5,731 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Mr Gagan Mohindra

   Local Government Reform

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) on securing this important debate. I place on the record my thanks to Grace Thomas from my office for the notes associated with my speech today. The Minister was in front of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee yesterday and gave us some strong answers, which is typical of her style. Today, I want to try a slightly different tack. It is on the record that I am not a fan of unitaries. I was a councillor for many years, at parish, district and county level. I know the strengths and weaknesses associated with that model, and I would argue that it is a lot better and more efficient than unitary authorities. As I said to the Minister yesterday, in my experience, the proposed savings from moving to the unitary model never come to fruition. If it is not broken, why change it? Others have already spoken about the debt levels associated with some authorities. There is an inherent unfairness in taking on someone else’s debt and being forced to pay for it. However, my focus today is volunteers and the voluntary sector. Last week was Volunteers’ Week, which provided us with an opportunity to recognise the extraordinary contribution made by volunteers and charities across South West Hertfordshire. To mark the occasion, I visited a number of outstanding community organisations whose work is made possible by the dedication of volunteers and charitable support. Those organisations provide vital services to local residents and strengthen the fabric of our communities, but many of them rely heavily on local government funding streams and commissioning arrangements to sustain their work. For example, the citizens advice bureau in South Oxhey highlighted that the proposals for local government reform have created huge uncertainty, and that there are concerns about how changes will affect its ability to continue supporting the 20,000 clients it assists each year. When I met the medium-sized charity Community Action Dacorum in Kings Langley, Simon spoke about how it is reliant on commissioned contracts from local authorities to provide support in the community. The charity stressed the importance of MPs’ understanding the impact of LGR on the funding and operation of charities, describing it as a “significant risk to the voluntary and community sector”. Many charities like CAD are concerned that the transition to new unitary structures could disrupt existing commissioning arrangements and funding streams, creating financial instability. There is also concern about unintended consequences. Charities report increasing pressure to align with Government priorities because of fears that failing to do so could affect future commissioning and funding opportunities. Charities and community organisations should be focused on delivering vital services to local residents, not managing uncertainty over future funding and governance arrangements. The disruption of established funding mechanisms and commissioning structures risks undermining the sustainability of essential local services and the support networks that my communities depend on.

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2. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Martin Vickers

   Local Government Reform

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) on securing this important debate. Like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), I served for 26 years as a local councillor, 14 of them were on the former Grimsby borough council. I then served for another 12 years on what became North East Lincolnshire unitary authority. I tend to favour unitary councils on the whole, and I have some sympathy with elected mayors—I can see the value of them in the big cities—but how we balance their powers and look after the interests of provincial towns and larger rural counties is open to debate. I am not yet convinced of the need to have a mayor for a vast rural county such as Lincolnshire. The Minister will know that the Government, in proposing any form of local government reform, are opening a can of worms of local rivalries—civil war within the Labour party, I am sure, and other issues. The Minister is too young to remember the local government reorganisation of 1973-74; I think I am probably the only one who can remember it but, in many respects, it turned out to be a disaster. My former Grimsby council was pushed into Humberside county. County Humberside was a complete and utter disaster. The identities north and south of the river are completely different. If Humberside is mentioned on the streets of Grimsby nowadays, the response is—shall we say—not polite, to say no stronger than that. It was a complete and utter disaster. The previous Government tried to create a Humber local enterprise partnership, which failed because it was cross-river. We still have Humberside police and Humberside fire authorities and so on, but even now I would say to leave those well alone. We all tend to favour devolution because it means that local people are making decisions. That is good but, of course, it leads to a postcode lottery, because different councils will make different decisions. My appeal to the Minister is about local government finance. When I was first elected, way back in 1980, local government was still a really powerful force in the local community and could embark on some very important projects of great benefit; but over the years I have seen the powers and responsibilities whittled away, and local authorities, to a great extent, are tools of central Government. That will always be the case to some degree, because central Government relies on local authorities to deliver many essential services, but local pride and local identity play their part. I keep talking about Grimsby—I only have one ward of Grimsby in my new constituency, but I am a resident there, and that gives me some right to speak about it. We have had a mayor since 1201, apart from a few months when Grimsby was abolished and we merged into North East Lincolnshire, and we had a chairman. Thankfully, we got a new royal charter and ended up with a mayor, because local identity is important. People like the mayor turning up in the red robes and chains of office to open the church bazaar and those sorts of things. It creates identity, something that is sadly lacking. If we go into any northern town and look around the central square, we will see vast town halls and great civic buildings, mostly constructed in Victorian and Edwardian times. They knew how to project local identity, power and responsibility, and I would like to see something of a return to that. My particular plea is on the financial basis of local authorities. Many are in debt, and unless local government reorganisation is linked to reform of local government finance, we are in desperate straits. Many authorities have already issued section 114 notices, and others are teetering on the edge. As the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), who is no longer in her place, mentioned earlier, many of the new authorities do not have a financial foundation on which to build. We urgently need local government finance reform. The poll tax—community charge—from the 1980s now frightens us. It was a mistake, but the fear of reorganising the finances lingers on. Unless there is a firm financial foundation, new authorities, as well as some of the existing ones, will flounder. North Lincolnshire council has an excellent Conservative-run administration. North East Lincolnshire council sadly now has a Reform leader, but that is hopefully only temporary. My plea to the Minister is this: “Please leave Lincolnshire as it is for the moment and look at the finance of local authorities.”

