Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robbie Moore and Greg Smith(11 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Research shows that PM2.5 can be 3% to 8% higher in electric versions of heavier applications, such as buses and trucks, than in their internal combustion engine equivalents. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in order to get clean air and cut down PM2.5, we need an eclectic future that embraces all technology and our great innovators, not just battery-electric?
Robbie Moore
As I have said, I will always welcome innovation when it comes to improving air quality, not only in transport but in the implications of industry and commercial operators. It is clear that, through the Environment Act 2021, the Government introduced the legally binding targets to reduce PM2.5. We have a set goal to reduce exposure to PM2.5 by 35% by 2040.
Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill
Debate between Robbie Moore and Greg Smith
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As I have said in this place many times before, local representation matters. Individuals and communities need to have trust in their local authority, which is charged with acting in their best interest, regardless of which political party may be in charge at a local level. Residents need to be reassured that the framework, the model, the structure and indeed the geographical area that they are represented within has a local authority that has not only the capability, but the capacity to act in their best interest.
My Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill aims to re-empower local communities that feel completely disenfranchised and forgotten about by their local authority. I am lucky enough to be presenting this Bill to the House once again on its Second Reading, and why? I think it so very important that local people living within a community feel and know that their local authority has their best interests at heart, and residents know that through its actions and how it delivers the services it undertakes for them.
Let us not forget that local authorities have perhaps more influence on an individual’s or a family’s day-to-day life than any other level of government. We all know as MPs the weight of our postbags and the vast number of emails we all receive that strongly relate to local government issues, whether that be sorting out highways or potholes, putting in speed cameras or dealing with local planning policy, housing, schools, children’s services, adult services, bin collections, leisure centres, libraries, regeneration or driving local economic growth.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
That was a powerful list of service areas that local authorities deliver for the good of all our constituents. Does my hon. Friend agree that within the spirit of what he is presenting, the boundaries question needs to go beyond local authorities and into other public sector bodies, such as integrated care boards, where our experience in Buckinghamshire, having been segregated from Milton Keynes, makes no sense whatever?
Robbie Moore
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We do not live within boundaries, so to speak, we live within communities, and that is why it is important not only that the local authority is best representing the community in which one lives, but that other organisations are, too, as he mentioned.