Speeches by Lamb.

“Like everyone who has spoken so far, I congratulate the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth). Much like the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (John Grady), Crawley is an urban constituency. On the plus side, I suppose that means I get to avoid the bunfight over who has …”

“I am sure my hon. Friend will be aware of the role that the Starlink system has played in Ukraine in enabling the frontline operations of the Ukrainian army. For a very long time, GPS was the main determinator of whether Trident could arrive at its destination. It strikes me that in some ways the technology, our abilit…”

“I am very grateful to the hon. Member for his kind remarks. Given that we are talking about democratic engagement and encouraging greater participation, does he agree that there are few better ways of encouraging people to engage with the system than getting them into student politics at university?”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) on bringing forward this Bill. A year on from the general election, it is nice to have one of those days when there is a sequence of Bills that we can all get behind and support and that should do great good for animals in this country and, hopefully, for some…”

“I came here today with the intention of voting against the Government on this Bill. I have to say that with clause 5 having been removed —which, as I am sure everyone at home will be delighted to know, completely withdraws PIP from the scope of the Bill—there is consequently nothing to vote on. However, could the Minis…”

“T7. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to enable access to non-hormonal, non-steroidal oral contraceptives?”

“T3. Crawley is home to the Tinsley House and Brook House immigration removal centres, and their associated scandal. What consideration is being given to the Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry into immigration detention, including ending the use of such centres for indefinite detention?”

“In the ’60s and ’70s, Labour and Conservative Governments removed the Chagossian people from their islands in the interests of national security. In response to written questions, the Foreign Office has confirmed that many certainties that would be required for Chagossians to return to the islands have not been secured…”

“Network Rail has identified that if the Croydon area remodelling scheme is not undertaken, capacity through East Croydon will be exhausted by 2030, preventing passengers from across much of southern England from being able to travel to London. Given that the Department for Transport has outlined that it is minded to ap…”

“6. Whether she plans to increase rail capacity on the Brighton main line.”

“T9. What assessment has the Minister made of the merits of increasing local housing allowance to alleviate the pressure on housing authorities?”

“It feels that one of the risks of a unitary Government is that we have categorised an awful lot of organisations—certainly in your initial opening comments around this—as potentially falling into the definition of being an arm’s-length body. The BBC would struggle very heavily against any notion that it had any involve…”

“Would it be better then to do it on a case-by-case basis, trying to come up with a clear definition of what it is? Or to have standardised definitions that we are trying to put them all into?”

“Behind the veil of ignorance thing, we would all agree to these concepts heading in and the outcomes, unfortunate as they are for the particular area, as beneficial overall.”

“What you are saying is very interesting. Fundamentally, the question seems to be not whether an arm’s-length body should exist, but how we undertake these processes that they are currently tasked to do. Once they are already established—as has already been covered—there is a level of tendency to forget about their exis…”

“An arm’s-length body.”

“More of a matrix.”

“Should there be a bit of standardisation or some guidance around how Departments should be relating to their arm’s-length bodies?”

“One last question from me. How effective is departmental oversight over the public bodies they sponsor?”

“I cannot say I have ever seen one of these framework documents involved in setting up an arm’s-length body so I do not really know what goes into it. Given the ministerial biographies that I have read of late, I would imagine that a number of them would be quite keen to understand the structures much better themselves.…”