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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I am glad that he is brave enough to take an intervention from a Member from Somerset. He is absolutely right to emphasise our commitment to scrapping the family farm and family business tax, but does he agree that the fertiliser tax that this Labour Government will introduce on 1 January, and which the Liberal Democrats are too timid to oppose, will hit farmers and increase the price of food in our country?
In the hon. Gentleman’s discussions with farmers in South West Norfolk, are they content with the Government changes to agricultural property relief, or do they still think the family farm tax should be abolished in its entirety?
This is an important debate about support for our farmers. A few weeks ago, I was absolutely delighted to speak to the Towcester Young Farmers Club, in a room full of our best and brightest—our custodians for the future. We talk about supporting them, and I want to do that; however, I also want to recognise the support that they are giving back to us already, at their young age. Whether it is Rosie Burt, who ran a gruelling 50k ultramarathon in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, or the young farmers organising their charity Halloween tractor run on 1 November to raise money for the Cynthia Spencer hospice, they give so much back to our community already, and I think it is very important that we recognise that. That is why I am so hurt and saddened that in the face of such optimism from this younger generation, we are having to fight so hard against the Government to make them realise the impact of the choices that they have made. We have already rehearsed the family farm tax, the family business tax, the issues with SFI, the increase in national insurance contributions and the fertiliser tax. Rather than speaking about rejoining the EU and the options on the table, or about electoral reform, as the Prime Minister is doing, why not prioritise these decisions that can make a massive difference to our farmers here and now? I urge the Minister to take the message back to the Prime Minister that this is what we should be focused on. As we have said, farming is a vocation, and it needs long-term planning and certainty for the future. At Prime Minister’s questions today, the PM talked about the EU summit bringing a better deal for farmers, but the proof ultimately will be in the pudding. We have had zero details about the upcoming sanitary and phytosanitary agreement. We have asked the relevant Minister numerous times to come before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee to answer questions, but we have been refused on numerous occasions. The SPS agreement is very important, because we will potentially be moving to a system of dynamic alignment, and that will have a massive impact. We are well ahead in this country on matters such as precision breeding and on our animal welfare standards. We all want to understand exactly what this deal will mean, and I do not think it is right that we are not being given a chance for full scrutiny before it comes around. The market is talking about the importance of implementation periods. Our farmers need to know what is happening and when. Again, I urge the Minister to give us more transparency on the future SPS agreement. Forgive me if I am slightly concerned about these matters, given that the Government have sold us out on our fishing rights and we could not even agree Security Action for Europe funding. I want to finish on a more positive note. While many farmers are struggling as a result of the Government’s decisions, they are none the less very industrious, and want to come up with measures to support themselves. One great measure that I think we could all support is that of Ben Aveling, of Radmore farm in my constituency, who is trying to encourage support for farmers by bringing back the Sunday roast. The idea is that we can all sit together and chat as a family while also buying British products. I think we should support that wholeheartedly. Can we please recognise that?
Yesterday, the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), and I were once again out and about in the fields, talking to our hard-working farmers, this this time in Newbury. We spoke to them about the many hardships they face at the hands of this Labour Government. Week after week, from farm to farm, the message is the same: farmers are exhausted; they are worried; and they feel incredibly betrayed by this Labour Government. They do not feel that the Government are on their side or value the work that they are doing. They feel that the Government have turned their back on rural Britain. I welcome the debate, because it gives us an opportunity to say out loud in the House what every farmer in the country already knows: on Labour’s watch, it is our hard-working farming families who are paying the price. Let me begin by addressing the fiasco that has been the sustainable farming incentive. As I said in this place just last week, I cannot stress enough how badly the SFI has been mishandled under this Labour Government—it has been a complete and utter debacle—and once again our hard-working farming families are the ones suffering. Let there be no doubt: this did not come out of the blue; there were plenty of warnings. The Government, having closed the scheme in March 2025, caused chaos, huge anxiety and additional financial pressure for our farmers.
