Speeches by Turner.

“Secretary of State, you mentioned the rail accessibility road map earlier, which contained a commitment to reform the access for all programme. It said that this would be as part of the establishment of Great British Railways. Can you tell us more about what reforms you envisage? What is going wrong at the moment? Is t…”

“It is a short supplementary question on a topical issue relating to buses. It was reported over the weekend that Norwegian authorities have found that buses produced by the China-based manufacturer Yutong could be remotely stopped or rendered inoperable. The Department—or a spokesperson—said, “We are looking into the c…”

“I have said it a number of times on the record and in this House before, so it is no evasion to say that I am no fan of the cap at all. As an incrementalist, I would like to see at least some solid progress on lifting that cap, and I hope that we will be in a position to remove it completely.”

“No. I have already taken two interventions and I want to make a bit of progress with my speech, but I might come back to the hon. Member. I hope that the Opposition do publish more detail, because, if they do not, it will be widely suspected in the country and the House that they know that their claims do not withstand…”

“My hon. Friend is right, and we could all point to examples of waste and inefficient spending under the previous Government. That is, of course, part of the context of where we find ourselves today, as are the £9.5 billion of undisclosed spending pressures that were withheld by the Treasury on their watch from the Offi…”

“When Opposition Members talk about defenestration, I do listen—because of their greater expertise in these matters. And, of course, “What’s past is prologue”—the hon. Gentleman tempts me to get on to the Zinoviev letter, but that might be one for another day. However, I have actually made only one brief reference to th…”

“I will give way to my constituency neighbour.”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because it brings me to my next point. The Opposition have come to the House today stating that all these difficult matters have been resolved and there is no need for tax increases at all. They say that they have a plan for cutting £47 billion of public expenditure. I h…”

“The Minister has just spoken about public services and touched on productivity. At the start of the debate, the shadow Chancellor talked about the importance of timely public sector pay settlements to productivity increases. Having been a union official in the aftermath of the strikes by ambulance workers, I have some …”

“I will happily say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not think any of us come to this place wanting to raise taxes. I will just draw attention to one thing in the Labour party manifesto: an important statement that a growing economy needs strong public services. I welcome the record investment in our NHS—the biggest in 2…”

“Opposition motions are usually detailed—as, indeed, is the next motion on the Order Paper, relating to energy—so the brevity of this motion deserves comment. The most important line is, I think, the first: “That this House calls on the Government to control public expenditure”. In the hands of this Opposition, that sho…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for becoming the human face of tax collection in this debate. A number of my constituents also work for HMRC, and they have told me that the period of cuts has impeded the agency’s ability to collect corporate taxation and get into the public purse revenues that are rightly due. Is that …”

“Thank you, and you have given us your view on Government policy and regulatory policy. Throughout this inquiry we have heard that both the public and private sectors could be doing more. Thinking about private employers, are they doing enough?”

“Presumably the Department itself also receives a good deal of information about skills requirements and skills shortages; some that are perhaps systematic and some that are anecdotal. How does the information flow between Skills England and the Departments? Are those systems set up at this point, or is it a work in pro…”

“I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that I worked for the Minister between 2012 and 2016. It is a question for the Minister, and Sarah, you may wish to comment. We have heard throughout this inquiry that there are generalised skills requirements within the transport sector that are subject to com…”

“Good morning. I have a follow-on question from the last point around technology and how that is changing the skills requirements. The broad end of the question is: what additional skill shortages are you seeing as a result of technological change? We are also interested in the age aspect. For young people coming into t…”

“May I invite the Minister to respond to two things? First, I was asked earlier how many times the word “maternity” appears in the Bill. The word “pregnancy” appears 16 times, “parental” 27 times, and “bereavement” 34 times, but we cannot restrict the debate to individual phrases. Secondly, this is not some abacus exerc…”

“T3. Dyspraxia is a common condition, but public awareness levels are still too low. Does the Minister agree that more needs to be done across Government and society to raise awareness of dyspraxia?”

“Yesterday, the hon. Gentleman said the Conservatives “will repeal those most damaging elements of the Employment Rights Bill”.—[Official Report, 4 November 2025; Vol. 774, c. 776.] Could he inform us which elements of the Bill they will retain?”

“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for proving my point exactly. I will happily tell him that since becoming a Member of this House, I have not received a penny in political donations from trade unions. My constituency Labour party received a donation before the election, but that is an entirely different matter. I ha…”