Speeches by Billington.

“I am grateful, in particular, to see the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) back in his place. I was particularly struck by the significant intellectual differences between him and those of us on the Government side of the House about the importance of the public realm and investment in our c…”

“I emphasise the importance of the pride in place programme for places such as Ramsgate, where the vacancy rate in the high street has been an appalling 24%. We were left with the legacy of 14 years of Tory Government, and only because of the social and community energy in Ramsgate have we been able to turn that around,…”

“I gently remind the Minister that, simply because people live in the south-east, it does not mean they are dripping in gold. My constituency in particular experiences distinct levels of deprivation; only 10% of our children manage to pass the Kent test in East Thanet. The opportunity to access the international baccala…”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) on securing this debate. Dartford grammar sounds much like Dane Court school in my constituency, which offers the opportunity of the international baccalaureate to children from across the academy chain—I know that some of your constituents benefit fro…”

“What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the UK arm of the company, which is an in-demand business with a highly skilled workforce and many successful contracts, has a long-term future in the UK, particularly in the context of our clean energy jobs plan announced last week and, as my hon. Friend the Member for …”

“I, too, have a school in my constituency that offers the international baccalaureate. Dane Court school in Broadstairs has an extremely successful programme in breaking down barriers to opportunity for a large number of pupils in an area of significant deprivation. Only 10% of the children in East Thanet succeed in pas…”

“On competition and the former Conservative Government, I remind Members that they were the ones who brought Southeastern, which serves my constituency, into public ownership, because of the failures of the commercial process.”

“The case the hon. Member is making may have some valid points, but is he prepared to take responsibility for the fact that the British Government do not have a say in what Eurostar does because a previous Administration—run by the Conservatives with their then allies, the Liberal Democrats—ended up without the British …”

“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Despite significant investment under a Labour Government in High Speed 1, which benefits my community, it often feels as though many people are still cut off from those opportunities. We need to break down barriers to opportunity, and the restoration of international services at …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I can see France from my constituency on a clear day, and yet my constituents cannot get there easily or affordably for work or pleasure. Last week, I was speaking with one of my friends about her plans to go to Paris for the Christmas markets. A quick overni…”

“2. What steps his Department is taking to support probation officers.”

“The probation officers I have spoken to are supportive of the early release scheme inasmuch as it was necessary to deal with the chronic overcrowding in our prisons—a legacy of the previous Government’s dereliction of duty. Many offenders on the fixed recall scheme with a determinate sentence, however, are not being ri…”

“I would like to talk about the importance of the impact of both austerity and covid on entrenching the regional transport inequalities we have heard so much about today. I will also talk about the importance of our making the most of our existing infrastructure, which has ended up crumbling and neglected after the prev…”

“Slight?”

“I am struck by the fact that there are a significant number of obligations on large developers, and indeed a big organisation like National Grid, in order to be able to do this, yet they still end up with this opposition, people raising money for JRs and so forth. So, even with the obligations that are currently in pla…”

“I feel like I could have heard this evidence at any time since 2008. For full disclosure, I obviously worked with Roger, and I have worked with Becky on the Assembly, and I know Bob quite well too. In 2008 and 2009 in the run-up to Copenhagen negotiations a scientist was revealed to have used the word “trick”. I recomm…”

“Simply to do the processes that they are already legally able to do like, for example, process planning applications?”

“This is all very interesting, but it goes back to Melanie’s point about lack of leadership and slowing things down. We have accountable democratic institutions at local level: they are called councils. What role do you see for councils and what problems are they currently experiencing in being able to make sure that th…”

“Where do you see the Government in terms of their attitude towards adopting those kind of tactics? As we have agreed that this is fundamentally a policy problem rather than a comms problem, are the Government open to using those strategies to design policies that might help the most vulnerable and most excluded?”

“I totally understand about sortition, and I understand about representation and all of that kind of thing. I also know that in some of those circumstances it is particularly challenging to make sure that the most disadvantaged and the most excluded get the same level of confidence; they do not have the same level of ca…”