Speeches by Foord.

“The Conservative Government passed the Financial Services and Markets Act in 2023, which gave the FCA powers to set up banking hubs and give access to cash. Does the Minister think that that was a missed opportunity at the time to prevent banks from closing high street branches in the thousands, as they have since cont…”

“I am grateful to the Chair of the EFRA Committee for laying out the top lines from this excellent report, and I also commend the Committee for its work on the inquiry into animal and plant health. My right hon. Friend spoke about the Cabinet Office Minister not appearing before his Committee, but the Minister did appea…”

“The hon. Gentleman is talking about the frustrations in Cornwall, which my constituents really can relate to. This issue is peninsula-wide, across Devon and Cornwall. Only 52% of mid and east Devon is covered by 5G, compared with 62% nationally. Does he recognise that this is about our remote south-west peninsula?”

“Allied Pharmacies has taken over a couple of failing Jhoots Pharmacy branches in my area since Pharmacy First was introduced, which is very welcome. The chief executive said this week that the outlook for elderly people and those without a car in rural areas was stark. Between 2015 and 2025, community pharmacies have s…”

“First, I should say that, although I enormously respect the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), I disagree with him about the independence of the Intelligence and Security Committee. It is very much a Committee of Parliament, and it is independent as such. The ISC is awaiting receipt of papers from the G…”

“One of those commercial operators is O2. My constituent, Martin Ferdinando, contacted O2 over 40 times. He was offered a handset, a new 5G SIM, an escalation to the ombudsman and, in the end, a £125 goodwill payment. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that our constituents do not want such “goodwill” payments and that w…”

“The final settlement for local government finance does not bring good news for Devon. Research by the Rural Services Network has shown that urban councils will have significantly more Government-funded spending power per head than rural councils. By 2028-29, urban councils will have seen a 20% increase in Government-fu…”

“Measuring police effectiveness by looking solely at numbers is absolutely flawed. Does the shadow Minister accept in retrospect that the way in which Theresa May allowed police numbers to plummet while claiming that crime was falling was completely flawed? We lost a lot of experience in those years.”

“My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about rural crime. My concern is that as the boundaries of police forces become greater, the resources tend to go to the urban areas. We see that in east Devon, where Cranbrook has sucked in resources from villages and towns that have previously had a police presence. Does he…”

“My hon. Friend mentions the River Lim Action group that works on the boundary between his West Dorset constituency and mine. The group has identified that the sewage treatment works at Uplyme cannot cope with the amount of sewage that occurs during high rainfall. Does he agree that South West Water needs to put in more…”

“Thank you for that.”

“Can you describe what it was like to live through the early days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022?”

“It sounds absolutely awful to have to go and see residents of Kyiv in those circumstances; our hearts are very much with you. Fleur and I visited Kyiv in 2022, and we went on a visit to Hostomel airport. It would be interesting if you describe what it was like when you felt like the tide was turning around Kyiv, and wh…”

“Thank you very much, Vitaliy, for sharing your time with us today. You started by saying thank you, but the thanks are ours, as the Foreign Affairs Committee and on behalf of all British citizens, to you, for defending eastern Europe. I would like to take you back to the images that we saw on our TV screens and that yo…”

“I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point about the need to amplify threat perception, but I do not think that that is required with the conduct of elections. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report in 2020 said that it was informed that “the mechanics of the UK’s voting are deemed largely sound: the use of a…”

“The Intelligence and Security Committee wrote to the Prime Minister last Thursday. The letter, which has been published, included the following request: “The Committee would be grateful to, now, be told the date on which we will receive those papers such that we are able to plan the resourcing requirements”. I do not d…”

“I am really grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. He talks about maintenance, but design is also crucial. Margaret Leppard, from Seaton, set up the Seaton Flood Working Group. She points out that developers sometimes use outdated datasets when designing drainage systems. She says that rainfall data from …”

“What my hon. Friend has identified in his Newton Abbot constituency is a situation that exists all over the country. In July 2025, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wrote a report called “National standards for sustainable drainage systems”, which talked about a national shortage of skilled profess…”

“Is there any exception that would apply in the case of Putin if there were a special tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression against Ukraine? There has been discussion of a tribunal sitting in Ukraine, which would be one domestic jurisdiction acting against another. Could you comment on that?”

“Are there any exceptions to this doctrine of Head of State immunity?”