Speeches by Perkins.

“His Majesty’s Gracious Speech set out a legislative programme for the Government, including plans to build our national security, our economic security and our energy security. I welcome this agenda, which is consistent with the manifesto on which my hon. Friends and I were elected. I urge all members of the Government…”

“The shadow Secretary of State did not take my second intervention when I attempted to get an answer from her. We know that Conservative Members propose to get rid of the energy profits levy, costing the Government about £12 billion, and they want to get rid of VAT, costing about £5 billion or £6 billion. We know they h…”

“My Chesterfield constituents at one time hoped that they might be beneficiaries of HS2. That feels like many years ago. I share the Secretary of State’s fury about the incompetence that has got us to this stage. We would not have supported a programme like this, had we known that the line would go only to Birmingham. T…”

“rose—”

“The shadow Secretary of State said that for energy independence we need our own oil and gas, rather than investing in renewables. She will know that her Government paid £44 billion to subsidise our energy during the time of the Ukraine price spike. Will she tell us by how much our bills were reduced as a result of havi…”

“The right hon. Lady says that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is a symptom of the problem, but does she agree that she and he have something in common? She very loosely agreed that we should race with America into war in Iran, then just a week later she thought, “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.” Does that…”

“No, but people might look at it and think that you were potentially a favoured candidate, as we understand it. The position was advertised; you had not applied; they brought it to your attention. They then extended the deadline—”

“We will explore that in more detail in a moment. The Chair mentioned our concerns about the recruitment process and one of those was that an understanding of environmental policy and practice was not initially in the job description. It was included in the criteria following our intervention. Did you feel that that inc…”

“That is quite interesting because the role of a headhunter is usually external to the main organisation. I have been in the recruitment industry for many years myself. You have a recruitment company that goes out and seeks people and places them in front of the people ultimately deciding, but you were—to use your phras…”

“Are there any specific gaps in your knowledge that you are conscious of going in there?”

“Yes, okay. You are right, it is for DEFRA to answer on that. However, given that this is a role in which somebody is going to come in here and hold the Government to account, we all recognise that the Government ultimately are appointing that person. What do you think it was about your background that meant that it app…”

“—and encouraged you to apply. You then applied and were appointed. If I had been one of the alternative candidates who had applied on time, I might be hearing this and be somewhat disappointed that they felt the need to not only extend but also to headhunt potential candidates.”

“I am very pleased to present the Environmental Audit Committee’s ninth report of this Parliament, on addressing the risks from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as forever chemicals. The inquiry was launched last year, at a time when the acronym PFAS might have been familiar only to a few expert…”

“I absolutely believe that the Government need to be ambitious on this issue. We welcome the fact that we now have a PFAS plan, which we did not have previously, and we want to be right behind the Minister in ensuring that DEFRA is as ambitious as it can be. Water companies contributed to our inquiry—they were quite gla…”

“I absolutely agree. We know that the firefighting industry is very much affected. In comparison to some industries, it has clearly made significant progress in finding alternatives to PFAS, but it has been a major polluter over the years. We also recognise, of course, that being able to put out fires is incredibly impo…”

“We look forward to working with the Minister. We will do everything we can to provide her with the support that she might need within the Department to get this issue taken as seriously as it should be. We recognise that there will always be people who push back. There are important reasons why we need to tread careful…”

“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. In fact, his colleague, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), is a member of our Committee. He made the point strongly that because we have divergence from the EU in this area, it potentially causes major problems for the agricultural sector in Northern Irel…”

“T6. I welcome what my right hon. Friends have been doing on public procurement. On car hire services, it is expected that around 20% of fleet industry vehicles will be electric, but less than 1% of Government purchases have been for electric vehicle hire. I know that the Government take this issue seriously, so will th…”

“I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I thank him for his engagement with us on behalf of his constituents and an important employer in his constituency. We do not want the message coming from this report to panic communities. We do not want to create the sense that Bentham or anywhere else is a community that is blig…”

“The shadow Secretary of State has been speaking a bit tonight about parental choice. That is, until this amendment, where she does not believe parents are able to decide what their children should do. In fact, she believes that she is far better placed, as are many Members in the House of Lords who do not know how to t…”