Speeches by Taylor.

“I thank the shadow Home Secretary for securing the urgent question. I am lucky enough to represent, in my constituency, one of the largest Hong Kong communities, and they tell me that the proposed Chinese super-embassy is a chilling prospect for Hongkongers who have moved to our country to escape repression in Hong Kon…”

“12. What steps her Department is taking to help support grassroots sports clubs in London.”

“My fantastic local football club, Sutton United, provides excellent opportunities in grassroots sports through its junior, women and disabled teams, and it even has a walking football club for those of us, Mr Speaker, who need a gentler pace of play. However, it tells me that it desperately needs access to more trainin…”

“First, may I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for bringing the report forward and the Government for accepting all its recommendations? I echo the points from around the Chamber that our thoughts today are with the survivors and the families of the victims. As is often said, justice delayed is justice denied. Will the D…”

“I want to amplify the valuable skills that our colleges are teaching in renewable technologies. I recently visited South Thames college in Wandsworth, where I saw the labs it has set up to teach the installation of heat pumps and other renewable technologies. The main challenge that the college faces is finding staff t…”

“DEFRA.”

“I will fire the intern who put that word in there.”

“Thames Water has failed its customers across the south-east, leaving people with contaminated water, poor service and even sewage flooding homes and streets. Boat races are warned to stay out of the Thames due to E. coli, while the region’s rare chalk streams are being poisoned by chemical imbalances. Local pubs and ca…”

“I welcome many of the measures in the statement, although I echo the request from my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) that we consider decoupling electricity and gas prices; that would make such a difference. In 2023, Sutton council was blocked by the opposition Conservative group from partaking of an EU…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered knife crime in London. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. Violence behaves like a virus. It spreads among a community and wreaks havoc not just on our streets but on our lives. There is a particularly virulent strain in London: knife crime. It was on…”

“I could not agree more. I was interested to hear the hon. Member’s speech the other day about including council enforcement officers in these hubs, too. Having them present in the community and accessible to residents is incredibly important. I am keen to have a conversation with him about the measures that he has achi…”

“Introducing blunted knives is a very good example of thinking differently about this crime. The tabloid approach of looking for popular, big and visible solutions, such as banning zombie knives, while important, often ignores the statistics of how crimes are most often committed. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, …”

“I fully agree. The community-based approaches that I will come to later in my speech recognise that point. I intend today to state the case that a false premise has been advanced; that successive Governments have failed to invest enough in a whole-of-society approach to reducing knife crime and young people are dying a…”

“We have discussed being held to account, which we are all big fans of. Nick Thomas-Symonds: I gathered.”

“I would echo colleagues and encourage you to continue to make statements as regularly as possible, rather than there needing to be urgent questions in the Chamber, because that is a much more constructive way to have that discussion. Nick Thomas-Symonds: I entirely agree, and I very much prefer proactive statements.”

“Okay, fine. I will steam on to the final point, about engaging with Parliament. How is that going to be managed? How are we going to be informed on progress? How will we be informed on how the negotiations are going and, ultimately, the trade-offs that you are making? When are we going to get the chance to celebrate or…”

“That is good to know. John, you mentioned during the briefing you might want to ask about the devolved Administrations at this point.”

“On the touring musicians, for example, when the calls are made for a scheme to simplify that—a colleague of ours has put in a ten-minute rule Bill to simplify the rules around that—does that come to the Foreign Office? Where would that go to? So you then sit there, and you look at the trade-offs around— Nick Thomas-Sym…”

“So the co-ordination between the Foreign Office, the practical steps and the decisions on those trade-offs sits on your lap. Nick Thomas-Symonds: Many things sit on my lap, as I think we will discover in the course of the Committee, but it is not only the Foreign Office and not only the Home Office. We work very closel…”

“Just to go on to how the reset is being conducted across different policy areas, obviously your role is to bring that into a single point so you can see within the various silos. Hopefully, they are working fairly in an integrated way. How are you working between those Departments, and how are you overseeing that and c…”