Speeches by Billington.

“I congratulate my right hon. Friend and, indeed, the Chancellor on making the decision to tax online gambling in particular. The fact that people effectively have a casino in their pocket destroys lives and families, and it is right that we send that strong signal, as well as make sure money is available to tackle the …”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“I am interested to know whether the hon. Lady welcomes the fact that the youth guarantee will benefit hundreds of young people in the Ynys Môn constituency. It will give free support for apprenticeships for the under-25s. That will help small and medium-sized businesses that want to recruit and train young people in Yn…”

“May I confirm that the right hon. Gentleman is then perfectly happy for children to continue to live in poverty while we try to reform the welfare benefit system?”

“I am sure the Secretary of State would not necessarily like me to remind him that it is 16 years since the first COP he attended with me, which was significantly less successful than the one this year. I commend him for his great effort over that time in managing to demonstrate the UK’s leadership on climate change. Th…”

“I support my hon. Friend in his advocacy of new clause 29. The Minister mentioned that the Bill should be a floor on ambition, not a ceiling, and I am keen to seek reassurance on the climate duty, as I am sure my hon. Friend is. In particular, it is vital that local authorities can shape it locally, partly because they…”

“My right hon. Friend will be aware of the appalling environmental pollution incident at Camber Sands in East Sussex last week. A few days later, we also had huge sewage dumps in the seas around my constituency, leaving beaches in Ramsgate and Broadstairs effectively unusable. Not only do these incidents have appalling …”

“It is a win for this afternoon.”

“The Government have announced or committed to an 8 GW contribution of community energy to Clean Power 2030. In the context of what you are saying, do you think it needs to be—a bit like every local plan must contribute to the 1.5 million homes—that every local authority should be contributing to that 8 GW? How would th…”

“I have had a thought, and this is very dangerous in these circumstances. Jenny, if you had a material consideration, I know that you are talking specifically about planning law, but I am also interested in the fact that community energy can increase grid resilience and at the moment that is not factored into the system…”

“What should change for that to happen?”

“It is a win for this afternoon.”

“I am not being funny, Dan, but I did not know what Jenny has just told us about the material consideration. I am a new legislator, but I am a legislator. Not knowing about the system is not that unusual. It is about how much we need to change the system to make it easier and not end up with unintended consequences, whi…”

“What do you think are the prospects of the Government hitting their target in four years and two months?”

“Local area energy planning mandated?”

“Those are things that NESO and the DNOs must do.”

“Dan, what do you think needs to change in the rules to enable local stakeholders to meet this target?”

“I am also interested in the argument that if it is publicly owned land, it should be used for public purposes. That is one of the reasons why you build social housing on it and so on. I am just thinking about whether that is a way of having a material consideration that this is publicly owned land, we are not selling i…”

“Can I follow up on that? I am interested in the identity and nature of the owner. If it were publicly owned land, for example by the local authority, would that make a difference?”

“Telling people who are interested in energy to spend more time talking to people—I would suggest it might be better to change a rule rather than to try to change people’s personalities.”