"I thank my hon. Friend for his work through the all-party parliamentary group. He is a passionate campaigner for British buses, particularly with regard to the impact on his constituents. I am of course happy to meet him to discuss the issue further...." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"We certainly recognise that the current system of transparency around lobbying does not have widespread support; it is not good enough. That is why the Ethics and Integrity Commission was asked to report on this matter. We are considering the case for legislative reform very carefully and will respond to …..." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"I am grateful to the commission for its thorough work, which we are considering carefully. We know that more can be done on transparency around lobbying and will present our response to Parliament in due course. There is a great deal of interest in this—understandably so—and we are determined to …..." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"We will, of course, consider that as part of the response to the EIC. I take very seriously, as I am sure Members across the House do, the issues of outside earnings by Members, and particularly potential undue influence. With regard to X, I share the hon. Lady’s concerns; personally, …..." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"It would not be a first outing at the Dispatch Box without a contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), so I welcome his question. We will, of course, consider that in the response to the EIC...." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"I am afraid that the hon. Member appears to have not fully heard my initial response, which I believe addresses a lot of the issues he has raised. His question was about arm’s length bodies, so of course I answered on arm’s length bodies—there are 306 of them, and we …..." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"The Government have reviewed all 306 active arm’s length bodies, and we have commitments to reform over a third of them, but we will go further. Devolution by default means that we will transfer functions of arm’s length bodies to local leaders or return them to Departments, because all critical …..." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"All Departments have set ambitious small and medium-sized enterprise spends, and we have strengthened late payment policy and are now making it easier for SMEs to bid by raising the threshold for when social value should be taken into account. This Government are determined to use public procurement to back …..." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"My hon. Friend is a fantastic campaigner on behalf of businesses in his local community. In his community, like mine, small and medium-sized industries play an absolutely critical role, not just in our industrial past but in our industrial future. I would be more than happy to meet him to …..." Mark Ferguson - View Speech
"I commend my hon. Friend for his remarkable stamina over the summer, with more than 80 visits across his constituency—the largest in England. He is certainly a passionate campaigner for farmers. He will know that our recently announced reforms to social value mean that businesses bidding for Government contracts—a market …..." Mark Ferguson - View Speech