Speeches by Waugh.

“Rochdale council has removed 6,500 fly- tips this past year alone, the equivalent of 50 tonnes of illegally dumped waste every month, at a cost of £400,000 to local taxpayers. But my council tells me that there is a real failure in the courts issuing consistent and tough enough fines. Does the Minister agree with me th…”

“Of the 170 children killed in Israel’s deadly day of bombing in Gaza on Tuesday, three of them were brothers. They were sons of Karam Tafeek Hameid: Hassan, who was nine, Mohammad, who was eight, and Aziz, who was just five. Their father told the BBC: “They used to play around, have fun…They wanted to be doctors, teach…”

“May I pass on my own personal condolences to the shadow Leader of the House? He and I have known each other ever since he entered this House. He made a fitting and moving tribute to his late father. Every family in Rochdale, including mine, has a relative or friend who has benefited from the superb end of life care pro…”

“1. What steps he is taking to help tackle fly-tipping.”

“Today is, as the Leader of the House mentioned, World Book Day. It is also the day when I announce the winner of my World Book Day competition for the children of Rochdale. Will she join me in congratulating 10-year-old Harry Hodgkiss of Milnrow parish Church of England primary school on his brilliant review of David W…”

“In June 2024, in the dying days of the last Conservative Government and after 14 years of their rule, there emerged a shocking statistic: 60% of rape victims were withdrawing from the court process, mainly because of court delays. Is that not a damning indictment of all Governments who have taken power in this country?…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) for securing this vital and overdue debate. As has been said already, while the world rightly focuses on the plight of the Palestinian people and the UN resolutions frequently broken by Israel, al…”

“Sure. To return my question, though, have you modelled how much income you would get? Could you increase the income that the BBC could get under a progressive licence fee?”

“Do you think that has changed?”

“Could we see some of those figures? Could we see some examples from the BBC?”

“Have you modelled what decriminalisation would look like? Dr Shah, you said that you were tempted by that. What would that look like in terms of income?”

“That you would lose?”

“You are chairman of the BBC and you are troubled by the idea that people are criminalised by not paying the licence fee. You are not a commentator; you are the chair of the BBC, so what is your solution to that?”

“I am not suggesting that it is simple, but what is your solution at the moment?”

“Director general, you got to the heart of this. You said there were unanswered questions. We want to know whether that was because the questions were not comprehensive enough and not followed up effectively, or whether it was an active deception on the part of this production company to give you misleading answers.”

“So as it stands, that is still a question.”

“To Rupa’s point earlier, is there a way of making this film safe so that it can be seen by everyone and they can make their own minds up? From what I have seen, there is an 11-year-old, Zakaria, who helps paramedics at al-Aqsa hospital in this film, and does that rather than staying with his family because his family d…”

“Can we shift to local radio stations? You have had major cuts to local radio stations to make savings in recent years. Do you have an up-to-date assessment of the impact of that transition in local services from radio to online?”

“I want to press you a little further on that. The local democracy reporting service has been a success in many ways, and it fills the gaps where a lot of local newspapers have sadly died—I say this as someone who used to work on a local newspaper. You have filled the gap. However, there is an increasing demand for that…”

“Okay, but within that there will be some who do not feel safe, I imagine. You pointed to the Tim Westwood review, which was produced last week, at a cost of £3 million, I might point out—a long, in-depth review. One of the most worrying findings in that independent report was that those who were effectively on the wron…”