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3. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Mark Pritchard

   Defence Investment Plan

   On defence procurement more widely, may I turn the Minister’s attention to the land mobility programme, and in particular the light mobility vehicle contract? He will know that the Land Rover is retiring after 70 years of faithful service, and that defence engineers in Shropshire are currently building the Boxer and the Challenger 3 tank. When that contract is looked at, would he come to Shropshire, meet RBSL and, most importantly, sign the contract in Shropshire?

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4. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Mark Pritchard

   Railways Bill

   I am grateful to the Minister. Before he moves on, the issue of open access agreements is very important, because there is an inherent conflict in the arrangements in the Bill. I am unclear about whether it is the Transport Secretary or the Office of Rail and Road who will take decisions. The open access bid from Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway would see a direct link from Shropshire to London, with trains stopping in the important market town of Wellington. He talked about economic growth, and if that direct access were to be allowed, it would give a multimillion-pound boost to the market town of Wellington. Who will make the decision on that?

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5. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lewis Cocking

   Local Government Reform

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. May I congratulate you on the 25th anniversary of your election to this House, which happened a few days ago? I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) on securing this important debate. For the past few months, I have worked closely with the local election candidates in my constituency, and I am pleased to say that their hard work paid off: they were elected on to Broxbourne district council and it remained under Conservative control, with no change to our majority. During that campaign, I spoke to hundreds of local residents, and not one person said to me that they wanted to see Broxbourne council abolished. If they were aware of the Government’s plans to do just that and force us into a large unitary authority stretching 40 miles from top to bottom, they wanted to know what I was doing to stop it. I suspect that when the Minister replies to the debate, we will be told that local councils were knocking down the door of MHCLG, saying, “We want to reorganise. We want to go into large unitary councils.” Well, I have seen the letter that the Government sent to my council, and councils had no alternative but to reply to that letter. This is forced local government reorganisation, no matter what people say. The people of Broxbourne instinctively understand what Ministers continue to deny: that large councils are remote from the people they serve, with decision makers naturally less concerned about towns and villages that they have no connection to. Moreover, the big new authorities will cost towns and villages money, not save it. There will be no savings from reorganisation. I am yet to see any evidence that unitary councils provide better government than the two-tier system that we have in place. I am yet to see those councils that have been through reorganisation—whether North Yorkshire or Somerset—come forward and say, “D’you know what? We’re awash with cash. We’ve got so much money now that we’ve saved so much through reorganisation.” I have not seen that. In fact, when Somerset council went through reorganisation to become a single, large unitary council that the Government accepted, it increased council tax by 10%. There were no savings. If the Government are hellbent on doing this and want to move forward with it, they should show us the evidence that that type of council serves its residents the best, is cheaper and provides better services. Last year we learned that the Department did not even carry out its own cost analysis of the reorganisation. Do not get me wrong—Broxbourne council is not perfect, nor is any district council—but, given its reasonable size and proximity to residents it at least has a chance to make a positive difference, if run well. It is no secret why Broxbourne residents voted to keep the council the same, as they do year after year. Council tax is lower than anywhere else, while services such as waste collection and leisure centres are run better than in neighbouring councils that charge more council tax. We all know that, when reorganisation comes, the new authority will provide the bare minimum in services and hit residents with the highest rates that it can get away with. From day one residents in the new authority, which my constituents will be forced into, will pay more in council tax but get less back. For those reasons, I fundamentally oppose the reorganisation. The process we have seen so far should also make us doubt the Government’s ability to achieve what they have promised. As already mentioned, just last week the County Councils Network sent a damning letter to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, pointing out that the top-down imposition of local government reorganisation, as we have seen in Sussex, goes against the wishes of local councils without the evidence to back it up. Many right hon. and hon. Members have made this point, but I too say, “Please show us the evidence. Show us where big unitary councils cost less and deliver better for residents, then we can at least understand and argue about the nuances of what the Government want to achieve.” It is difficult to do that when I have sat in a number of debates on this issue—I was on the Bill Committee for the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026—and not seen one shred of evidence that the new authorities will deliver better services and charge less in council tax. The majority of councils in Hertfordshire, including Broxbourne, support the proposal to create four unitary councils, rather than two or three, as they know that councils operating as close to the people as possible serve their residents better. When it comes to making future decisions on reorganisation—and let me be crystal clear for the avoidance of doubt, though it will be no surprise to the Minister, I do not want any local government reorganisation in Hertfordshire—I hope that the Department will listen to what councils are saying and act on that. I urge the Minister, as I do every time in such debates, “Please review the policy, please make sure that future decisions are made with our constituents in mind and please ensure that whatever system is forced upon us will deliver outstanding local services and cheaper council tax.”

