Speeches by Hoare.

“There are many issues that will divide this House and many issues that will divide society, but one thing that probably unites all of us, and indeed society, is that we have a legitimate expectation of decent and respectful treatment for our dead. I do not think that is asking too much. The vast majority of funeral dir…”

“Let me just continue. The Minister and I would not need a licence and we would not be inspected; all we would have to do is put up a sign saying “Funeral Directors” with the hours of operation on it. That cannot be right. It cannot be right that when a funeral director is running out of credit with their local cremator…”

“I am very sorry to hear what the hon. Gentleman has relayed; I know that the whole House will send prayers, thoughts and sympathies to his constituents. What a terrible thing to be dealing with in what are already tragically sad circumstances. He is right to urge the Minister to give a turbocharged and energised respon…”

“Write it down!”

“Secretary of State, while we are on this area of your proposals, are you able to say a word or two with regard to the resourcing of it? I want to break resourcing down into two parts: resourcing in terms of financial requirements to make all these things work, and to work well and at pace, and any thoughts or conversat…”

“You referenced the constraints of the terms of reference, one of which is the requirement for cross-party unanimity. Momentarily setting aside those terms of reference, and if you had a blank cheque, was there anything that was not able to secure cross-party unanimity but that you thought was absolutely key? What is th…”

“Thank you, Lord Murphy, for the work that you did on this. It is clearly important. If I may, I want to ask you a cheeky question—”

“You referenced the constraints of the terms of reference, one of which is the requirement for cross-party unanimity. Momentarily setting aside those terms of reference, and if you had a blank cheque, was there anything that was not able to secure cross-party unanimity but that you thought was absolutely key? What is th…”

“Thank you, Lord Murphy, for the work that you did on this. It is clearly important. If I may, I want to ask you a cheeky question—”

“A novel approach, but let’s have a go. Specifically, in terms of the commissioners themselves—although I think you have addressed that—if or when there is recourse to the courts, and an expectation of criminal investigation via the PSNI, do they have capacity headroom to deal with these things in a full and timely fash…”

“Q8. As last week’s urgent question highlighted, Jhoots—the pharmacy non-provider—is effectively de facto bankrupt and possibly even insolvent too. Last week we discussed at great length the impact that is having on patients securing their prescriptions. It is now becoming increasingly evident that while His Majesty’s R…”

“Is that personnel or financial?”

“I have a couple of quick questions for Ms Thompson. As no problem is ever really new, what, if any, other examples of recovery projects of a similar type or scale have you been looking at to try to learn how best to deal speedily with this important matter? Secondly, as Minister Muir said, these are bite-sized chunks. …”

“Is that about breaking down departmental silos and having a taskforce-type approach?”

“There is life after Belfast City Council, then.”

“It is to everybody, really. Let us start with Mr Darby.”

“Forgive me if we do not all rush out and do the conga with excitement because it has been delegated as a priority.”

“We have had figures bandied around. We have had multiple five-year plans and reviews—“It is not X%; it is Y%. It is not Z%; it is T%”—as if that answers the question. Can I go back to this energy question? This is a precious and unique resource, which, when environmentally and ecologically destroyed, has no comeback po…”

“Mr Curran, why can the models not be done concurrently rather than consecutively?”

“This is a question we will probably also ask of the Minister. You have referenced reports and studies. Given the scale of the challenge and the arrival at, or certainly closeness to, a tipping point, does the panel understand and share the frustration of many at the passing of the buck, as it were, between interested p…”