Speeches by Roca.

“The Minister of State for Defence in the other place earlier today talked about the world becoming darker and darker. Can the Secretary of State assure us, after the difficult decisions he has had to take today, that the SDR will be robust and that the defence equipment plan will reflect future threats and the future c…”

“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) on her fantastic maiden speech. She is a really powerful advocate for her constituents. She talked movingly about her father losing his voice, but she has certainly found hers in this place. I was with her on that visit to Ukraine in Septembe…”

“The hon. Member makes an important point. I will return to the FCDO in a moment and perhaps address some of what he mentioned. As I said, Ryan was issued with a 20-year extension to his sentence in 2018. The law sanctioning such extensions was not brought in until after Ryan’s arrest. In April 2022, the United Nations …”

“I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this debate on a matter of great importance, namely the arbitrary detention of a British citizen by a close ally and friend of the United Kingdom. This case is deliberately being raised as we approach the national day of the United Arab Emirates, 2 December, in the earnest hope…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. He has also been vocal in his support for British citizens who have been arbitrarily detained, and on wider human rights issues. I commend him for his work on that agenda. The FCDO point about the toolkit is really important. The difficult question that we have t…”

“Does that mean the framework will identify multifunctional compromises clearly between those Departments?”

“You started to address the point, Secretary of State, about consulting stakeholders over the framework. How do you see the balance in competing demands for land use?”

“Thank you. I thank you, Secretary of State, as well for saying that it is important to listen. We have discussed tax planning implications for elderly farmers. We have talked about thresholds in some detail. Quite rightly, the Chair also raised the Rock review’s recommendations around tenant farmers. But this Budget ha…”

“It will be brief, Chair, because we have had a good discussion as farmers would expect us to, especially today—”

“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—you have to use every trick you can, don’t you? [Laughter.] In my constituency, many residents are worried about plans for flood alleviation works at Poynton pool, a much-loved beauty spot where local campaigners—the friends of Poynton pool—have raised real issues about the cost and the …”

“Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State update the House on progress in creating three new national forests, and, as it is my birthday, may I extend to him an invitation to visit Macclesfield forest in my constituency?”

“My constituents understand that tackling the climate crisis and getting lower bills go hand in hand, and they are excited about Great British Energy. Will GBE invest in community energy projects in places such as Macclesfield?”

“My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) made the important point that the new Government inherited £167 billion-worth of projects, none of which were rated green by the National Audit Office. Does the Secretary of State agree that more money is one part of the equation, but spending it well is the other…”

“Let me begin by paying tribute to our rural communities, on this Armistice Day, for their efforts in both the principal wars of the last century. We know that those wars shaped our rural communities. They asked a lot of the countryside, and indeed the farming that we see today was very much impacted and shaped by the e…”

“Thank you for your service in the Chair today, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) for securing this important debate on a valued public amenity. The Macclesfield and Peak Forest canals both mean a lot to me, not just because they are in my constituency, but because I am familiar with them fro…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) for securing this important debate and for setting the tragic scene so well regarding the appalling human rights abuses occurring in Xinjiang against Uyghur and Turkic peoples. Those abuses have been perpetrated on an unimaginable scale. They are…”

“I share the astonishment of other Members that not a single Conservative Member is here, in a debate on NHS dentistry in rural areas. I am a bit old-fashioned and I want a functioning Opposition. It is sad that they are not here to take part in this debate. When I contacted surgeries in Macclesfield to find out the sta…”

“The first Labour Budget in 14 years needs us to take a clear-eyed view of what has been inherited. Looking at the Conservative legacy for our country, we see: terrible, almost non-existent, average earnings growth; lower productivity per worker hour than in every G7 country besides Italy; GDP per capita growth stalling…”

“I will not; I have only 25 seconds left. That is the story of national decline that the Conservative party was writing for our country. We will not stand for it. We are going to build a better, greener, fairer future for our country.”

“I want to speak briefly to the point about thresholds, which has just been discussed. The consultations prior to the Bill were based on a threshold of 100 at the standard tier, and I welcome the ability the Bill gives the Secretary of State to reduce the threshold back to that, should the evidence warrant that. I think…”