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6. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lewis Cocking

   Local Government Reform

   I, too, sit on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the reason the Government are struggling to answer that question is that local government reorganisation will not save a single penny?

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7. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lewis Cocking

   Railways Bill

   Broxbourne is an important commuter area when travelling into London. Millions of journeys start and end at stations in my constituency every year, and more than double the national average number of people use the railway to get to work. The line that I and my constituents rely on—Greater Anglia—was one of the first to be taken over by the Government, and not a week goes by without some sort of incident causing long delays and cancellations. We have not seen any improvements from nationalisation. While I do not support nationalisation in principle, I agree that the railway needs to work better for passengers and the communities it serves and in which it operates. It is in that spirit that I will address a number of amendments. I support new clause 30, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer). It would place a duty on GBR to publish an accessibility strategy every 10 years. The rail network should be easily accessible for everyone, as most Members have said. There has been lots of progress in recent years on this issue, and I am pleased that most stations in my constituency are fully accessible, but that still leaves some stations that see hundreds of thousands of journeys each year out of reach for constituents with disabilities or using buggies. Rye House is the only train station in Hoddesdon, a town of 20,000 people, but only one platform is step-free—the other is not. That means someone can have step-free access going into London, but not when they leave to go home. That means passengers in a wheelchair or with buggies having to get off at a different station, with longer journeys to get home. It gets even worse at Theobalds Grove station, where the situation is even more difficult. No platform has step-free access, so there is no option for those with disabilities, such as those in a wheelchair, or families with buggies to use that station at all. Both stations would be ideal candidates for accessibility improvements, which should be a key priority for Great British Rail. Since my election, I have campaigned hard on traffic delays and roadworks, and they do not occur in isolation from other modes of transport, particularly the rail network. I support new clause 29, which would direct Great British Rail to co-ordinate with transport authorities to minimise disruption. We need a joined-up and a common-sense approach. When works are planned on a line, we do not also need utility companies coming along to dig up the high street. It seems that once one element causes a bit of disruption, the other goes out of its way to create more disruption at the same time. We need organisations to have a joined-up and common-sense approach. Level crossings can have massive knock-on effects for my constituents, particularly those who live in the villages. In my constituency, a track runs through the villages of Stanstead Abbotts and St Margarets—right through the middle. If the crossing is down for too long or a defect causes it not to reopen, an entire village is cut off from basic services. The level-crossings strategy proposed in amendment 65 would enable us to look at the consequences of things going wrong in that way, which would hopefully reduce disruption for my constituents. In the case of any public body, value for the taxpayer should be considered above all else, so I support the requirement for Great British Railways to take steps to keep costs as low as possible. Rail services should also respond to changing needs. We have seen thousands of homes built in the last few years, creating more strain on our rail services. Thousands have been built near Cheshunt, the busiest station in my constituency, and more passengers are using it now than before the pandemic. New clause 40 would ensure that services respond to population changes. Within the national planning policy framework, the Government are trying to bulldoze our green belt and make it easier to obtain planning permission near stations. I fundamentally disagree with that, and it makes new clause 40 even more important. The Government should support it. New clause 37 is intended to ensure that the trains on which local communities rely run more frequently. The standard of communication from the railway network, the rail companies and my nationalised local rail service is appalling. If people turn up at the station and there are problems on the line, there are no staff around to talk to. No one is communicating with the passengers. They are left at the station to wait for another service, if and when it turns up.

