Speeches by Niblett.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I represent a semi-rural constituency, and one of its gorgeous little market towns, Melbourne, famously—or so it seems to me—has a high street where cars have to park a bit on the pavement, which is super-skinny because the road is super-skinny. If they did …”

“T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.”

“We have just two Changing Places toilets in my constituency, which is semi-rural and quite large. One is at Elvaston castle country park, so I ask my hon. Friend to put that on his list of places to come and visit. I opened my constituency office only once I had a disabled access toilet, but it just feels like such a h…”

“I welcome this statement; it is brilliant. Three weeks ago, I had the most fantastic visit to Universal Music—thanks to Charlotte Allan for sorting that out. I also spoke to the chief executive, Dickon. Their support, love and continued passion for bringing in new artists was really transparent and obvious to me, so to…”

“I welcome today’s statement. I am incredibly excited, not least because we have the beautiful River Trent, which separates my constituency from Staffordshire. It is home to the Staffordshire Swooshers, who have members from Derbyshire. They frequently have to avoid a “Trent tan”, but they extol the virtues of open wate…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her Committee’s report, and the team behind it who have drafted it. The report contains concerns and recommendations about digital marketing. WhatsApp is a direct communication tool, for good and for bad, which very few people engage with as though it is a classic social media platform such a…”

“A number of my constituents in South Derbyshire have written to me, deeply distressed over the crisis of plastic pollution in South Derbyshire’s waterways, including in the River Trent and the Foremark and Staunton Harold reservoirs, and in our farmland, where farmers—already dealing with increasing floods due to the c…”

“Thanks very much for coming in today. Moving on to public awareness and education, as a mother to a 17-year-old daughter, this stuff quite frankly scares the life out of me. A survey was carried out in 2024 with Girlguiding UK which polled 2,734 girls and young women and found that “Just over a quarter of girls aged be…”

“As the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial technology and a mother to a 17-year-old daughter who turns 18 this year and is considering how she can best save for and secure her future, I welcome this news with real joy as we try to bring more wealth to more people. I suspect this joy is shared by …”

“It does, indeed. I was delighted to be in the room when Jonathan Reynolds delivered the statement on the industrial strategy; it was a joy. By way of a little background, I have a very keen interest in this. I was part of InvestHER, a campaign to reverse the law under the last Government that would have clipped the win…”

“I would be keen to understand how you are planning to proactively tap into other diverse groups within the already under-represented female founders group. Thank you very much. We have had the investing in women code since 2019, yet the value of investment in women-led businesses still remains low. What difference has …”

“Sorry, I am just letting what you have both said sink in. It sounds very much like you worry that if women, or women from diverse groups, are supported to be successful, it is just tokenism.”

“Excellent. Finally, the British Business Bank requires a £1 million annual revenue threshold for equity investment. Would the Government support that threshold perhaps being reduced for female founders to reflect the gender pay gap? This has been brought up before with female founders, and I am sure it will probably co…”

“Excellent. Last year, for the 30th anniversary of EIS, I sat on a panel with somebody from the British Business Bank. I said that we need data and stuff to measure. Not openly, but downstairs later, he said, “We don’t have the data at the British Business Bank, and when we were pushing out the Future Fund stuff through…”

“Is the Invest in Women Taskforce more of a campaign than an actual physical vehicle? I have been incredibly confused, because when we first had Debbie in as a witness, she expressed real frustration that she wanted a fund of funds and she had not got that; it was sitting with the separate partners who were committed to…”

“Okay, great, because we would not want them to have a kitemark of good practice if they are not actually good practitioners. Do you think there is an opportunity for the Financial Conduct Authority to potentially mandate reporting on investment in female-led businesses in line with IWC requirements for all FCA-regulate…”

“Would the Government support the British Business Bank making signing up to the code a requirement of receiving support from it?”

“Is there a desire to make that better?”

“Is it a concern that “Computer says no” is the reason for their not signing up to the code? Is the “Computer says no” part of the problem particularly for investing in female founders?”

“What levers are Government using to get financial institutions to sign up to the code?”