Speeches by Martin.

“The cut to winter fuel allowance and the subsequent U-turn have caused much anguish, distress and misery to the parliamentary Labour party. Judging by the questions from the Minister’s Back Benchers, it seems that we will have two further U-turns, on PIP and on the two-child benefit cap. To save his colleagues the angu…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) for securing what is probably the most important debate we could have to rejuvenate our town centres. As some hon. and right hon. Members have touched on, town centres a…”

“I will give another example from Kent. In Tunbridge Wells in my constituency, the River Grom often has very high levels of ammonia due to sewage being dumped in the river. When that is reported to the Environment Agency, it claims a lack of funds, does not send its own investigators and often passes the matter to South…”

“On a point of order, Ms Jardine. It seems that the hon. Gentleman is confused and in the wrong debate. This is a debate about business rates, but he spent his entire time talking about local government sequencing of traffic works.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Does the hon. Lady agree that the Tory/Reform Brexit has been a complete disaster for our economy?”

“I thank the Chief Secretary for the statement. Giving money out to mayors to fix transport—there is nothing to disagree with in that. Kent, which as he knows is the UK’s strategic corridor to Europe, recently asked for a mayor and was rebuffed. Without a mayor, when will Kent get its money?”

“The right hon. Member is making a very important point. This issue is important across the whole socioeconomic spectrum. I had a relatively privileged upbringing, but my first job was washing dishes in a hotel. That job taught me what hard work is. The lessons that we learn in those types of jobs last throughout our li…”

“That was super interesting; thank you very much. To bring it below the threshold into grey zone activity, hybrid or whatever you want to call it, what would you say are the main characteristics of Russian grey zone activity in the High North or the wider North? Are we effectively deterring that now, and does the SDR co…”

“David Lammy visited there recently.”

“Thank you both.”

“Is there anything else, other than undersea cables?”

“The Minister is being extremely generous, as he always is. I pressed him on this point on the last occasion when we met across the Chamber, but some time has passed since then. He speaks of dealing with the issue “in the round”, which is a sentiment that I understand, but when? Can he give a timetable?”

“rose—”

“Recently, General Sir Roly Walker, Chief of the General Staff, said that he was “ashamed” by the stories of sexual misconduct—predominately crimes committed against women in service. He also said that lots of these crimes go unreported, so lots are unknown as well as the terrible ones that are known. How can we have a …”

“This defence review gives us a long shopping list of technological advances—the cyber command, digital backbone, drones, AI—and that is right and proper, but the British military is tiny. Recently, the Select Committee heard that if we had to fight tonight, we could scratch together five ships and 30 planes. The person…”

“I am in favour of this new method of delivery, which gives us more options and probably makes it less likely in the long run that nuclear weapons will be used. However, cost is key, and with 20% of the defence budget already taken up by the defence nuclear enterprise, it is clear that our conventional capabilities are …”

“It is not just the House as a whole; the Defence Committee also was not given advance sight of the report. Committee members were left texting journalists over the weekend to find out what was going on. At the beginning of this Parliament, the Defence Secretary committed to the Defence Committee that he would be more o…”

“In Tunbridge Wells, buses are not a luxury: they connect schoolchildren to their classrooms, the elderly to their communities, carers to patients, and people unable to drive to jobs, shops and healthcare. When those links are weakened, lives are disrupted and communities start to fracture. If lockdown taught us anythin…”

“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous, although I might suggest that he works on his queuing system a little bit. I understand that the timetable issue is a difficult one, and most things seem to be arriving in the spring with this Government, but could we talk about the format? Are we…”