Speeches by McDonagh.

“A number of constituents who work as nurses in the A&E department at St Helier hospital asked me to come to see for myself what they were dealing with. They asked me to come late on a Monday morning, rather than a Saturday or Sunday night as I had anticipated. What I saw was deeply troubling. Around 250 patients we…”

“I call Paul Foster to wind up, very quickly.”

“Gentlemen may take off their jackets off if they wish.”

“St Helier hospital has the fourth best maternity unit in the country, the only exclusively NHS-run assisted conception unit in south-west London, and a specialist gynaecology ward where nurses are highly trained in counselling. Yet all that is set to close next May because of the need for emergency repairs. Could the L…”

“I remind Members to bob if they wish to be called in the debate.”

“I call Mark Francois.”

“My issue with vapes and the non-compliance is their likelihood of setting stuff on fire. We have had quite a lot of that across my constituency in Mitcham and Morden. Do the new rules that come in about licensing with the Tobacco and Vapes Act have any influence on that?”

“What measures could we introduce that would really show who is controlling a business?”

“On waste sites they are costing companies millions and millions of pounds.”

“It was bigger than business rates.”

“Do you not think that it is actually bigger than rates avoidance? If you follow the press site London Centric, you can see evidence of one of London’s most prominent landlords—Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital—letting shops to people on student visas to set up gift shops. Is it not time that a landlord as big and wealthy a…”

“Would you not prefer Tesco local as your tenant?”

“Thank you for being here today. We have heard evidence that some landlords repeatedly let premises to businesses that quickly disappear without paying their taxes, only for a nearly identical business to open in the same premises shortly afterwards, often selling the same products. To what extent are landlords facilita…”

“What would make a landlord decide to let a premium premises on Whitehall to somebody on a student visa for a gift shop, rather than leave it with Tesco local?”

“There is nothing small about Criterion Capital.”

“There are also the issues about who is allowed to be a company director. Are they really the director of that company or merely a nominee? In the case, as you will know, of the American sweet shops on premium sites on Oxford Street, and, again, including my friends at Criterion Capital, it seems that the director is so…”

“One of our concerns in this Committee has been the accessibility of mortgages to first-time buyers. To your point about relaxing some of the regulations, the Committee has been actively involved in talking to the PRA about relaxing the loan-to-income flow limits to allow more flexibility for first-time buyers. Would yo…”

“Do you think that the concentration of the mortgage market might also be a problem? The six largest lenders account for over 80% of lending to homebuyers. First-time buyers take longer and present more risk. Would a more diversified market be better for them?”

“Mr Daley, you have done quite a bit of campaigning about the people who were victim to the collapse of their funeral plan companies. What could the Government do for the people who were affected by that collapse?”

“I am sorry to interrupt you, Catherine, but is it not the case that the average age of the underwater electricians on the Tideway tunnel project is around 65? The last time we trained people for these jobs was when we had a significant mining industry: there is no one new coming through to undertake that work.”