Speeches by Evans.

“How much is it?”

“When the Chancellor stood up and said that the Government would be changing business rates, there was some relief across the industry, but now businesses are realising that because the temporary relief that has been in place for five years since the pandemic is being stripped away, even though they are getting these ne…”

“I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. There is a risk of doing that, but we have to remember that it does not need to be like that. There are many good employees and many good employers, far more than hon. Members like to talk about. Our job is to protect those margins. If we make the margins too tight…”

“It is not just wealthy people who have left. We know from the Office for National Statistics data that 257,000 Brits have gone—it had been estimated at 70,000—of whom about two thirds to three quarters are under the age of 35. We are losing young people to the rest of the world because of the implications of not being …”

“The hon. Gentleman is right. As an MP, he will be an employer. No doubt, he is a good employer who offers the members of his team good terms and he cares deeply about the staff who he is looking after. However, we have taxpayer-funded jobs, but the private sector has to generate the funding to employ people, so those b…”

“My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I bow to her experience as I know that she has run and been involved with many businesses. She speaks the truth about what businesses and risk-takers are looking at in this country. They are saying, “Why would I take that risk? Why would I take on that responsibility if there is no…”

“As it comes towards Christmas, I tend to think of the shows I like to watch, and one is “Blackadder Goes Forth”. Near the end there is a famous quote. Blackadder is finally trying to get away, but he cannot. He knows he is going to go over the top and he says, “Well, it rhymes with clucking bell”. For me, that is what …”

“How much would the 5% VAT policy cost?”

“On the tourism tax, only a couple of months ago, in response to a question that I had posed, the then Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), said, “We think they have been taxed enough.” Is it a surprise to Opposition Members to see a tourism tax being…”

“I would love to elucidate, because if we go back to 2010, we had to deal with the financial crisis, and we had to borrow £158 billion to deal with that. Then we had to get the coffers back in the right position, and we were just about doing that before the pandemic hit and we had to borrow another £400 billion. The hon…”

“I appreciate that the Minister cannot commit to a financial spending envelope now, but is it not the case that the mental health investment standard is something that the Government could commit to?”

“I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for stepping in on that basis. We have had plenty of chances to debate this Bill, both in Committee and many times in the mental health debates that I am partial to. We could go through why the last Government changed the interventions of NHS England and brought in integrated…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, but he has also missed the point. He gives me the opportunity to point out that one way in which the previous Government dealt with this issue was by bringing forward the mental health investment standard, under which the proportion of spending on mental health had to mirror …”

“I have talked about roads and bridges throughout the duration of the Bill. We have now reached the end of the long road that was, of course, embarked on by Baroness May in 2018 with the independent Wessely report, which was the foundation of this legislation. It constitutes a cross-party, cross-departmental look at how…”

“Does the hon. Lady agree that it would have been helpful if an impact assessment had been carried out, so that everyone could see exactly what the impact of removing the cap would be?”

“I congratulate the Minister on both her passion and her ability to get so many words into Hansard in her responses on an urgent question. However, one bit of detail that we are missing—and she is now being asked about this for the fifth time—is an impact assessment. She has said again that the impact assessment will be…”

“The Minister is indeed right to say that there was an injection of cash, but the proportion of funding being spent on mental health was actually cut. The written ministerial statement is very clear that that proportion went from 8.78% to 8.71%, which the royal college said was about £300 million of investment. Can he c…”

“The old adage we often hear is that there are two certainties in life—taxes and death. We spend a lot of time in this House talking about the former and very little time speaking about the latter, even though we know it will affect us; I have argued that both as a doctor and in this House since I was elected. I take my…”

“I congratulate the Government on keeping one of their manifesto commitments, because their manifesto said, “Change”—it is just that no one realised that would be all that was left in the British public’s pocket when it came to it. I would like to give a second congratulations to the Chancellor, because I gather that sh…”

“Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. Whether it was the reference to either being a liar or Pinocchio, I withdraw them both.”