Matt Rodda: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I pay tribute to our police and fire service. I appreciate that the Minister shares that sentiment. I want to underline the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn and others that we are just asking the Government to consider this again and to produce a report. That seems to be the very least that could...
Matt Rodda: I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn. She is making an excellent point, and I am glad that she will press for a vote. The issue here relates to the need for transparency and trust, and the Government must reassure worried public servants, who have worked hard and have every right to expect a decent pension and retirement, that there is no sleight of hand here....
Matt Rodda: I am grateful to the Minister for expanding on those points. I reiterate the importance of listening to the views of women workers in the public sector. They are obviously a large proportion of workers in the public sector, as he well knows. In particular, with this group of new clauses on the local government pension scheme, it is important for the Government to get that right. I urge him to...
Matt Rodda: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I also declare an interest: there are members of my family who may be affected by the Bill. I am not entirely sure, but I believe that they may be affected. I also pay tribute to our public sector workers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn said earlier, and colleagues across the House have mentioned, we owe an...
Matt Rodda: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank all colleagues for taking part in today’s debate. We have had a rounded discussion of this important issue, and it has been heartening to see so much engagement from Members across the House. As I know colleagues appreciate, pensions are a very long-term policy area. The decisions we make today have profound effects over...
Matt Rodda: It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I express my support for new clause 1; I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), and to others across the House, for their words tonight and for pointing out the enormous imbalance between powerful developers on the one hand and people buying a property for themselves, who possibly do not have all the...
Matt Rodda: I offer my support to the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan). My thoughts are still with her community five years after the disaster. I am sure that the whole House would echo that support for her community. I also thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene and for partially addressing my points. However, I want to expand on them, because they are very relevant to our...
Matt Rodda: I ask for the Minister’s further reassurance on some points of detail that relate to these amendments. First, around half of the buildings in my constituency that have difficulties associated with them have non-cladding-related problems. Those include internal compartmentalisation that has been improperly finished. Indeed, in Queens Wharf in Reading town centre, the building owners estimate...
Matt Rodda: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I support the Joint Committee’s work, and I am grateful to the Chair, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), and the members of the Committee for their efforts in this important area. I would like to raise the case of a young boy from Reading, Olly Stephens, who was killed in a most brutal attack, a...
Matt Rodda: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Matt Rodda: I will be brief, as I appreciate the pressure on my hon. Friend’s time. He is absolutely right to point out the link between household expenditure and businesses. In Reading and Woodley many businesses in the hospitality sector’s supply chain have been badly affected. We have a thriving microbrewery industry, and these hard-working brewers are badly affected by rising energy prices, and...
Matt Rodda: I am grateful for the opportunity to close the debate on behalf of the Opposition. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) said, we do not oppose this important Bill—indeed, I welcome the serious debate that has taken place this evening—but we will continue to hold the Government to account as the Bill progresses. I thank Members on both sides of the...
Matt Rodda: The Government have consistently failed to stand up for the interests of pensioners on modest incomes. Food prices are up, gas prices are up and electricity prices are up. The cost of living is going up. Yet despite this, the Government are refusing to cut VAT on fuel, even though they have had higher than expected VAT receipts from across the economy, which would allow them to do exactly...
Matt Rodda: It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I start by offering my wholehearted support to the shadow Transport Secretary, who has made an excellent contribution this afternoon, as have many other hon. Members across the House. I feel deeply sorry for many communities across the midlands and the north of England, because they have clearly been badly let down by the Government. I know...
Matt Rodda: I wholeheartedly support my hon. Friend in the points she makes about how this Government have let down the north, London and other parts of the country. The electrification programme is a prime example. Electrification stops before it even gets to most of south Wales. It stops in Newbury in my region. Does she agree that there should be far greater investment in this important part of...
Matt Rodda: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Matt Rodda: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Does he agree that at the core of this is the poor quality of our relations with some of our nearest neighbours, and, indeed, our falling standing in the international community, which I am afraid—[Interruption.] If I may finish, I am afraid that that is a result of Government policy over the Brexit deal and a number of other matters....
Matt Rodda: I thank the Minister for her investment in rehabilitation. My question is about redundant prisons, and in particular Reading jail which, as she knows, has been redundant for some time. She will have seen Banksy’s very generous £10 million offer to buy this wonderful Victorian building; will she agree to meet me to discuss the possibility and look further into the matter?
Matt Rodda: It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). We have covered a wide range of welfare issues tonight. I want to highlight one in particular, which has great resonance in my constituency of Reading East and, I believe, in the Minister’s constituency of Aldershot: the case of Gurkha soldiers who retired before 1997. As many Members will know, the...
Matt Rodda: I want to offer my deepest condolences to little Arthur’s family and friends. As colleagues throughout the House have said today, this is a truly dreadful case. I thank the Secretary of State for his tone and his commitment on this important issue, but I should like to hear more from him about his willingness to leave no stone unturned and do whatever it takes in exploring how we can...