Speeches by Gibson.

“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?”

“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 completely agree with the hon. Gentleman; I must make a declaration that my parents were a state headmaster and headmistress before their retirement. One issue that I strongly feel needs to be taken into consideration—though perhaps it is not relevant to this Committee—is that funding for education in general has dri…”

“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 am not sure that highlighting quite how quickly the Conservatives go through leaders is helpful, but we do have to recognise that they have had the highest number of female leaders of any of our parties here, which is to be commended. On a serious note, I welcome the intentions of clause 27. It is incredibly importan…”

“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.…”

“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.”

“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. 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 beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.”

“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…”

“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…”

“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 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…”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“The Royal Mail has been plagued by issues for years, and my constituents do deserve better. A reliable postal service is essential for all of us, but particularly for rural businesses and those waiting for important NHS appointments. Naturally, in communities like those I represent in Wiltshire, there are some serious …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I will speak principally to our amendment 5, but Opposition amendment 155 is also relevant. We broadly welcome the Government’s intention to clarify some issues around probation. However, we feel that these measures will make it too difficult for small business…”

“I share some of the shadow Minister’s concerns. Consultation to find out what most concerns businesses is obviously commendable, but if a large amount of the Bill is left to secondary legislation, a lot of it will not come back before the whole House for scrutiny. Can we be assured that decisions that are not taken bef…”