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8. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Lewis Cocking

   Railways Bill

   I thank the hon. Member for supporting the point I was making. The Elizabeth line was a new line with new trains going along it, but currently, planning applications are submitted and the response is: “This development is next to a railway station. We will grant the planning permission.” There are no new services. There are no extra trains. The only consequences for the line are the thousands of houses that are built near it. If my constituency were served by HS2 or we were getting a new train, that would be a completely different matter, but when capacity is being added to existing services and when that planning process is taking place, there is nothing to say that there must be more trains and a more frequent service, and the trains have to be longer during the rush hour to deal with the extra housing. We need to look at how communication with rail users can be improved and at how this nationalised rail service will work, because, as I have said, the service in my area was one of the first to be nationalised and my constituents have seen no benefit at all.

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9. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Katie Lam

   Water Supply in Kent

   It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) for securing the debate. For people in the Weald of Kent, problems with the water supply have become depressingly common. The most recent outages, last month, left thousands of people without water or experiencing severely low pressure during a heatwave. South East Water, which covers the Weald of Kent, said that it had planned for the heatwave, but thousands of people across the Weald were still once again left without running water, unable to wash, cook, or run their businesses or farms. That followed a larger outage earlier this year, which left tens of thousands of people across Kent and Sussex without running water for days. That time, South East Water blamed a freeze and thaw event and the impact of Storm Goretti. Come rain or shine, there are clearly serious problems at South East Water. On both occasions, but especially in January, communication was poor or non-existent. South East Water was unable to answer even basic questions, such as, “If I send my constituents to this bottled water station, will there be any bottled water for them when they get there?” The company took days to respond to emails to its supposedly instantaneous email address. It simply had no idea what was going on. For far too many people, this intermittent service and poor communication are part and parcel of life in the Weald of Kent. Earlier this year, I ran a water survey to ask people about their historical experiences with South East Water. Nearly 3,000 households responded, and it was immediately clear that the catastrophic handling of January’s outage was not a lapse in form. The company has been providing a terrible service for years, and people are absolutely right to be fed up with it. One disabled resident reported that, despite being on South East Water’s priority list for receiving bottled water during times of crisis, they received no water at all for the duration of the outage. Farmers, who simply cannot afford to have water shut off for days on end, reported that farms and livestock did not even seem to be a consideration. One local farmer reported that, despite many hours on the phone, South East Water were “totally unhelpful and rude, suggesting [that] I go and pick up a pack of water”. To put that into context, this farmer pays for 250 litres of water a day. The company told him to go and pick up a pack of water. The sheer volume of the individual stories was horrific—one woman who had just given birth to children had to take her toddler in the back of the car to the bottled water stations, because she was on the vulnerable list, but deliveries had not been made. Of those who responded to the survey, four in every five said they had been left without running water over the past decade, and four in 10 said that they had been without running water four or more times over that same period. That is absurd in 21st-century Britain. Those self-reported experiences have been mirrored in recent months by a number of official inquiries into South East Water’s performance, both historically and in relation to the January outages. Ofwat has recently proposed a £22 million fine following supply failures between 2020 and 2023, noting that South East Water “has not taken ownership” of the underlying issues that caused the outages. Given the recent outages, it is clear that it still has not learned a thing. The report produced by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee was perhaps the most damning. It described the company as “devoid of proper leadership” and as “an unaccountable clique.” I thank the members of the Committee for their work in scrutinising South East Water’s leadership, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) and for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst). In the light of those reports, both the chairman of South East Water, Chris Train, and the CEO, David Hinton, have resigned. That was a long time coming. Given their handling of the outages in January and the way they responded to the subsequent investigations, it was clear that change at South East Water was impossible under their leadership. They had shown no understanding of why they had failed, and no appreciation whatsoever of the harm they had caused to the people who rely on their service. Although the resignations are very much welcome, the problems at South East Water did not start with Mr Hinton’s appointment as chief executive and will not automatically end with his resignation. As the results of the survey demonstrate, the issues at South East Water are endemic. I hope the company will use the change of leadership as an opportunity for true transformation and to review how it operates, plans and communicates with the public. I want to use this opportunity to urge the regulator and the Minister, who I know is very focused on this issue, to do everything they can to encourage the company to go through a proper period of transformation. In this place and elsewhere, we will continue to hold it to account. However, it is important that South East Water is not just punished retrospectively, or after the fact, for its failures. Instead, we must ensure that it is taking the right steps to stop this problem becoming a permanent feature of life in the Weald of Kent.

