Speeches by Roca.

“You did do intelligence a long time ago. Do you think that it is a failure that intelligence is held at DEFRA level and is not shared with partners?”

“More than 5,000 people are employed at AstraZeneca’s Macclesfield campus, producing world-class medicines and contributing £1.8 billion in GVA and 1% of total UK exports. AstraZeneca has confirmed to me that the Speke decision does not impact Macclesfield, a site that it is committed to. Will the Minister confirm that …”

“I thank those who secured this debate on a really important issue. I hope all of us here are committed to the fundamental principle that we should have a functioning, representative democracy; and that elections should reflect the will of the people, and endow this place with the democratic legitimacy to make laws and …”

“When was the last opinion tracker? The NAO quote the 2023 one because of the timing of their report. Do we have one from last autumn?”

“On inputs, there is a suggestion that moving to some of these ELM schemes means that there will be less reliance on pesticides and so on, but is the Department considering reduction targets on things like pesticides and fertiliser?”

“As the Chair has alluded to, there was already uncertainty in the farmer opinion tracker from 2023, I don’t know if there has been a recent one. I would suggest that that acceleration and removal of direct payments might exacerbate uncertainty. How are you monitoring different types of farming and their transition to E…”

“Can I follow directly on that question, Chair? Based on your modelling of the productivity improvements needed—and there was a suggestion in the report that one in nine farms would need to make productivity gains of 10%, which is quite significant—how many farms realistically might not be able to make the improvements …”

“I thank the Chancellor for her statement. I particularly welcome the fact that she raised the issues of Jimmy Lai and human rights in Beijing, which is really important. After 14 years of the Conservative party’s inconsistency on China, does she agree that we need a cross-Whitehall strategy and a pragmatic approach?”

“On capital spending overall—this is obviously a question as a new Member of Parliament—are there underspends in capital budgets that you can steer across to other schemes?”

“It was before?”

“In October we announced the acceleration of the abolition of basic payments, so how much of the increase in applications came after?”

“Can I go back to the main capital grants scheme? It was met with some frustration. What notice was given of the closure of the scheme?”

“I do not want to go over old ground but clearly the point we are emphasising here is the resilience fund has been well received, we are accelerating the move away from direct payments and it is something we thought the Department might have considered extending, even for a little period more.”

“I join both Front-Benchers in paying tribute to the communities, volunteers and neighbours who helped each other with the floods over recent days. Communities affected in my part of the world, particularly in Poynton and Bollington, all pulled together. The A555 road runs through a number of constituencies, and poor en…”

“Merry Christmas to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement, which demonstrates again the ironclad commitment of this country to the defence of Ukraine. Ministers will have detected nervousness across the House regarding political changes in January, so may I change tack? There are 6 million…”

“May I wish you a merry Christmas, Mr Speaker? Does the Minister recognise that the issue is being raised by the Opposition again and again, despite the cognitive dissonance that it was they who opened the negotiations in the first place? I have to endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (…”

“I would simply reinforce the points that Mike and Julian have made. There is clear cross-party support from the Back Benches for this debate, which is really important. It is obviously very topical, as Julian has pointed out, and because of the incoming Administration and some of the comments made by figures likely to …”

“Tim Roca, Labour Member for Macclesfield.”

“I shall not, because I think we have touched on that point enough. Finally, I pay tribute to my constituent Figen Murray for her bravery in championing these measures. No parent would ever want to have the name of their child on a law if they could help it, but she has worked tirelessly to push forward these measures. …”

“We have to be careful. Of course we want to work cross-party, and should be cognisant of small business, but on the other side of the debate, campaigners are worried that the Bill is already leaning too much the other way, and we will start to lose proportionality if we adopt the shadow Minister’s amendments.”