Elliot Colburn: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to make my maiden speech as the new Member of Parliament for Carshalton and Wallington. First, I wish to thank the people in my constituency who sent me to this, the mother of all Parliaments. I also thank all hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today and throughout the week. They have set the bar incredibly high, but I will do my...
Elliot Colburn: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) on securing the debate and speaking so powerfully at the outset about why it is important that we are having this discussion. It is safe to say that politicians are opinionated people, with an opinion on just about everything under the sun. However, on this...
Elliot Colburn: In my local borough of Sutton, the council has received a damning Ofsted report on its services for children with special educational needs, and parents have formed a crisis education, health and care plan group. Does my hon. Friend agree that councils should work with their local NHS trusts to ensure that there is early diagnosis and that problems do not develop into something far worse?
Elliot Colburn: I am grateful to my south-west London colleague for giving way. She makes a passionate case for mental health spending. Will she join me in welcoming the Trailblazer programme that has been launched in schools in her borough and mine in south-west London? It puts mental health support workers into our local schools to help the children she has rightly identified.
Elliot Colburn: I begin by declaring an interest, as I recently worked in the NHS—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you very much. We have heard passionate speeches about some of the benefits that will come about in our national health service as a result of this additional investment, and I will focus on the improvement to the NHS estate. This additional investment will build new hospitals and...
Elliot Colburn: The hon. Member is making a very good point. Does he agree that when we talk about building incinerators, we are talking not just about the incinerators themselves, but about their effect on traffic and all their other potential unintended consequences, which make them so unwieldy and inappropriate for places such as Cardiff?
Elliot Colburn: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on securing this debate. The contributions we have heard so far were made by Members who face the threat of an incinerator being built in their constituencies. I am in the unfortunate position of representing a constituency that lives in a shadow of...
Elliot Colburn: I will be brief in my response. I totally agree with my hon. Friend—I could not agree more. We need to be a lot more ambitious about tackling air pollution. All I can say to the local authorities of other hon. Members fighting incinerators is that I hope that they will succeed where Lib Dem Sutton has unfortunately failed.
Elliot Colburn: Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust is receiving £500 million thanks to this Conservative Government. Does the Prime Minister agree that that is excellent news for Carshalton and Wallington patients, and will he encourage my constituents to get involved with the consultation on where the new hospital should go?
Elliot Colburn: Does the hon. Lady not agree that, in many instances, the police are not using the powers available to them? That is part of the problem with the system. The statement that there are sufficient powers at the moment does not seem to be reflected in the action that gets taken. When unauthorised encampments turn up, the police are sometimes too afraid to take any action.
Elliot Colburn: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this debate. I declare an interest: I am a member of Sutton London Borough Council. I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that there needs to be a change. We have heard about the difficulties that the current state of affairs causes for the...
Elliot Colburn: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), who personally invited me, across the Chamber, to come and speak in the debate. While I absolutely agree on the need for sustainable funding for SEND services, I want to touch on the way local authorities run them. Unfortunately for children in my constituency, the...
Elliot Colburn: I will not keep the Minister for very long. I just want to make sure that as we conduct this review and the additional funding is going in, we are not going to let local authorities off the hook of fulfilling their statutory obligations. As the example I gave from the London Borough of Sutton shows, there are occasions on which the council just is not putting in the leadership that is...
Elliot Colburn: Many Carshalton and Wallington residents are angry that the Liberal Democrat council is planning to introduce controlled parking zones across large parts of the constituency. Some are appropriate and needed, but many are not and many people cannot afford the permits. May we have a debate on the implementation of controlled parking zones, in particular the cost of permits, so that residents...
Elliot Colburn: What steps her Department is taking to reduce air pollution.
Elliot Colburn: I thank the Minister for her response. She will know that incineration is considered to only be slightly better than landfill when it comes to disposing of waste, but Lib Dem-run Sutton Council seems to think that its Beddington incinerator has no harmful effects at all on my Carshalton and Wallington constituents. Does she agree that the council should improve air quality monitoring near the...
Elliot Colburn: The hon. Lady is making a powerful case. Does she agree that the issue is not just the incinerators but all the traffic that comes with them to transport the waste? That adds to pressure on local roads, which is concerning because of CO2 emissions.
Elliot Colburn: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate so quickly after we last chatted about this issue. It is good to see so many familiar faces from the previous debate. Members present at that debate will remember that I brought up the Beddington incinerator in my constituency,...
Elliot Colburn: I absolutely agree. That is part of the reason I am campaigning for additional air quality monitoring near the Beddington site. I appreciate that incinerator operators are supposed to monitor their own emissions, and that the information is sent automatically to the Environment Agency. However, many of us are trying to make the point that it is not just a question of the incinerator itself: a...
Elliot Colburn: What steps his Department is taking to support local theatres.