What Government Members do not seem to understand is that when a highly sought-after scheme is closed, which is exactly what happened under this Labour Government in March 2025, demand inevitably builds up. That was coupled with the budget being reduced significantly. There was 18 months of this Government sitting on their hands, enabling demand to build. What was the result? When the scheme finally opened, it became a competitive scheme. On this Labour Government’s watch, it was “first come, first served”; those who got in were those who could press “send” the fastest. This Labour Government knew what the consequences would be, as was reported in The Times yesterday, but they carried on regardless. The result: approximately 40,000 farmers tried to get into the scheme, but only 12,200 were successful. The application window was slammed shut after just five and a half hours, all because the money had gone. Last week, I stood in this Chamber and asked the Farming Minister very simple questions, but there were no answers. I will try again, so that he can address these in his summing up. The expiring agreements were worth more than £520 million, yet the SFI budget was cut to just £310 million. Where has the additional £210 million gone? It is vital that clarity and reassurance be given to our farmers. When will the Minister open SFI27? It is not good enough to say, “As soon as possible”; we need clarity. What will the Minister do for those who have agreements that are expiring, to stop the cliff edge in their cash flow? What budget has the Minister set aside for SFI27? We must all remember that this situation comes on top of the Government’s disastrous decision to reduce de-linked payments dramatically, far more quickly than was ever agreed, to a measly £600 per farming business. I suspect that it costs the Government more in administrative charges to distribute those payments than it benefits each farming holding. Our farming businesses now feel the pain, financially and emotionally, as they struggle with their cash flow. SFI is not some isolated incident; it is part of a pattern. Before Labour broke the SFI scheme, it crushed the family farm with its disastrous family farm and family business tax. Before the election, those on the Government Benches looked farmers in the eye and told them that they had no plans to change agricultural property relief and business property relief. In Labour’s very first Budget, which was its first opportunity to show rural communities up and down the country that it cared and understood them, it did not. It brought out the family farm and family business tax—a vindictive tax that strikes family farming businesses at their worst moment. Each and every Labour MP who voted again last week to keep the family farm and family business tax should be ashamed of themselves. The narrative is, rightly, that there has been a partial U-turn—the threshold at which the tax applies has been raised from £1 million to £2.5 million—but that simply does not go far enough. Now, bizarrely, a person’s marital status can raise the threshold to £5 million. That seems ridiculous. Once the farmland, the farmhouse, the growing crops, the stocks, the machinery, the crops in store and the livestock have been valued, the value of a traditional farming business will be well above the £2.5 million threshold. That exposes any hard-working family farming business to an inheritance tax liability that they simply will not be able to afford. This was completely ill thought through. That brings me to the Liberal Democrat motion before us, which only states that they regret “the Government’s changes to Agricultural Property Relief”. It makes no reference to business property relief. I thought that we were aligned on this issue, but clearly we are not. Many farming businesses rely heavily on business property relief. It covers trading assets not covered by agricultural property relief, including machinery, livestock, harvested crops and any rural diversification projects, including farm shops and holiday lets, so I am incredibly surprised that the Lib Dems do not also regret the Government’s changes to business property relief.
This is a Liberal Democrat Opposition day debate. The Liberal Democrats have had many opportunities to prepare for it, but their motion excludes a crucial issue: business property relief. I take the hon. Member at his word when he says that the Liberal Democrats are also concerned about the impact that business property relief will have on many of our farming businesses, but given the huge impact the issue has, I am very surprised that it is not included in their motion. Let me be clear: the Conservatives absolutely regret the continued roll-out of both the family farm tax and the family business tax, and we will continue to demand that the Government scrap both and put back in place the 100% relief on APR and BPR. On behalf of our farmers, our growers and our wider agricultural sector, we urge the Government to ensure that the Prime Minister does the right thing next week in the Budget and axes the family farm tax and family business tax.
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is completely right to outline the impact of the statutory instrument that was voted on just this week, which all Conservative Members voted against. I was just about to come on to the point that this does not stop with the family farm and family business tax. As if the dramatic drop in de-linked payments, the SFI debacle and the family farm and family business tax were not enough, from 1 January next year Labour will hit farmers with yet another tax—the fertiliser tax—through the carbon border adjustment mechanism. Industry warns that this new fertiliser tax could pile up a further £75 a tonne, if not more, on current fertiliser prices. This is simply unfeasible. It adds an additional cost to many of our farmers at a time when they are already being pushed to breaking point. The fertiliser tax should not have been introduced, and the Conservatives voted against it last week.
