Speeches by Wrigley.

“I was listening very carefully, and I think the Minister just said that not all trains will necessarily stop at Old Oak Common. Could she confirm that, please?”

“I am a little reassured by the Government’s intentions to support the manufacturing industry and look forward to their efforts to do so. I am certainly reassured by the support for the high street, which is very important to all. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question pro…”

“This has been my first Bill Committee experience, and it has been interesting and delightfully short. I am delighted to see it executed so effectively and efficiently. I thank the Minister for all his thoughtful and thorough explanations of the different bits and pieces, and I really hope that the legislation will prov…”

“I rise to speak to new clause 1. I thank the Minister for his words. It is, as we are discovering, an incredibly complex and arcane way of creating taxes that will have an impact on many high street businesses. While the Treasury analysis will tell us how the multipliers have hit, and the numbers that are done from a t…”

“We have tabled this amendment to explore the possibility of including manufacturing businesses. Manufacturing is important, and we know that it is struggling. By adding manufacturing businesses, we might be able to help them in the same way as we intend to help hospitality, retail and leisure. Manufacturing is a vital …”

“I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 3, page 3, line 29, after “hospitality” insert “, manufacturing”. This amendment would add manufacturing businesses to the types of business that could qualify for use of the lower multiplier.”

“Q Thank you for coming today. The Co-op is a vital element of many of the communities in my area in south Devon. It is a mainstay of many communities. In the Bill I am interested in the jump between the small business rates and the large business rates based on a rateable value of £51,000. Is that an issue for you in t…”

“Q Apologies for being late; I got caught in traffic behind a tractor. I thank the panel for their evidence. I am a coastal Devon MP, and within my constituency are Dawlish and Teignmouth. We have some major holiday sites in that area that I am fairly sure will fall into the upper brackets. What is your feeling on the c…”

“Q Reforming business rates is very welcome. We always like that—they are not a particularly good tax—but I fear the measure is making them more complicated. Forgive me if it is a naive question, but I do not see anywhere in the Bill, other than it starting in April 2026, any commitment to forward notice of changes or t…”

“I think that is likely, but this is causing great consternation with all our residents. We are trying to demonstrate that we are considering their needs, and balancing them with the needs of terminating HS2 is important for fairness.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know that, and we have something tomorrow as well.”

“All through the south-west, we are facing difficulty with our train services. One of the big things that is coming up is six years of potential delay due to current plans for the area called Old Oak Common. Old Oak Common was the terminus for HS2 for the north coming into London, which will now be going by tunnel throu…”

“Speaking as—until recently—the leader of a district council and a long-term member of our planning committee, I do not recognise the issues that the Minister is citing. A lot of the things he says relate to the absence of a local plan. I fully agree with that. My council has just put in place a new local plan, which is…”

“Q10. The major GP practice groups in my constituency have written to me, detailing their precarious finances. They are considering their options as they plan for the year ahead, including redundancies, handing back their contracts or bankruptcy, and they have stopped recruiting GPs, resulting in fewer patient appointme…”

“Fantastic. I come from a local council background, where we have literally, in the past three months, had to change the idea of putting trees in the pedestrianised area of the street because they suddenly found pipes underneath. How do you deal with the accuracy of the data, because the data as presented is not reality…”

“Excellent, that sounds good. Looking at the changes that you are proposing for the information for the ICO, how are you ensuring that it retains the full levels of independence that it requires to keep the adequacy levels?”

“There are a couple of other things in the Bill, including the NAU—the map of everything that is underground.”

“I am delighted that you have started that, because that is long overdue, like you say. That has been a blight on most of our lives for a long, long time.”

“When I first started my professional career, we tried to do that for telephone lines for one customer, but we could not even do that, because they did not know what they were paying for. They were paying the bills but they did not know where these phones were. My final question is about the words in the Bill about the …”