Speeches by Bool.

“I am not quite sure, actually. If you are going to be aligning, we are going to lose power.”

“I appreciate that it is a letter, but a letter is not good enough in this day and age. It was taken off X as well. The post from the Government got taken down, so there is still more to do. On the SPS, I know that you are saying it is a very good agreement, but it now means that we will be subject to the European Court…”

“Have you done a check and seen all the airports, because it is not rolled out across the board at all?”

“Secretary of State, you mentioned biosecurity and that you are very keen on supporting it. I wanted to ask what is happening now about the ban on EU products coming into the UK for personal use. At the moment, from 12 April, there is a ban on cattle, sheep, goat and pig meat, and dairy products. When I have come in fro…”

“I pay tribute to that powerful contribution from the hon. Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley). Our thoughts and prayers are with Liv’s family in the Gallery. I truly welcome the provision of better information for victims of crime. It is essential that victims are at the heart of justice. As Baroness Newlove has sa…”

“I am grateful to speak in this debate, and I will focus on three amendments: new clause 9 and amendments 51 and 38. To save time, so that other Members can speak, I will not take interventions. New clause 9, which is in my name, would essentially establish the standard of proof—namely, the degree of certainty and the a…”

“Yes, because I understand that some other offers that were put forward were actually asking about significant credit haircuts, and then they were obviously talking about a debt for equity swap. Had you discussed that with Ofwat or the other regulators at this time?”

“If you do actually go down this element of the senior creditors wanting to do this debt for equity swaps and if, as you said, that is a real possibility, are you happy about a distressed debt specialist taking ownership of a regulated water company?”

“Looking forward on all this, I understand that you have this emergency loan for liquidity, but obviously you need to sort out the long term because it is clearly very complicated for everyone to manage. I understood that Thames Water hoped to secure new ownership by June: are you on track for that?”

“Ofwat recommended that all this time you should basically continue talking to the other parties that had come in, along with KKR. Why did you not do that?”

“If all that goes wrong and does not go to plan, what is the back-up and the timing for that, then?”

“What time frame are you working to?”

“Is that your aim?”

“Just in terms of the gearing feature, you mentioned earlier that you think actually you are at around about 88%. I know that Ofwat always says that a company over 70% is in distress, so what is the target gearing figure that you are ultimately aiming for?”

“In mid-March, in my role as a vice chair of the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, I formed part of the delegation that headed out to Brussels for the assembly meeting ahead of the 19 May summit meeting. While it was a convivial affair, I came away with great concerns about the tone of the conversations and cont…”

“What is the feeling amongst the other Departments? You must have a feel or a steer at this moment in time as to whether it is likely or not. I know you may not want to commit outright.”

“Baroness Hayman, you said at the beginning that you want to tighten up on personal imports. I was coming back from an EU country on Easter Monday, at the end of April, but not a single announcement was made, nor could I see any signs, of the ban that was being introduced. Indeed, the tweet that went out on X, which was…”

“When will that come into place? Time is of the essence.”

“It would be quite an easy step for the airports to take to make an announcement. If you look at the Australian modelling as well, you cannot even enter. You have the checklist, and it is very clear. I would have expected that, on the flight that I got, there was an announcement saying, “Do check. You cannot bring this …”

“It does not seem that we are going to get too many more answers here, but, if there is anything else, that is the concern.”