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10. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·John Cooper

    Draft Scotland Act 1998 (Increase of Borrowing Limits) Order 2026

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. At first blush, the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Increase in Borrowing Limits) Order 2026 is, as outlined by the Secretary of State—we are honoured to have him with us, and it is the second time I have seen him today, which is twice more than the First Minister has seen him since the First Minister was reappointed, which of course is the First Minister’s loss—a relatively modest uplift to the Scottish Government’s borrowing powers to reflect inflation. As respecters of the devolution settlement, His Majesty’s loyal Opposition will not object to the order. Context, however, matters. It cannot be outwith the scope today to reflect that this change gives considerably more fiscal latitude to the governing party in Scotland, the Scottish National party, whose own finances and procedures are under intense scrutiny. Serious questions about its stewardship of public money and its tax compliance dangle unanswered.

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11. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·John Cooper

    Draft Scotland Act 1998 (Increase of Borrowing Limits) Order 2026

    Absolutely. I would like to clarify my point: it is not unreasonable in the context to look at this issue in the round. This is public money. The SNP wants to pretend that this is an internal matter for themselves, but question marks still hang over us about whether or not public money has been involved in what happened in Scotland. Also, there is the question of compliance with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

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12. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·John Cooper

    Draft Scotland Act 1998 (Increase of Borrowing Limits) Order 2026

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for a very important question. The GDP deflator is incredibly complex, as are all these matters. We talk about cross-Government working here, and I think there is a genuine attempt by this Government, as there was by the previous Government, to maximise the money available. The system is complex in how to measure inflation—there are many choices to be made. We are here with the GDP deflator, and that is as simple as that. We are not going to debate that today. It is an oft-repeated canard in Scotland that the so-called Scottish Executive cannot borrow. This myth is a conspiracy theory as fake as the “Capricorn One” fanciful notion of faked moon landings, but it is sometimes perpetrated not only by internet trolls but by elected Members. This matters because it is corrosive to public trust in politics and inimical to the settled will of the Scottish people so clearly expressed in their rejection of separation in the 2014 independence referendum. It would be welcome for the Secretary of State to indicate what steps this Government might take to puncture this no-borrowing fallacy, because for us to sit here silently, simply ticking off increased powers as part of a devolve-and-forget agenda, is dangerous. It gives succour to those who would break up the United Kingdom—something that would affect every one of our constituents in every part of Britain.

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13. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·John Cooper

    Draft Scotland Act 1998 (Increase of Borrowing Limits) Order 2026

    This is a difficult question. Something like £1.25 of public money is spent in Scotland compared to £1 in England. There is tension there within that settlement. That money reflects the difficulties that Scotland faces. Delivering public services in Scotland is difficult because of geography and also because of demographics, so that settlement is designed to reflect that. On the matter of English councils, I am afraid I would defer to him on that. I am no expert in that field, I am afraid. We would all be poorer were Britain to be shattered by people who could not, to use a fine old west of Scotland idiom, run a menodge.

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14. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·John Cooper

    Scottish Independence

    3. What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister of Scotland on a new referendum on Scottish independence.

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15. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·John Cooper

    Scottish Independence

    My constituents will be alarmed to hear that, because Labour’s “devolve and forget” approach is a huge problem. When the Secretary of State is away, the nats will play. We know that the First Minister has gone abroad using taxpayers’ money to talk about the breaking up of Britain. Should the Secretary of State not be inviting the First Minister down for a meeting—without coffee?

