March 2026

That sounds like an excellent scheme. We have a similar one in Frome that I commend to the House. In rural areas, most of the questions I just asked do not even apply. There may not be street lighting, there are no taxis and, as in swathes of my constituency, there is no mobile phone signal.

At a time when families are already under pressure from high energy bills, what assessment has the Minister made of the risk that, without action before April 2027, declining landfill gas generation will undermine energy security and increase costs for consumers?

Certainly. That sounds excellent and I will come to lots of nerdy points about design guidance in due course. My constituency of Frome and East Somerset is, by any measure, a beautiful part of England. It is also a place where the challenges I am describing are felt with particular intensity. Inspired by Holly, last autumn I launched a survey to hear directly from women in my constituency about how safe they feel. Their responses were sobering. Women wrote about being followed on dark country la

The hon. Lady talks about reliance on the US. I remind her that it was the United States that intercepted the ballistic missile heading for our base—our sovereign territory—on Diego Garcia. The point I am making—and it is incredibly important for the House to reflect on this, because it has not been talked about enough, partly for sensitivity reasons—is that we did tremendous things in Ukraine. We supplied drones made by British companies that had an extraordinary impact. I am not going to say a

Parliamentary appearance by Chris Murray

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that due regard is a long-established legal concept that lots of public bodies already understand? It is already routinely applied in practice, and to change the definition for the purposes of the Bill would be to go down an erroneous path.

I cannot help noting that the poor performance of SEN services in Essex is largely down to Conservative-run Essex county council, whose arrangement the right hon. Member and I share.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and completely agree with him. I have focused much of my speech on the lack of specialist care in Ipswich, but the postcode lottery is affecting people and communities across the United Kingdom, including in Northern Ireland.

7. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of trends in the level of methane harvested from landfill sites on energy security.

Parliamentary appearance by Graeme Downie

Parliamentary appearance by Graeme Downie

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing forward such an important debate. Constituents of mine have asked me to attend not just to thank him, but to support his calls for a co-ordinated strategy. They lost their son when he was three, so they share all such families’ feelings that more needs to be done to get to the bottom of understanding the unimaginable tragedy that many parents have suffered, so there is a bit more closure.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have been training Ukrainian soldiers since 2014—over 60,000, I think, under Operation Interflex. I think there is a very strong consensus in the House on support for Ukraine. Obviously, there were limitations on what we could do. We have done everything possible. We were the first country in Europe to stand by Ukraine. We sent weapons before the invasion started. We did not wait for Putin to invade so that we could comply perfectly with international law

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. I will talk about lighting in due course. In her book “Invisible Women”, Caroline Criado-Perez documents how the built environment has historically been designed around a default that is male, and how data on street use, transport planning and public space has been gathered without disaggregating by sex. The result is infrastructure that works reasonably well for men and imposes a hidden cost of time, money, anxiety and constrained freedom on women. That

Parliamentary appearance by Lizzi Collinge

I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to remove the Energy Profits Levy, end the ban on new oil and gas licences and approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields to increase secure domestic energy supply; recognises that the North Sea provides half of the UK’s gas supply, supports 200,000 skilled jobs across the UK and generates billions of pounds in tax revenue; further recognises that three quarters of the UK’s energy needs are met by oil and gas, that the UK will continue to use o

It is no surprise to me that this issue applies across the whole of the United Kingdom. I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. One thing that the Government have not changed, but ought to change, is the position of water companies in planning. Somewhat strangely, water companies are statutory consultees on the local plan process, but not on planning applications. I invite the Minister in her response to explain whether she agrees that this is peculiar. There are four water supply

Parliamentary appearance by Andy MacNae

Parliamentary appearance by Michael Shanks

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We need an infrastructure-first approach that also has women and girls’ safety in mind. I hope with all sincerity that the MHCLG’s official view is not the one that was set out by whoever gave that comment to The Guardian. I hope the Labour Government aspire not just to match but to exceed the standards of the previous Government when it comes to the safety and wellbeing of women. I also hope the Minister will commit today to taking steps towards putting V