Speeches by Olney.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) on securing this important debate. He is a real champion for the NHS, and it is a benefit to all of us that he brings his former experience as a GP to bear in this debate. The NHS has more contact with peop…”

“I just want to take this opportunity to say my personal thanks to the Minister and everybody involved in bringing the legislation to this stage. I pay tribute once again to my constituent Juliana Terlizzi, who came to see me when she was charged £7,000 for the transcript of the trial that saw her rapist sent to prison.…”

“15. Whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill on levels of financial oversight for children’s care home providers.”

“The Government have already imposed additional employment costs on our small businesses and those on our high streets. They are still struggling with sky-high energy costs that the Government have yet to alleviate, and now we have these massive increases in business rates. Is there anything at all that the Minister can…”

“My hon. Friend mentioned drones, which I know can provide really spectacular sound and light shows, but I would be slightly nervous about endorsing the use of drones instead of fireworks. Richmond Park has some of the most contested airspace of anywhere in the country. We are very used to the impact of noise from aircr…”

“It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. You were not here at the beginning, so you will not have seen that this was the most crowded Westminster Hall debate I have ever attended. It is a bit of a blast from the past to see Labour Members sitting on this side of the Chamber; we have not seen …”

“And certainly not in London, I can confirm. The hon. Member is absolutely right about the regulations that exist for the sale of fireworks, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether she thinks more could be done to enforce the existing regulations, as the hon. Member suggests, or whether we need to lo…”

“Last Friday, the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, published its report into the financial sustainability of children’s homes. The report highlights that there is very little financial and governance oversight of private companies, which run 84% of children’s homes in the UK. Given that the 15 largest …”

“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wanted to reflect the value of the self-employed to our economy, and to reflect on how, as we learn the lessons from covid, that group of workers can be supported more broadly. That is a pressing issue for now, but I accept that we are debating what happened six years ago. The extreme…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) for securing this debate and for her excellent opening speech, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the time to debate this important topic. Small businesses and self-employed people played a vital role in sustaining com…”

“The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech; I am grateful that she has secured this debate. Airports are imposing drop-off charges primarily to increase profits, despite their stated claims of environmental benefits. On the point about transparency, when I inquired of Heathrow how many cars are using its drop-off poin…”

“I want to speak to amendments 42 to 47. The Bill fails to recognise the specific way in which family businesses are different from businesses whose shares can be traded. The tax changes announced at the 2024 Budget treat family businesses as though they are a liquid asset or as if their underlying value is expressed in…”

“Q2. The period after Christmas can be a challenging time for many people, and consequently the month of January consistently sees higher rates of suicide than other times of the year, but suicide is preventable and lives can be saved. Education, raising awareness and targeting vulnerable groups are all effective suicid…”

“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Secretary of State a direct question about his former statements and how they conflict with current Government policy. Would you agree that the Secretary of State should have directly answered me?”

“Mr Speaker, “We owe it to future generations not just to have good environmental principles but to act on them. That is why I will be voting against the third runway at Heathrow”— not my words, but the words of the Secretary of State in 2018. Given that Heathrow is already the biggest single source of carbon emissions …”

“My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech on a topic that is very close to every Liberal Democrat heart. Thames Water is in £17 billion of debt, yet the company continues to progress with the Teddington direct river abstraction in my constituency, with a plant that would be operational for just six weeks a year at a…”

“I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. Last year, two important reports were produced: “Mental health inpatient settings: overarching report of investigations directed by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care” and “Improving support for people with complex mental health difficulties”. T…”

“That is fair.”

“That was going to be my next question to James. There is a fixed budget and yet we are not yet sure of how we are going to deliver the outcome. How do those things reconcile?”

“As I understand it, what you are saying is that Treasury financial control is it saying, “This is the budget; you have to deliver within this budget.” But if the plan comes out at higher than that budget, you are then saying that they must stick to the budget, even if that then threatens delivery?”