I pleased that the right hon. Member, for whom I have great respect, has raised this point, but I will gently push back and say that we are two years into this Labour Government. He makes reference to a consultation that was started under the previous Conservative Administration, but we voted on the fertiliser tax this week, and it was predominantly Conservatives who voted against it. I have to say to the Liberal Democrats: where were you when we voted to stop the fertiliser tax? Not one Liberal Democrat MP voted to stop it. Yet again, the Liberal Democrats are all over the place. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) said in a debate that I attended last week: “We Liberal Democrats support the carbon border adjustment mechanism.”—[Official Report, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 12 October 2026; c. 7.] However, in today’s motion, the Liberal Democrats propose that the House “notes that farmers are deeply concerned about surging input costs, the impact of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on fertiliser costs”, but they cannot bring themselves to be concerned enough to vote to stop it. Far from protecting our farmers in this House, the Liberal Democrats simply demonstrate that they are Labour enablers, helping those on the Government Benches bulldoze their plans through while outside this House, I suspect their leaflets will be portraying a very different message to their constituents to try to keep everybody happy, but we see through that. To conclude, the record of this Labour Government is clear for us all to see. They broke the SFI scheme and cut its budget. They taxed family farms and now are taxing fertilisers and assets. We have a Farming Minister who faints at the sight of meat. We have a countryside Minister who thinks that anyone who has a black Labrador and enjoys a warm pint in one of our rural pubs is far right. What an absolute nonsense. Farmers feed this nation—they deserve a Government on their side. It is clear that farmers can no longer afford another day of this Labour Government.
I want to clarify something. About a year ago, a child-like sex doll was found in a woodland in Devon. Will the legislation protect somebody who found one and then had to call the police to report it? It feels to me that the defence is there, and that that is the case, but it would be worth putting on the record that were a member of the general public to find one, they would not be covered by the law—they would be protected by the defences in the Bill.
3. What steps he is taking to replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.
Yesterday’s vote on Third Reading on the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill has reopened the door to continual vexatious cases against Northern Ireland veterans, including Alan, Ewen and Ivar from my constituency. Will the Secretary of State continue to work on the Bill, which many agree is not perfect, to ensure that there are adequate protections against lawfare?
With this it will be convenient to consider clause 2 stand part.
Order. I call John Lamont, after which the speaking limit will drop to four minutes.
Order. The hon. Member is obviously not giving way.
Order. I am now introducing a four-minute speaking limit.
Order. Mr Gareth Snell, changing your seat in the Chamber does not mean I cannot hear or see you.
I call John Cooper, after whom we will drop the time limit to three minutes.
Order.
Order. Ms Collins, I was not summing up, because I was not speaking. “You” and “yours” do not count.
Order. We seem to have gained some time, so Charlie Maynard has five minutes. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”]
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
I thank the hon. Member for bringing the point of order to my attention. These will, of course, be highly concerning allegations for all in the parliamentary community. The Parliamentary Health and Wellbeing Service can advise and assist on the range of support available for anyone affected by these reports, and there are established mechanisms for anyone with concerns who wishes to come forward. Any criminal allegations should, of course, be made to the appropriate authorities.
Order. I do not require to be thanked, because I am not speaking in the debate.
May I associate myself with your remarks, Mr Speaker, and those of the Prime Minister on the 60th anniversary of the Aberfan tragedy? We express our heartfelt and continued condolences to that community. Last week I asked the Prime Minister to stop faffing about, so can I thank him for finally approving the Jackdaw gasfield? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I notice that there were no cheers from Members on the Government Benches. The Conservatives first approved Jackdaw in 2022. Rather than fighting the leftie activists who tried to block it, Labour appointed one of them as Energy Secretary. So many jobs lost, and so much time and money wasted. Britain cannot be a serious player on the world stage if the Government dither for two and a half years over approving a single licence. We have the resources, the expertise and the people; what we have lost is the confidence to make tough decisions. Will the Prime Minister now overturn Labour’s ban on all new oil and gas licences?
I was surprised to hear the Prime Minister mention process—it almost felt like Keir Starmer was still standing there. The Prime Minister talks about renewables. Of course we need renewables, but we live in the real world—the world that still depends on oil and gas. If we do not produce it, Britain and Europe will buy it from Russia. In July, the Prime Minister said: “The question isn’t whether Britain will still be using oil and gas, the question is where does it come from.” He was right. Does the Prime Minister accept that every barrel of North sea oil that we produce is a barrel that Europe will not buy from Vladimir Putin?
The Prime Minister says that this decision strengthens our energy security, so that means that he should approve all new oil and gas licences. He blames the process and our decisions, but he is the Prime Minister now, and we are facing a global energy crisis. Drilling more oil and gas in the North sea would give us more energy, more jobs and more tax revenue, which is something we desperately need. There is a red warning light flashing on the economy. Just this morning, total Government borrowing hit £3 trillion, its highest level ever. That is £100,000 for every household in the country. Even the Prime Minister’s former economic adviser, Andy Haldane—not someone I always agree with—has warned that Britain faces a “precarious fiscal backdrop”, so what is the Prime Minister doing to get borrowing down?
