Speeches by Carling.

“I could do. I was just processing the implications of what you said, Sir Ian. We had quite a discussion around the appointment process for that individual in the previous meeting, and some of us expressed concerns at the lack of an open process for that and the way they were seemingly slotted in. You were essentially i…”

“7. What steps he is taking to improve skills in the defence sector.”

“Last week, I visited RAF Wyton in Huntingdonshire, which employs many of my constituents. Under the new cyber and specialist operations command, Wyton provides a critical part of our defence intelligence, and the plans to expand the work of the base will provide significant career opportunities for my constituents in n…”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister agree that developing the defence industry in Huntingdonshire will unlock local growth and prosperity? Can he outline how we will support skills development to ensure my constituents can access these opportunities?”

“In January, the sewer on Church Street in Northborough, a village in my constituency, collapsed. After several attempts by Anglian Water, it still has not been fixed eight months later. This means a risk of contamination, and because of road closures, it is causing huge potholes on surrounding roads. Householders on Ch…”

“Thank you very much, Chairman. Thank you to everyone for giving me the opportunity to present this application. I have a fairly rural constituency with a significant number of farmers in it, and I am regularly approached by that community about the impact of import standards on their business. What I mean by that, esse…”

“A variety of things. As I say, the key thing is to stress to the Government, going forward with trade deals, that this is something that matters a lot to our constituents and to the country more broadly, particularly those farming communities who we really need to show that we are supporting. It gives us an opportunity…”

“That is useful. On the point about giving Members appropriate time to scrutinise documents before their question, I personally find that to be the most important factor. I would rather have it the day before—that would be the situation if it were up to me—so that I could come with a properly informed question to the Mi…”

“A lot of my planned questions were about whether the code needs to change, but a lot of people have dipped into that as we have gone through, so if you think you have already answered anything I ask, please just say so.”

“In terms of factors, your pipelines and processes within Government for thinking through these things and how you balance things, we said earlier that an announcement in the House is not the most interesting to members of the public a lot of the time. This is the whole point of a press conference; the media gets intere…”

“I don’t think there is any dispute that that’s fine, because the House isn’t sitting; that’s how things need to work, realistically. To conclude, in the light of all these factors that you have to balance, and this Ministerial Code which is quite clear in what it says, and may be quite difficult to balance sometimes, t…”

“I know it isn’t.”

“I am just making the point generally. There is probably a diversity of views on this, and it is difficult to ascertain exactly what the best way forward is.”

“11. What steps she is taking to reform the leasehold system.”

“At Fletton Quays in my constituency, managed by Gateway Properties, leasehold residents are reporting that service charges have increased by as much as 150% in the last two years. Flats are under warranty and faults should be fixed by Weston Homes, which built the property, but instead are being fixed by Gateway, which…”

“I was going to move on. I would just ask my final question at that point.”

“My final question is for Mr Humpherson around the overall governance structure at the UKSA. The board structure seems to be pretty unique in terms of the OSR and the ONS reporting to the same board, despite the OSR regulating the ONS. Is that working?”

“If I may I will just come in there, Chair, as we did not necessarily hear the answer on a couple of the points there. Sir Robert, when you approached someone in the organisation and said, “This report’s happened; can the board see it?” you said they did not say no but essentially rebuffed you. Who was that? Who did you…”

“But you said that at some point the board should have discussed it?”

“Did you make a point to the head of people that this should have been flagged to the board?”