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16. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·John Cooper

    Belfast: Violent Disorder

    In January, I wrote to the Home Secretary because a whistleblower suggested that Border Force lacked sufficient personnel to cover night sailings from Belfast and Larne to Cairnryan, the main port in my constituency of Dumfries and Galloway. We have heard today that much more focus is also needed on the clearly unlocked back door to the United Kingdom between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. What can the Government do to address that and in turn prevent the North channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland becoming a conduit for illegals and for other contraband?

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17. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    I note the Minister’s words about new clause 48. This Report stage follows 16 sittings of the Public Bill Committee, when I and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), tabled well over 200 amendments, of which more than 120 were put to a Division. It is fair to say, therefore, that I think the Bill could do with a bit of work. Let us start at the beginning, with the purpose, as contained in new clause 52. We began in Committee with a degree of consensus on the idea that—it is fair to say this, and I think the Minister referenced it—the Government have a golden opportunity to improve our railways by addressing one of the key challenges of the previous privatisation settlement, namely closer integration between track and train. Privatisation had some faults, but it also brought many benefits to the railway industry: a huge increase in capital investment, a new focus on what the travelling customer wanted rather than what British Rail decided to give them, innovation in service provision and increased services.

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18. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    I am grateful to the hon. Member, but he will recognise that if we look at the safety record under privatisation as a whole, compared with nationalisation previously under British Rail, safety has increased enormously and I am pleased to say that, prior to nationalisation, we operate one of the safest rail systems in the world.

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19. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    I have addressed that point, so I want to move on. We have the key challenge that the division of track and train at times created some perverse incentives between the track operator and the service operator, and this too often led to some inefficiencies. This Government, however, inherited from the Conservatives a solution in the Shapps-Williams review: the creation of Great British Railways, where track and train services could be integrated to design out the problems of the earlier settlement while, importantly, retaining the efficiency and service benefits of private operators, as well as the increased access to capital.

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20. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    I am interested in pragmatism. I am interested in what works for the taxpayer and for the user of the railways. If state companies want to operate as private businesses in the United Kingdom and bring benefits to the United Kingdom taxpayer and rail user, bring it on! What I do not want, and what is clearly wrong, is to impose nationalisation of the rail network across the board for political reasons, because it is going to bring some real problems, just like it did the last time Labour decided to have a go at this. As I have said, what the Government are doing is a mistake, but if they insist on it, we need this Bill to direct the top to tell GBR what it is for and what to do. New clause 52—the “purpose” clause missing from the Bill—starts that process by making it clear what GBR is there to do. It is a non-exhaustive list, but it includes “prioritising the needs of Great British Railways passengers…providing value for money for passengers and taxpayers…expanding and improving the network…modernising working practices”— putting the customer’s needs above interests of the unions— “ensuring fair and transparent treatment of open access, freight and devolved operators…integrating track and train…and…supporting multimodal integration”. As track and train are integrated, this Bill should have been giving GBR the tools it needs to deliver the necessary dynamic management to undertake what is, in anyone’s book, a huge organisational change.

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21. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    I quite agree with my right hon. Friend. It seems that the Government have insisted on going back to the future: back to the 1970s, with state control and a revamped British Railways. They have even chosen the same logo, which I think tells us a lot about their intentions.

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22. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    I stand to correct the hon. Gentleman: the most punctual is, I believe, Greater Anglia, which services my constituency, but the point he makes is a good one. The greater integration of track and train brings greater efficiencies and leads to greater punctuality. That is exactly why that was Conservative party policy going into the last general election. What we do not need is increased control by perhaps heavily unionised workforces being given extra political power through nationalisation, taking the focus off the customer and focusing on the organisation and its purposes instead. We have the track and train being integrated, and this Bill should be giving GBR the tools it needs to deliver dynamic management. That is crucial for a big organisational change. It should be putting passengers first by giving GBR the power to sort out the worst of the union-imposed inefficient working practices. How can we seriously have a seven-day timetable staffed by a five-day working week, requiring voluntary overtime to staff just normal service? It is clearly ridiculous. This legislation should give GBR the power and, importantly, through this new clause, the political support it will need to fix that problem. We need to enable drivers to operate train doors where that is not yet standard practice and to fix similar Spanish practices. I think that is very unfair on the Spanish, by the way, who surprisingly run a much more efficient railway in some respects. We need to increase flexible driver training and operation, and so much more. Under new clause 54, tabled in my name, a working practices and productivity modernisation framework would provide GBR with that direction and give it the political cover to act.