I asked the Prime Minister how he was getting borrowing down—he did not answer. He is talking about the IMF report. I have looked at it, but I do not think that he has, because it downgrades the forecast for next year. It also talks about deficit reduction plans in 2029, which is after an election. The Government are not going to be here after that election. They have not made any cuts. We are spending more on interest payments than we do on schools, the Army and the police combined. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is worrying about loud music on trains. This is not serious. The only solution to the challenges facing our country is to cut spending and cut borrowing. The out-of-work benefits bill is set to rise by £50 billion under this Labour Government, so will the Prime Minister get a grip and cut the welfare bill?
I asked the Prime Minister about welfare—he did not answer the welfare question. That is because he is not planning to cut welfare. This morning, The Telegraph exposed that the reforms he is talking about will not save any money before 2030; in fact, the Prime Minister’s plan is to save money on welfare by spending more money on welfare. This is ridiculous. He is talking about big decisions, but he has not made any decision on social care. Talking about it is not making a decision. He is going to keep spending more, and that means he is going to keep borrowing more. We know where that leads. This morning, inflation rose to 3.5%, the third rise in a row. Families are paying higher bills and more for their weekly shop, and it is leading to higher mortgage rates. Does the Prime Minister accept that his failure to control borrowing is contributing to higher inflation?
We are waiting for the Budget, and next week at the Budget the Prime Minister has a choice: he can cut spending, he can cut the deficit or he can cut tax. There is no other way. That is why that is the Conservatives’ plan. It is a plan that even his former economic adviser Andy Haldane says is the better way. Will he follow that plan, or will he bottle it just like Keir Starmer did?
Let me be clear from the outset that His Majesty’s official Opposition welcome the Government’s recognition that this anomaly needs correcting, and we will not oppose the Bill. We fully support the principle that no Prime Minister should be legally prevented from discharging all their constitutional duties because of their faith. The restrictions in the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 and the Jews Relief Act 1858 are, as the Minister said, plainly outdated and have no place in a modern democratic society. The idea that someone should be prevented from exercising the full responsibilities of the office of Prime Minister simply because of their religious belief is clearly not fit for the 21st century. Indeed, it is remarkable that almost two centuries after those Acts were passed, provisions remain on our statute book that distinguish between those who are permitted to advise the sovereign on Church appointments and those who are not, purely on the grounds of their faith. When one looks at the provisions that the Bill repeals, both their severity and their inconsistency are striking. The law as it stands prevents persons of the Roman Catholic and Jewish faiths from being involved, directly or indirectly, in advising the Crown on appointments in the Church of England or the Church of Scotland. Moreover, the punishments written into those laws are severe. Under the Roman Catholic Relief Act, a Catholic advising the sovereign on a Church appointment is “deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and disabled for ever from holding any office, civil or military, under the Crown.” The Jews Relief Act contains a similar threat. As the existing laws discriminate against Jewish people and Roman Catholics only, they have created the glaring inconsistency that the Minister referred to: my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), the former Prime Minister, a practising Hindu, and his successor Keir Starmer, an atheist, were not legally prevented from advising on Church of England appointments, as the current Prime Minister, who is a Catholic, has been. At a time when we rightly celebrate religious freedom, tolerance and equality before the law, it cannot be right that the holder of the highest political office in our country should face a legislative bar if they are Roman Catholic or Jewish. Though we agree with the Prime Minister that these laws are an “archaic anomaly”, as shadow Minister I cannot let the occasion pass without a gentle reminder of the Government’s rather sudden conversion to treating the Bill as an urgent priority. On 5 March last year, the Lord Privy Seal wrote to Members of the other House, stating that the Government were considering how to address historical restrictions on Roman Catholics and Jews advising the Crown on appointments in the Anglican Church, but when asked about progress in parliamentary questions last autumn, the then Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), said that though the Government would keep the matter under review, “given other pressing issues, this is not a current priority.” It is hard not to notice that removing this statutory bar remained “not a current priority” for the Cabinet Office right up until a Roman Catholic Prime Minister took office. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) observed last week, some people looking at the challenges facing the country today may well feel that there are more important things for the Government to do, although when he rose to make his point of order at the start of this debate, I wondered whether he was going to declare an interest—an ambition for No. 10 that might be affected by this legislation. However, the Bill is rightly before us today, and on this issue, as on any issue of constitutional change, it is important that the Government proceed with clarity and care. In the interests of scrutinising the legislation constructively, could the Minister clarify three points for the House? First, can he confirm that the Bill is strictly and narrowly focused on removing these discriminatory restrictions, and that there are no unintended knock-on effects elsewhere in statute? Secondly, after becoming Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) transferred responsibility for Church appointments to the Lord Chancellor to ensure that such appointments could continue. Can the Minister confirm that this arrangement is temporary, and will remain in place only until this legislation has received Royal Assent and come into force? Thirdly, can the Minister reassure the House that this legislation will not alter the wider constitutional relationship between the Crown, the Government and the established Church? Finally, while we support removing the statutory bar, we also believe that it is important to maintain sensible constitutional practice, so it is the Opposition’s clear recommendation that it would be sensible for Prime Ministers who do not consider themselves to be part of the congregation of the Church of England to delegate the active decision-making on appointments to others, as recent prime Ministers have done, while retaining their formal constitutional role in advising the monarch. His Majesty’s official Opposition look forward to scrutinising the Bill in Committee and in its later stages, but we will support its Second Reading.
