Speeches by Holmes.

“You will find out, Mr Speaker, that I will not test your patience. I want to take my right hon. Friend back to the point he made about the Education Secretary’s tweet, which I thought was disgraceful. [Hon. Members: “Where is she?”] The divisive language behind that tweet was a disgrace, given the many independent scho…”

“After that performance from the Foreign Secretary, I am delighted to read that there will be reshuffle at Christmas. He should revisit his statement, as he said that my noble Friend Lord Cameron carried on the negotiations—I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary when he ended the negotiations; this Foreign Secretary …”

“It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. It is poignant that it is called the Sir David Amess debate. I knew Sir David well, and the last time I saw him was on the day before he died. I was in Qatar with him, in a country that he loved and for which he advocated for many years during his career. When I arrived, he was …”

“indicated assent.”

“I know that the hon. Gentleman is a new Member, and I think that intervention shows the measure of the man that he will be in this House over the next four years. Judging by a debate in which he participated yesterday, I know that he will be a vocal advocate for his constituency, and that he will make Sir David very pr…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, and to be able to respond to this debate on behalf of the Opposition as a newly appointed shadow Home Office Minister, as of this morning. I congratulate the hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) on securing this debate and thank him for giving us the chance…”

“The change that the Government announced this morning will mean than 18,300 of my constituents will go without their winter fuel payment this Christmas. In the brief time that I have, I will set out why I believe that is just the start from the Government. The first reason is that cutting winter fuel payments for poore…”

“I congratulate the hon. Member on the post to which she has been elected. She has just outlined a number of projects for which public money needs to be found. As the shadow Secretary of State outlined, the Government’s decision today will save £1.1 billion, and the replacements they are putting in place will cost £3 bi…”

“I will not take any lectures from the hon. Member, but I say to him that I always defend pay rises for people in this country who deserve them, which is exactly what the Conservative Government did. What our Government did not do was award inflation-busting pay rises of 22% to the people who paid for our general electi…”

“I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is a Minister at the Treasury, so I am hoping he will be able to outline some of the facts and answer my question. He will outline today that the saving made by cutting the winter fuel payment is £1.1 billion. If everybody accepted the means-testing that he is …”

“I know it will be a novelty for the Secretary of State actually to answer a question during this urgent question, but maybe he will do the House a favour by answering this very simple question with a yes or no. He said that no pass was given to Alan Milburn, so will he guarantee that no confidential documents that coul…”

“The Minister for Local Government may be aware that Liberal Democrat-controlled Eastleigh borough council is subject to a best value notice, due to its unsustainable £700 million of debt. More audits have been undertaken that show that more borrowing is taking place, so will he meet me to discuss this risk to my consti…”

“Quite frankly, this announcement will be a disaster for my Hamble Valley constituency. Over the last few years, Liberal Democrat-run Eastleigh borough council has built double the number of houses required by targets and assessments. Can the Secretary of State confirm that she will take into account retrospective build…”

“I welcome the Secretary of State and all Ministers to the Front Bench, and I look forward to working with them. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that he is working flat out, as were the last Government, on making sure that the roughly £2 billion of funds generated from the sale of Chelsea football club get…”

“The Chancellor spent the election campaign saying that she was going for growth through investing in infrastructure. Instead, she is cutting it, while funding inflation-busting pay deals and scrapping pension benefits for the worst-off. Does she agree that in the battle for the two faces of the Labour party, the face o…”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I raise a significant issue that I am concerned about, in relation to the Chancellor’s statement? [Interruption.] The Chancellor obviously does not want to stay in the Chamber to hear this. In the course of her remarks, the Chancellor appeared to indicate that the Governme…”

“I welcome the Leader of the House to her position. On the day of the Dissolution of the last Parliament, the previous Government awarded millions of pounds of funding for accessibility at our more remote train stations, including Swanwick and Hedge End in my constituency. Will she confirm that that funding will remain …”

“I welcome the Secretary of State and the Minister of State to their positions, and thank them for their gracious phone call last week to welcome me and my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) to our positions. On Monday, the Business Secretary slipped out a written statement, rather than comin…”

“The shadow Secretary of State should also remember that the Labour party opposed our measures for bringing in 20,000 extra police, and during the general election campaign it committed to having 13,000 extra neighbourhood officers, which many police and crime commissioners have said cannot be funded, because they are n…”

“I am delighted to see that the leader of the Liberal Democrats seems to be openly advocating the work of Eastleigh borough council. May I just remind him that the council is building double the number of houses required only because his party leadership has got it into £800 million-worth of debt and it needs to pay off…”