Speeches by Blake.

“T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.”

“I have a final question on self-monitoring. The EA relies on self-monitoring in a range of different areas, water being one. Are you confident in that as a regime for monitoring or you do think that the EA should monitor more things and issues directly?”

“That is a very helpful and comprehensive answer, but coming back to resources, that is a key question here. It sounds like you are having to use what capacity you have quite sparingly at the moment, given the size of the sectors involved. What support does the Environment Agency need to enforce limits on PFAS emissions…”

“First, to Ms Parkes, I have a couple of questions around permitting. Could you outline the Environment Agency’s current approach to PFAS discharge limits in environmental permits?”

“Sorry, I want to know how the Department is influencing other Departments to fund this area—to put money up front to fund the biochemical, biomedical and public health research that we need.”

“I just want to ask a quick question. I should probably declare an interest in that I used to be a research scientist. What cross-departmental discussions have you had about funding biomedical, biochemical and public health research into the health impacts not only at a cellular level but at population levels, as well a…”

“Is it less about banging your head against a brick wall and more about the time it is taking to tackle these challenges?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for that. I was trying to see if there was a recommendation we could pull out of that, but that is very helpful. What impact do you expect the introduction of the standing recommendations to have? I have a table of them in front of me, and it is clear that the Government have not accepted any of these fully w…”

“Do you have a priority for any order in which these recommendations should be taken? You mentioned farming but there is protected sites in there, the marine environment, all these other ones that have been repeated.”

“Following on from that, I wondered if you felt that you needed more teeth as an organisation for your recommendations to land harder in government.”

“Thank you. That is very helpful.”

“I thank the Minister for his statement; the measures will radically improve the system. He will be aware that over 170 houses in my constituency have had their freeholds purchased by Andrew Milne, who is now demanding that residents pay sums sometimes exceeding £25,000 to buy out the freeholds, and is threatening forfe…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) for securing this debate and for raising awareness of the case of Matty Lock. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for special educational needs and disabilitie…”

“Absolutely. Just to go back to myself again, in a very ADHD way, I did art and drama alongside sciences. I became a scientist before I came here, but without the art and drama I would never have succeeded in science. I think it is really important that we work with people’s strengths, because the alternative to not doi…”

“The review highlighted the lack of cross-Government working, so I wonder whether, for example, Access to Work could be looked at. Self-employed people currently have to wait six months to access it, and it is obviously a form of early intervention that gets people the support they need to stay in work.”

“Given that many of these institutions are universities with licences, and hundreds of scientists and labs work under the 135 licences that the Minister has described, many of which have nothing to do with vaccines, is this not a knee-jerk reaction to a concern that is yet to be fulfilled, given the extra emergency legi…”

“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I have to say, I was a tiny bit anxious about speaking on this issue today, because of the risk of being painted a hypocrite or a traitor to my scientific comrades. I am a biomedical scientist and have worked in premises licensed under the Animals (Scientific P…”

“Yes, it is more challenging to provide support in rural areas, but there is also huge pressure on cities as well. As I mentioned earlier, the financial burden that falls on councils as a result of the policy is huge. Wherever they are in the UK, I think local authorities would say it is a challenge. That is why this ne…”

“I thank the Minister for his statement. I am very pleased, as I know my constituents will be, to hear about the swift bricks. Ours is a city of nature lovers, and I know that people have been very concerned about BNG, which has been mentioned. I would like to understand a little more about how it has been determined th…”