Speeches by Turner.

“9. What recent progress her Department has made on establishing the School Support Staff Negotiating Body.”

“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my chairship of the GMB parliamentary group. The School Support Staff Negotiating Body, established under Labour’s landmark Employment Rights Act, will make a real difference for more than 1,600 people in my constituency who have been unde…”

“A little more than two years have passed since the last Prime Minister chaotically took the axe to HS2 north and east of Birmingham, and the mayor at the time, Andy Street, failed the test of leadership and failed to stand up for our region. There is an obvious link between the east-west connections the Secretary of St…”

“Thank you, Chair. Good morning. As with previous sessions, I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that I worked for the Minister between 2012 and 2016. Minister, I want to come back to something you said, which is that there is no evidence that Wolverhampton’s standards are significantly lower than …”

“Finally, what is the Department’s view on the idea of making taxi and private hire driving a regulated activity like nursing or being a paramedic?”

“Did the publication of the Casey audit last year change or influence the Department’s thinking in terms of minimum standards?”

“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. As a Birmingham MP, I have set out on a number of occasions in the Chamber my serious concerns about both the decision and the way in which it was made. It is clear that the chief constable’s position is untenable. I pay tribute to the many police officers who are working h…”

“Moving on to safeguarding, the Department has stated that the national minimum standards will be focused on safeguarding passengers. Of course, as far away as the Jay report, it has been said that safeguarding in taxi and private hire is a common thread in a number of very high profile and horrifying cases. What specif…”

“Yes. It is important that we say that we are talking about a minority of drivers and that drivers themselves are often at risk of assault and abusive behaviour. I wanted to ask about particularly vulnerable passengers, including where there is a cross-departmental element to it. I am thinking particularly about SEND ta…”

“Presumably, we would want to avoid a situation where new national minimums are established for commercial drivers that are then not necessarily reflected in SEND home-to-school contracts, unless there is a very specific justification for doing so.”

“Yes. There is a cost element to it as well.”

“I sit on the same Select Committee as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), and I know better than to speak for him. I have a degree of personal sympathy with the case that the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) sets out. I also think there is something to be said for giv…”

“I draw attention to my chairship of the GMB parliamentary group, a union that represents workers in the distillery and retail trades. I will limit my comments to the uprating of excise duty, but I welcome this Budget more generally. It represents the right choice—investment and renewal over austerity and decline. Claus…”

“I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement. I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) about the regime’s severance of communications adding to the distress of many of our constituents, who are trying to establish the safety and personal liberty of loved ones. I appr…”

“I thank the Minister for all her hard work over many years to bring this excellent statement to the House. Some 500 people are killed or seriously injured on Birmingham’s roads every year, including in my constituency. Sadly, due to the historical layout of many of our estates, schools, shops and other amenities are in…”

“Finally, GBR will have its own fares-setting process. Separately, where there is a passenger service contract for a different type of operator, I understand that fares objectives will be set out in the contract itself. How will you avoid a situation where GBR has one fare strategy but then fares-setting is set in time …”

“I have a question about what will change on the network immediately after the creation of GBR. We have talked a lot about passenger services, but it seems to me that there is a lot of opportunity in station management to make changes that passengers will notice. Within Birmingham, there is a huge disparity between stat…”

“Then there is the Secretary of State’s duty to set out an objective of balancing overall costs. Costs for commuters might mean something very different from levels of affordability and costs for business passengers or leisure passengers. How will the interests of different types of passengers be balanced?”

“So that is yet to be determined?”

“I think we do understand that as a Committee. The last point is important in terms of the public perception of funding of the railway and the spending of public money. Moving beyond that, Ms Ryan, you made the point about wanting GBR to have as much flexibility as possible between capital and revenue, if I understood t…”