys, and the coffee morning I held on Saturday—the first of many I will hold—was very well attended. People had really great ideas, but they had two main thi…”

“Yes, it would be. Although I would push for the Department of Health to take on gambling eventually, that is absolutely the answering Department now.”

“I am flexible about whether it is Tuesday or Thursday, but a Tuesday would be fine. Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to come and talk about this briefly. I seek a debate on gambling harms specifically to children. I am aware that Members are increasingly looking into gambling harms. We had a Westminster Hall debate ea…”

“Q Thank you for coming. I am very interested in the provisions around local growth plans and particularly how they affect your sectors. In the area I represent, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, there has been a feeling that we have been lacking, from the existing local authorities at both tiers, a real focus on growth locall…”

“Sorry, Ms Vaz—there is. What do you think we can do when setting up mayoral authorities to prevent aberrant areas—I say that in a very positive way—within a broader, more homogenous mayoral district from being neglected? Zoë Billingham: We have some similar dynamics in the north, where certain combined authorities comp…”

“Q My question is in a similar vein, building on a lot of the conversation so far. My constituency is an outlier in the south-east of England and in the county of Kent, which is likely to become a devolved authority. Sittingbourne and Sheerness are two properly industrial towns. They really stand out for the amount of m…”

“My constituency is a lot closer to here than the constituency of my hon. Friend—it is just a bit further down the Thames. We have a strong tourist economy, but due to the housing pressures across the country these days, the housing and accommodation on the Isle of Sheppey hides a masked community living in holiday acco…”

“With the case of one of the killers of James Bulger, Jon Venables, coming to the Parole Board again, the need for the voices of victims’ families to be heard in the justice system is coming right to the fore. My constituent Sue, who is in the Gallery today, is being supported by the James Bulger foundation. Her son die…”

“On behalf of the small and often oppressed community of health policy geeks, I thank the Secretary of State for giving us a Christmas present in July—I will be pressing Ctrl+F through it all weekend. I also really thank him and his team for threading through this plan a real commitment to the quality of work for the NH…”