Speeches by Taylor.

“You talk about seeing the change and dealing with circumstances as they arise, yet they will always be constrained by these red lines, if you are committing to stick to those. The specific question was about the economic impact. Has the impact of those red lines—which were written a year ago with different circumstance…”

“How do I follow that? Thank you very much for the very comprehensive opening answer, which has answered a number of my initial questions, and the points I was going to explore. You spoke about the red lines and the manifesto commitments that you made. What a lot of people are quite concerned about is that we see circum…”

“That is a separate point. Nick Thomas-Symonds: Or about the position of the bishops. You are right; they are separate points. That said, what do I think about having a diversity of faiths and those of no faith represented in the upper House generally in appointments? I think that is a very important principle that, of …”

“Talking about disgraced peers and the size of the Chamber brings us neatly on to the Bishops’ Bench. I spoke in the Chamber about the importance of examining the presence of the Bishops’ Bench in the House of Lords. You spoke about the sequential nature of reform, which we have revisited here and of which I think we ar…”

“I am just going to try to nail you down a bit on this—I apologise. You referenced the incredibly impactful negotiations that occurred between 2017 and 2019. It was agreed, at that point, that the level of impact of those agreements was such that having votes on them by the Parliament that was elected to represent the c…”

“Obviously, the negotiations that are going to be held are of massive significance. Will you commit to providing the House with a vote to approve the outcome of those negotiations? Nick Thomas-Symonds: At the moment, I do not know what legal form the ultimate position we reach will take. We will also have a series of su…”

“It was helpful that you brought up the point about how negotiations with our European neighbours are not a zero-sum game and everybody benefits. I just worry, when we look across the Atlantic, that we have a President who sees everything as a zero-sum game, where somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. While we t…”

“I echo the call for a replacement for the council tax system. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches have called for that for years. Please will the Minister and the Government consider bringing forward plans that retain the power for local councils to decide levels of taxation, but make it a much more progressive model of…”

“There is much talk lately of a crisis of trust in our institutions. Well, there is no greater way to tackle that crisis head-on than by delivering on the basic function of the state itself, which is to keep people safe. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home and walking down their own street, but that is simp…”

“Can I just take advantage of the moment to congratulate all of the various party treasurers, local party treasurers and agents around the country for the incredible work they do in complying with—”

“Good morning and hello again. We will start off by echoing some of the questions we asked in the previous section around monitoring and regulating, the financing of political parties and campaigning organisations. We heard in the previous section about some of the restrictions on what the Electoral Commission can do—li…”

“It was a question about the electoral system, and I am not going to ask about recommendations because we could go into the weeds there. Peter, the work of the electoral administrators—and I think we touched on it in PACAC the other week—changing the voting system will obviously have a dramatic impact on how counts proc…”

“Voting reform; democratic questions. Strap in. I am going to start with some numbers. I am going to use seven adults sitting on that side of the panel as an illustration. In 2023-24 there were about 68 million adults in the UK, of whom 50 million were eligible to vote. Of the seven people over there, only five were eli…”

“Luke Taylor, Sutton and Cheam.”

“You have answered some of the follow-up questions, but I will just ask—and keep it brief because of time—what specific changes do you need to see from the Government to ensure that the Electoral Commission is best able to ensure the integrity of political funding? So what changes? You have spoken about some of the prob…”

“This is a very brief point and an open question. We have heard about how foreign citizens living here are unable to vote, yet the system is set up that foreign citizens not living here are able to donate massive amounts of money to influence the process. Does this seem particularly perverse and contradictory to you?”

“Exactly, yes. Although their frequency in declaring us as the legal necessities in the process is slightly disappointing. It does take the sheen off their achievements somewhat, but, yes, it is incredible the work that they do and the abilities they have to comply with the rules that are very clearly set.”

“Marie Curie research has found that 15% of the three quarters of a million end-of-life carers are living below the poverty line, rising to 22% a year after bereavement. Given these statistics, will the Minister consider extending the time that carers can claim carer’s allowance from two months to six months after berea…”

“I thank the Minister for his very full answers to questions, which mean I am now on the seventh or eighth version of my question. [Laughter.] There are two points I would like to explore. First, on emissions, SAF will only ever be a transitionary fuel. What effort are the Government making to engage with industry to de…”

“Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on the words “as rapidly as possible”? It is that language, and the measures and pressures included in the Bill, that will provide the incentive to British industry and to great British minds—the inventors, researchers and developers—to create the technologies and produce them at scale. …”