I rise briefly on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition to confirm our support for clause 1 standing part of the Bill. Clause 1 is the operative heart of this legislation and repeals the remaining provisions to which the Minister referred. In some ways, it feels rather fitting that the Committee is considering this clause on 21 October, Trafalgar Day, because although the nation rightly remembers Lord Nelson today, another great hero of the Napoleonic wars, the Duke of Wellington, who was Prime Minister, together with Sir Robert Peel in this House, drove Catholic emancipation on to the statute book through the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. At the time, the Act was seen as a radically progressive measure. Indeed, such was the strength of feeling that Wellington was only able to overcome the fierce opposition of King George IV and peers in the House of Lords by threatening that his Tory Government would resign and warning the King and their lordships that the incoming Whig Administration would be immeasurably worse. As students of parliamentary history will know, the resulting split in Wellington’s party ushered in a decade and a half of Whig dominance. I am bound to say that I am rather pleased that there is considerably more cross-party consensus on today’s reform. There is, however, an important historical lesson in how we view the statutes that clause 1 amends. Both the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 and the subsequent Jews Relief Act 1858 were seen in their own day as wildly progressive steps forward that tore down centuries-old barriers to public life. The restrictions they left behind on advising the sovereign on Church appointments were the political compromises of the 19th century, but nearly 200 years on, what was introduced as a 19th-century compromise is now an archaic anomaly and unacceptable discrimination. Over the decades, Parliament has rightly repealed or amended many of the other restrictive measures originally contained in both the 1829 and 1858 Acts, and clause 1 simply finishes that long historical journey. By removing these final statutory prohibitions and their draconian penalties, it ensures that the legal bar on a Roman Catholic or Jewish Prime Minister fulfilling their constitutional duties by advising the monarch on Church appointments is similarly consigned to history. His Majesty’s Opposition therefore support clauses 1 and 2 standing part of this Bill. Question put and agreed to. Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Third Reading King’s consent signified.
