Speeches by Aquarone.

“I thank the Minister for coming to North Norfolk; he is welcome at any time. Having experienced at first hand the reality of rurality in my constituency, does he agree that we need to look at alternative models for rural public transport?”

“I wish to speak to new clause 35 and amendments 70 and 71 tabled in my name. The Minister has done a very good job of outlining what those proposals seek to achieve, for which I am grateful. I am seeking to remedy the lack of vision for fixing the public transport problems that we face in rural areas. As I have said, w…”

“I am a serving councillor on Norfolk county council.”

“What you have just described is in the event that the amendment is agreed to. Is that right?”

“In the limited time available, I want to press the Government on a very live and urgent issue, which is the establishment of a dental school at the University of East Anglia. Currently, there is no dental school in the entire east of England. The Government accept that Norfolk is the Sahara of dental deserts. My consti…”

“I appreciate the warm support from the hon. Gentleman, who is, as he stated, my constituency neighbour. I defer to his lawyering experience on his salient points about the propriety of my amendments given the Bill’s drafting, but I will ask for his reflections on two points. First, cost is a big unanswered question in …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I will speak to the clause and to new clause 30 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon. We have this Bill Committee, Department for Transport estimates day and the forthcoming Transport Committee report on connecting rural communities—we…”

“Let me absolutely clear: everybody involved in securing that bid deserves congratulations— I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman.”

“I am pleased to wind up this debate on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for securing it. As others have said, this debate is incredibly timely, as this week is National Drowning Prevention Week. There have been a number of excellent contributions…”

“I think the point the hon. Gentleman is making is that many in Fakenham, as well as the nearby villages in my constituency, are delighted by the news and thrilled with the hard work that has gone into securing it. Liberal Democrats also want to end the closure of swimming pools by designating them as critical health in…”

“On that note, having seen the hon. Gentleman in his place, I will give way to him.”

“That is interesting. You are answering a lot of my other questions as we go along.”

“Sure. That affects workforce, concrete demand and all that sort of stuff. It is very interesting. My last question goes back to that pdf that sits on the Government website. In the very short term, what difference would it make just to update that? Is that enough to give us a bit more certainty? What is the role of the…”

“I can definitely relate to local projects with high-value impact on communities, from a place where I stood in a previous election. It is no longer relevant to me, but it is still relevant to them. Lydia, are there any other pet things that you want to see done to the control period?”

“Thinking back to the control period and the data that you mentioned, Lydia—Neil talked earlier about some of the changes you would want to see—are there any other pet changes to the control periods that we have not heard so far that might help to address some of these issues?”

“Does the stop-start actually make it more expensive, or is it just suppressing investment appetite and creating capacity problems?”

“Do you want to build on that, Jonathan?”

“Do you think the Government take into account workforce considerations when announcing enhancement projects?”

“I have a few different questions around transparency and certainty. I will talk about the control period in a moment. Neil, you have already given some answers as to what you would like to see changed. Let me put a challenge to you. The two big questions are about whether there are the people to do the work if the Gove…”

“We have started the list, so let me reinforce and add my support to that ask. I hope it is something the Minister might be able to discuss with colleagues in DESNZ, to see whether some joined-up thinking might happen. I have spoken much about challenges and struggles, but I also want to talk about the huge opportunitie…”