Speeches by Gibson.

“That sounds like an idyllic situation. It is not one that is very familiar to me in my constituency of Chippenham, I confess. People facing a planning application as local residents are keen to see onsite biodiversity net gain happen, whereas the offsite biodiversity net gain is much less tangible. They therefore feel …”

“As I said, it is the onsite that is the biggest issue. If you have a large development in your area—around your town—and your town is being doughnutted by development, you would like to see that biodiversity net gain. However much you care about the planet, you might also care about your local area, and you might like …”

“On the question of improvements to the national planning policy framework, do you think there is enough in there to encourage developers to properly engage with this?”

“It is always encouraging to see people spending more time in politics and becoming less sceptical. That leads on to my question: how well do you think the Government are supporting local authorities to deliver their onsite biodiversity net gain agreements with developers?”

“What sort of progress do you think has been established in the publicly accessible register of onsite biodiversity net gains with local authorities? While we are thinking about that part of it, what impact do you think the plans for devolution—changing the scale of some local authorities—will have on local authorities’…”

“That is offsite.”

“There is a feeling in most of our constituencies that there is a lack of transparency about what biodiversity net gains have actually been provided on developments. There is a sort of scepticism—which, unlike the Minister’s, is growing—about whether those biodiversity net gains are actually happening. That is why a pub…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Ms Vaz. I share the passion of the hon. Member for West Suffolk for education—as I stated earlier, both my parents became headteachers before retirement—so I appreciate that he is very concerned about the state of education in our country. However, I am ver…”

“I appreciate the clarification. The point of free schools and academies was to have a diversity of education. A diversity of employment rights, which is what we are discussing, is a different element. If we end up with a situation where I, as a member of support staff, am looking at two jobs in my region, and one is wi…”

“I appreciate the point, and the shadow Minister is quite right: I was assuming that without support there might be such a situation. However, that does not detract from the fact that in most situations, having a body that someone can go to that is independent from their employer has to be a supporting situation. Nobody…”

“I appreciate the clarification. That makes perfect sense—it would be unlikely that a body representing employees would create a ceiling, so I cannot help feeling that that issue is not likely to come up. With that in mind, I am unable to support the amendment.”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of diversity of education. One of the things that academies and free schools have done very well is cater for children with learning difficulties, whether they are dyslexic or autistic, or doing all the other things that probably many of us in this roo…”

“For similar reasons as I was concerned about previous amendments, I feel that I cannot support this amendment. I think it is unnecessary to add more complications to the system on things that are probably already covered in other areas.”

“I support the schedule. Over the past 10 years, we have seen how difficult it has been to retain and employ support staff in our schools, partly because they do not see a career progression and do not see themselves valued. I hope that this body will help to support those staff and will allow them to feel that they are…”

“I rise to speak to the amendment, but I note that the whole clause is relevant. As the shadow Minister stated, this debate is fairly similar to the discussion we had about the SSSNB. Our hope for the adult social care negotiating body, similar to that for the SSSNB, is that having a uniform body can help to negotiate a…”

“I start by thanking the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby for that very personal story. I imagine it has been extremely difficult. She must be very relieved to have finally found somewhere where her son is happy. I have several friends with children in similar situations. I know that it can be extremely stressful.…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I really welcome the clause. Despite the fact that their uniforms, pensions and contracts said “NHS”, staff at a community hospital in my constituency only realised that they had been effectively TUPE-ed over to a private business when they failed to receiv…”

“I beg to move amendment 112, in clause 26, page 38, line 35, at end insert― “(c) supporting employees with menstrual problems and menstrual disorders.” This amendment would add menstrual problems and menstrual disorders to “matters related to gender equality”, in relation to any regulations made under the Bill to requi…”

“I cannot help agreeing that naming a few conditions in the Bill might well be a concern, and when I first looked at the amendment on its own without looking at where it would fit into the Bill, it did seem slightly incongruous to suddenly mention one aspect. But if we look at where it would be inserted into the Bill, f…”