As we reach Third Reading, I am pleased to again reaffirm our support for this measure, as we work to ensure that this particular anachronism will soon be consigned to history. Our constitutional arrangements are the product of centuries of history, and we on these Benches believe we should always approach changes to them with appropriate care. Our constitution has evolved considerably since the 19th century, reflecting the changing character of our country and the diversity of the people who serve it, and it is entirely reasonable that our laws should evolve with it. Respect for our history does not require us to preserve every historical anomaly. There is a clear distinction between respecting our constitutional traditions and allowing outdated 19th-century restrictions to remain on the statute book simply because they have always been there. At the same time, the established Church occupies a distinctive place in our constitutional settlement, and the relationship between Church and state is one that has developed over centuries. In correcting the historical injustice, it is vital that we preserve both our established constitutional arrangement, and the independence and integrity of the Church appointments process. In practical terms, when appointing bishops and archbishops, the Church of England presents a candidate to the Prime Minister, who then advises the monarch on who to install in that role. For nearly 20 years, the Prime Minister has not had much of a role in the selection of Church of England bishops, and Downing Street’s involvement in the process has become largely a formality. That is why, alongside supporting this Bill with the repeal of these discriminatory criminal provisions, His Majesty’s Opposition has suggested that the clear and respectful convention for the future, following recent precedent, should be that Prime Ministers who are not members of the Church of England should retain their formal constitutional role in advising the sovereign while continuing to delegate any active involvement in the decision-making process to others. The ability to serve as Prime Minister and to exercise the full responsibilities of that office should depend on the confidence of this House and the ability of the individual concerned, not their religious belief. On that fundamental principle, the whole House can unite today, so we support the Third Reading of this Bill and wish it well as it proceeds to the other place. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this important debate. In Stockton West, the plague of balaclava-clad yobs on illegal e-motos is a problem that comes up constantly on doorsteps and in my surgery. Three years ago in Westminster Hall, I named Thornaby as a hotspot and warned that we could not wait for someone else to lose their life. On 31 January this year, two 15-year-olds were riding Sur-Rons in Thornaby when one of them ploughed into a father of seven riding a pushbike. Months later, the father is still in hospital with life-changing injuries, needing round-the-clock care. The boys got driving bans and referral orders, and were ordered to pay just £495 in compensation. The recent changes to seizure powers are welcome, but they go nowhere near far enough. I tabled amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill to give the police greater powers to enter properties to seize these bikes, to destroy illegal bikes rather than sell them on, and to register and control sales. The Government rejected them all. Meanwhile, anyone can buy a machine that is illegal to ride on a public road, or a kit that turns an illegal e-bike into an unregistered motorbike and have it delivered the next day. I ask the Minister: will the Government control the sale of these vehicles and the kits used to modify them? Will they now give the police the power we proposed to seize these bikes wherever they are hidden? My constituents simply want the law to be on the side of the law-abiding majority. It is time for the Government to make sure that it is.
I beg to move, That this House has considered the future of University Hospital of North Tees. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I am grateful to the Minister for being here to respond to the debate. I was born in North Tees hospital. So were tens of thousands of my constituents and many of their children and grandchildren. For nearly 60 years, it has been where Stockton goes when something goes wrong. It is where we are stitched up after an accident, welcome our children into the world and sit beside our parents in their final days. There are very few families in our town whose story does not run through North Tees at some point. I want to begin by thanking the incredible people who work at North Tees: the doctors, nurses, porters, cleaners and everyone who keeps our hospital going day and night. I have seen for myself their dedication and the challenges they face in a building that makes an already difficult job harder. They deserve decent facilities. Their patients deserve them, too. I have to tell the Minister plainly that the building they work in is running out of time. When my party was in government, I campaigned for a new diagnostic centre in Stockton. Thousands of residents signed my petition and backed that campaign. Around £25 million was secured, with a further £8.4 million from the community diagnostic fund, to bring scans and tests into the heart of our town. For somebody waiting to find out whether they have cancer, that means answers and that treatment can begin. Alongside that came £3 million for the new mental health hub at Brook House, a new respiratory unit, upgrades to the urgent care centre, and a £4.3 million robotic and emergency maternity theatre, where a woman who needs urgent surgery in labour can now get it next door to the delivery suite. That is what investment can achieve, but we cannot keep bolting 21st-century medicine on to a 1960s frame forever.
