Speeches by Heylings.

“Finally on that, as you say, it is taking everyone with us and it is a national conversation. At the moment, that political coalition, together with the environmental movement, has been ready to step up to those roles. There is this moment of consternation within the environmental movement given the announcements that …”

“Me, too.”

“Does my hon. Friend agree with my constituent Freya, who says: “I am 15 and I am afraid. I can do things in the community, but unless we have joined-up Government action, we have no hope”? We have various Ministers here as a result of this private Member’s Bill, which addresses the yawning gap between Departments.”

“I, too, have seen “Kyoto”, and I have spent 20 years attending all the climate negotiations. Given that the hon. Member has spoken about cross-party consensus and the need to build the necessary political momentum, will she show respect for the huge efforts made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Sava…”

“I have a question to follow on from that: catchment planning at the moment has no material weight in planning terms?”

“Strengthening of catchment perhaps in general in terms of planning but also between those different areas, whether the coastal or the catchment that is needed. Finally, Chair, if you do not mind, I am hearing that social capital that you have been talking about and a recommendation there is that we are involving differ…”

“Not having one impact the other, which is what you have been talking about, particularly on the coastal area.”

“Would a recommendation here be that there be strengthening of catchment planning?”

“Dr Sayers?”

“Do you think that the Land Use Framework is something that enables you to look at those conflicts and to start planning?”

“Can I ask the other panellists as well? We have the Land Use Framework, we have also got local nature recovery strategies, which are then sort of from the bottom up, again without a material weight in planning but they do look at how nature could play a role in terms of adaptation.”

“I have a question to follow on from that: catchment planning at the moment has no material weight in planning terms?”

“I would like to pick up both that last comment and the comment about planning and the systems approach. The planning system is through local plans, and there might even be wider areas. Even if we are going to the combined authorities, the strategic unitary authorities, there will be wider regional but there is nothing …”

“The reason I am asking, Chair, is because it brings us back to the funding. We are paying the cost for not having planned up front in that way. Q26            Cameron Thomas: Thank you for stating out loud the impacts on mental health of people that are regularly a…”

“We are also looking at the house building targets, so this is something that we absolutely need to ensure has been taken on board with increasing climate risks but, as you say, with increasing house building, what impacts will that have on our ability to have those green or blue spaces, or our ability to manage water a…”

“Just on that, the example then, also from the Netherlands, is there anything else that you think we should be looking at? We will have a visit, so it is interesting to know. Is there anything in your opinion we should be looking at, as well as the resilience standards and the plan that is in place? Any other things tha…”

“That social capital that is there is absolutely critical. It is very interesting that, following covid, police forces around the country are building on those neighbourhood groups that were helping each other. They are calling them community resilience groups, but they are not talking about the kind of resilience we ar…”

“We did talk about vulnerability, and you were mentioning the level of households. In what way do you think that we are able to provide those most vulnerable with some of the protection that is needed?”

“Within what is being given at the moment, with the Environment Agency, within that funding, saying that it is less able now to invest in the same number of projects as it was, do you think that more could be done to adequately resource the Environment Agency for its role and its tasks?”

“You are making us ask an even bigger, almost existential question, which is: we do not know how much we should be spending because we have not had the national debate and set the target for the country.”