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23. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    The hon. Member will be aware that I have already addressed that question in answer to one of his colleagues, but if international companies, whether state-owned or private, make a tender that is more attractive than any other operator applying for that tender, the people who benefit most are the taxpayers and service users of the United Kingdom. That is what happens.

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24. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    My right hon. Friend rightly says that the needs of disabled passengers such as his constituent, whom he so ably represents, are very important. That is one performance indicator that the Government should impose on GBR, but is it not ridiculous that we have to have Government action to impose KPIs on a railway? We should not be doing it this way. Instead of giving GBR a clear purpose and direction and then supporting it to deliver, the Government are imposing nationalisation, which will bring with it, as we see in the Bill, an inevitable explosion of bureaucracy, civil service plans, targets, long-term strategies and civil service rights to give guidance and direction, all in the name of the Secretary of State. What will be the impact of this on GBR over time? Will it lead to the dynamic management that this structural reorganisation must have if it is to have a hope of working? Let history be our guide. I cannot think of a single example of a nationalised industry in any country, either now or in the past, that is or was a byword for management dynamism. Members should try it themselves—we cannot think of one, can we? If GBR needs dynamic management, how can nationalisation possibly be the answer?

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25. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Railways Bill

    The Father of the House is nailing me down to a cast-iron assurance at the Dispatch Box. I am not in a position to do that, but I fully expect to be in this role in a future Government and look forward to the opportunity to encourage open access to provide the through train that the right hon. Gentleman needs or for GBR to do so. If GBR needs the dynamic management that we say it does, the Government are imposing for political reasons—very popular ones among their Back Benchers, as we have heard—a management system that has never worked in the past, but somehow it will be different this time. They have made their choice and we need to make the best of it. At the very least, this founding legislation should identify core key performance indicators which will survive the test of time in legislation. New clause 53 and amendment 158 provide them. They are detailed, but in essence, they focus on reliability, safety, comfort and on-board experience, affordability and value for money, passenger and network growth, financial sustainability and freight growth. Until covid, privatisation undeniably brought a focus on ridership that had been missing previously under nationalisation. I accept that private businesses are not trying to be nice; they work to increase ridership because it brings in fare income, which creates profit. They are not directed to do so; the natural incentives work to solve the problem. The innovation of privatisation, fought tooth and nail at the time by Labour and the unions, was supported by passengers, who voted with their feet. British Rail oversaw the long-term decline in ridership from about 1 billion in 1950, reducing in a straight line to 750 million in 1992. Privatisation immediately reversed that 40-year trend of decline, growing back ridership not just to 1 billion but to 1.7 billion in 2019. Under the Bill, GBR does not even have a passenger growth target. New clause 14 in my name would rectify that by requiring the Secretary of State to set GBR a passenger growth target and to keep it under review. How can the Government be against that? They have agreed to put one in for rail freight growth, but for some reason passengers are not listed in the Bill. Instead of these sensible, pro-growth and pro-passenger measures, we have clause after clause of political control, micromanagement of a nationalised structure, and unfettered rights of guidance and direction by the Secretary of State—by which we mean Department for Transport officials—over GBR at any time and for any reason, under clauses 7 and 9. It is a recipe for corporate paralysis where decisions are second-guessed by civil servants. Amendments 150 and 151 limit at least the giving of guidance by Department for Transport officials to issues where GBR fails to meet a key performance indicator, and the giving of mandatory directions to serious issues where GBR has missed KPIs and the chief executive has been removed in consequence. I fear that over time, as the corporate memory of the train operating companies fades and with it their focus on the customer experience, this focus will be replaced by other incentives. Heavily unionised workers of a nationalised industry well understand that the Government will now be politically exposed to industrial action as never before. It will be entirely rational for them—I do not blame them for doing so—to use this new bargaining power to increase pay and improve conditions, which sounds good, does it not? Why would they not do so? It does, however, increase costs and reduce productivity. Who benefits? Not the passenger or the taxpayer. Labour will be too weak to stand up for the taxpayer and for fare-paying passengers. Services will become more expensive, worse, less frequent—or all three—and we will be back to the rationing of resources as we see in every nationalised sector.