The hon. Member makes a valid point. Investment in technology—I talked about the robotic theatres in our part of the world—means not only that staff have the facilities they deserve to work with, but that more patients can be treated more quickly, more safely and with reduced recovery times. There is a real value in looking after those patients, all too often at the worst times of their lives. I made the case for a new hospital when my party was in government. I held a similar debate to this one five years ago and backed the trust’s bid for one of the new hospitals. I was devastated when, in 2023, the places in that programme went instead to hospitals built from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, which put them at risk of collapse. I understood why—safety must come first when a roof could fall in—but it pushed North Tees back in the queue, and I have kept pressing Ministers ever since. North Tees opened in 1968. The trust’s own board papers identified 2031 as the point by which its main buildings would be beyond their useful economic life. That is just five years away, and parts of the estate are already past it. The maintenance backlog stands at £126 million, despite around £100 million being spent on repairs in the past decade, and it is projected to reach £300 million by 2033. Staff are working around leaky roofs, broken ceiling panels and pipes that freeze in winter. This is not a hospital that needs a lick of paint; it is a hospital whose fabric is failing. On 2 June this year, heavy rain hit Stockton, and the drainage at North Tees could not cope. The trust’s chief executive told me that every one of the hospital theatres for in-patient surgery, bar one, was flooded. More than 400 patients had their surgery cancelled. Repairs have cost £1.5 million, and re-providing the surgery cost a further £1 million. That is £2.5 million gone, not on treating a single extra patient but on catching up after a rainstorm. Think about the person waiting for an operation: they have arranged time off work, their family have made plans to look after them and they have spent weeks preparing themselves, and then they are told to wait again because the theatre is flooded. That was not a freak event; it is what happens when a hospital runs past its design life, and it will happen again unless something changes. What are local people seeing under this Government? Not a new hospital or a place in the new hospital programme, but job losses. Around 600 posts are to go across our local hospital trusts, with a voluntary redundancy scheme and a vacancy freeze. The trust’s own figures raise further questions. Since 2024, total staffing has fallen from 6,084 to 5,958. Over the same period, the number of managers and senior managers has risen from 91 to 110. That is 2% fewer staff and 21% more managers. Of course, the hospital needs good management, but when vacancies are frozen and a £2.5 million flood bill comes out of the same budget, that increase needs explaining. Every year we wait, the bill gets bigger. A few years ago, a replacement hospital was expected to cost around £380 million. The trust now puts it at between £1 billion and £2 billion. Before the election, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who was then the shadow Health Secretary, came to North Tees and said that “there is no doubt we need a new hospital here.” I agreed with him then and I agree with him now, but when his Government reset the new hospital programme in January last year, not a single hospital on Teesside was in it. When I asked last October what assessment had been made about replacing North Tees, the answer was none, and that there were no plans to invite further schemes into the programme. North Tees is failing in a different way from those RAAC hospitals. Its problem is not one dangerous material; it is a whole building past its life. It is not on the list and there is no list it can join. A hospital whose theatres flood and whose backlog is heading for £300 million should not be left without a route simply because it is failing in the wrong way. Meanwhile, the Tees Valley Mayor has written 25 times to ask for a meeting about the hospital. The answer given by the right hon. Member for Ilford North was that the mayor could show him the colour of his money. Three Health Secretaries later, there has still not been one meeting. A hospital that is running out of time cannot wait for the Government’s revolving door to stop spinning. The trust is drawing up plans, but a plan with no route to capital is just a very expensive document. I have five questions for the Minister. First, what has changed since the answer last October? If the new hospital programme is closed, what route is open? Will the Government assess the case for replacement and set out a timetable? Secondly, will she commit to resilience funding to keep the current building safe until then, so that flooded theatres do not become an annual event? Thirdly, will she guarantee that North Tees will keep its offering, its A&E and its core services while the future is decided? Fourthly, will she look at why management numbers have risen by 21% while overall staffing has fallen, and ensure that cuts never come at the expense of frontline care? Fifthly, will she make sure that the Secretary of State finally meets the mayor, along with me and Members from across Teesside, and the trust, before the end of the year? Better still, will she come and visit our hospital and see at first hand the challenges that our incredible workforce is facing? People across our area, whatever their politics, want the same thing: a hospital that they can rely on when someone they love needs help. I will work with anybody who wants to make that happen. North Tees has seen us born, patched us up and cared for the people that we love at the end. Its staff have kept caring through every challenge put in front of them. The right hon. Member for Ilford North was right: there is no doubt that we need a new hospital. What my constituents want to hear today is not whether, but when, where and how it will be paid for. Our staff deserve it, our patients need it and our community has waited long enough.
I made the point earlier that the mayor has written 25 times but we have not managed to get a meeting yet. I wonder whether the Minister might be able to cajole or commit her ministerial colleagues, or even the Secretary of State, to meet local MPs, the mayor and representatives of the trust, in order to have a discussion about where we go next.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) on securing this important debate, and I thank all Members who have contributed. I pay tribute to the officers, PCSOs, special constables and police staff who serve our communities, including the teams at Cleveland police and Durham constabulary who serve the people of Stockton West. Cleveland has the highest crime rate of any police force area in England and Wales and the highest homicide rate in the country, yet in the year to March, Cleveland police lost 17 officers. Our police and crime commissioner called out a £2.4 million shortfall and rightly pointed out that funding is based on population, not crime. If the Government’s commitment to community policing is to mean anything, it must mean having more officers, not fewer, in areas where crime is highest. The Minister will point to the neighbourhood policing guarantee, but moving police officers between roles is not the same as having more of them. In March 2024, the previous Conservative Government left police numbers at the highest level on record.
We could have a very long debate on that: we could talk about the economic damage done by and the public finance carnage under the previous Labour Government; we could talk about the tough choices that had to be made in 2010; and eventually, we would arrive at 2024, when there were 147,746 full-time equivalent police officers on the streets. His constituents and mine would have liked to see that number continue to go upwards, but it did not, did it? Today, there are nearly 1,900 fewer officers. This year, the Government scrapped overall headcount targets, making funding conditional on neighbourhood numbers alone. If neighbourhood teams grow while the workforce shrinks, those officers have to come from somewhere, and too often, that is from response teams. Those are the officers who come when a resident—the woman whose ex-partner is hammering on the door or the family woken by someone breaking in—rings 999. Neighbourhood policing matters, but it cannot come at the expense of the officers who turn up in someone’s hour of need. That is why the Conservative party would recruit 10,000 extra officers, deploy hotspot patrolling in the 2,000 highest-crime neighbourhoods and roll out immediate justice, so that those who wreck a public space are seen to put it right. The problem is getting worse. The crime survey for England and Wales shows that last year, 40.9% of people experienced or witnessed antisocial behaviour, which represents a statistically significant increase. Tackling antisocial behaviour is a pillar of the Government’s guarantee, but, by their own measure, things are moving in the wrong direction. I have three questions for the Minister. First, will the Government publish force-by-force figures for how many new neighbourhood police officers were moved from response roles? Secondly, will the changes mean that residents will wait longer for help when they ring 999? Thirdly, on Cleveland, I welcome the Minister’s engagement with the leadership of our force, but warm words in meetings will not reassure my constituents, so will she explain why the force tackling the highest crime rate in the country has 17 fewer officers than it did a year ago? Will she commit to ensuring that by the end of this Parliament, Cleveland police will have more police officers than it does today? My constituents are not asking about 2024 or 2010. They are asking about the year ahead, and they deserve a straight answer. Our constituents judge policing by whether they see an officer on their street, whether their call is answered and whether the person who wrecked their neighbourhood faces consequences. By that test, there is much more to do. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
It is a pleasure to follow the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), although I fear I might not be able to provide such an entertaining and historical perspective. I had intended to speak in this debate as I thought I might be the only Anglican to do so, but the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) has beaten me to it. As a member of the established Church, I—unlike my right hon. Friend—agree for once with Reform. I would actually like some political input into appointments to the bishops’ Bench and one or two other Church appointments. I would like to think that whoever we elect as Prime Minister, he or she would take a very serious view of making appointments to an institution that not only has a vast historical perspective, but plays a major part in education, for example. I cannot remember the number, but the Church of England has many schools in virtually every constituency up and down the country, and the bishops can often play a major part in that. [Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, I see that you are reminding me to stay within the scope of the Bill. Turning to the argument about the appointment of bishops, like the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), I think we should return to the system in which the Prime Minister is offered a choice, and the points I have made should be taken into consideration during that process. I know that my right hon. Friend the Father of the House loves the established Church. Indeed, when I was his constituency agent, I used to build in visits to choral evensong in Lincoln as often as I could. Coming back to the substance of the Bill, I fully support the fact that a Prime Minister of whatever faith should have an input into senior appointments in the Church of England.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this vital debate. Every time I speak to people right across Broxbourne, this issue is at the top of their minds. If I was to ask someone about the regulation of e-scooters and e-bikes, they would say, quite simply, “What regulation?” As far as they are concerned, there is none. We all know about the day-to-day antisocial behaviour linked to e-bikes and e-scooters and are familiar with the horrific stories of their misuse. I have seen it many times: gangs of masked-up hooligans riding in packs, terrorising our high streets with no regard for anyone else’s safety. It makes a mockery of law and order and we need a proper crackdown. What are the regulations? I checked the Government’s website before the debate—not something anyone who is riding an e-bike antisocially would do. The fastest e-bikes need to be registered, taxed and insured, and riders need a licence and a helmet, but it does not take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that individuals hiding their identity with a balaclava would not do any of that. We need a joined-up approach right across Government that includes the Department for Transport. The Transport Minister in the other place said: “The Government recognise the role that…electric cycles and scooters…can play in supporting economic growth, improving health and reducing emissions.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 June 2026; Vol. 856, c. 1220.] What a load of nonsense. That is far from the reality faced by people right across the United Kingdom, including in my constituency. The Government need to get a grip and use the full force of the law to stop illegal use of e-bikes and e-scooters.