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26. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·James Wild

    Railways Bill

    I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak as we embark on the Government’s back to the future nationalisation plan. I will be speaking to new clause 35 and amendments 68 and 69, tabled in my name. Together, they are designed to ensure that Ministers and Great British Railways treat Ely junction as the nationally significant bottleneck it is, and that they make the progress that passengers, freight operators and local communities are entitled to expect. It is important to set out the context in which my amendments sit. Rail services to North West Norfolk are not good enough. There are too many late trains, cancellations and engineering weekend closures. Those unreliable rail services put people off travelling and have a damaging effect on the local economy, particularly the visitor economy. My constituents deserve better, and improvements to Ely Junction would help deliver that.

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27. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·James Wild

    Railways Bill

    The Minister referred to my new clause 35, and to £1 billion of funding to the north; how much is the east of England getting?

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28. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·James Cartlidge

    Defence Investment Plan

    (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the defence investment plan.

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29. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·James Cartlidge

    Defence Investment Plan

    I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this urgent question. Before I begin, may I pay tribute to the three Royal Navy personnel who tragically died in a helicopter crash last week? We offer our heartfelt condolences to their families from this side of the House. After months of delay, there has been considerable speculation that the defence investment plan will finally be delivered this week. Is that the case? Specifically, and to echo what Mr Speaker just said, there has been considerable speculation that the DIP may be published on Friday. As Mr Speaker said, this House is not sitting on Friday. Let us be clear: with a war on two fronts, this is not just another Government publication, but, given the context, a vital moment for our country and for this Parliament. Does the Minister understand that it would be totally unacceptable to all Members if the defence investment plan was published on a day when the House is not sitting? Can he explicitly confirm, when he gets up, that the defence investment plan will be published when the House is sitting? You need no reminding, Madam Deputy Speaker, of the total shambles in this Chamber last June when Labour published its strategic defence review and gave advance sight of that market sensitive document to the defence industry from 8 am that morning, while I, as shadow Defence Secretary, never got to see a copy before responding from this Dispatch Box. So will the Minister also give an absolute assurance that, whenever the DIP is published, first sight—before the document is shared with any other external stakeholders—will be reserved for Members of this House? There is a reason the DIP has been delayed so long, which is that Labour still has not worked out how to pay for it, but former Labour Defence Secretary George Robertson and former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair both know the answer: the Government should cut welfare to fund defence. If the Minister disagrees and believes the welfare budget should not be touched to fund defence, will he at least tell us whether the defence investment plan will set out a fully funded path to 3% of GDP, and, crucially, whether the Treasury has signed off the defence investment plan yet? Last week the Secretary of State said at Defence oral questions that “the Prime Minister is determined that we publish the defence investment plan before the NATO summit.”—[Official Report, 1 June 2026; Vol. 786, c. 840.] That begs the question: which NATO summit and which Prime Minister?

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30. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·James Cartlidge

    Defence Investment Plan

    On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before you took the Chair, you will have heard the very strong statement from Mr Speaker about the prospect of the defence investment plan being delivered when the House is not sitting. His words were that it would be “an utter kick in the face” to Parliament if that were to happen. I have raised this directly with the Minister, and colleagues from three different Opposition parties have asked the explicit and specific question as to whether it is going to be delivered when the House is sitting. Surely, given that this is such a significant plan in the context that we face internationally, we should be entitled to confirmation from the Minister that it will be not be delivered when the House is not sitting.

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31. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Helen Whately

    Local Government Reform

    My hon. Friend is making a really important point about local identity and about how important it is that Ministers listen. We have a Minister here today listening. I want to talk about the local government reorganisation in Kent, an area that has an incredibly strong historic identity. It is actually England’s oldest county, with a history going back more than 2,000 years—it was the Kingdom of Kent—yet under this local government reorganisation, Kent is due to be broken up, and it is not even getting a mayor. It will be fragmented into multiple parts. The population between Kent and Medway is over 2 million. At the moment, Kent has an identity and a voice. It is set to lose both through this local government reorganisation, and the case for substantial savings simply is not there. The local government reorganisation needs to be looked at again, and I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that, at the moment, the proposals are a shambles.

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32. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Harriet Cross

    Economic Growth

    Aberdeen is the only UK city expected to grow by less than 1% between now and 2028, not least because of the UK’s anti-oil and gas policies. The Rosebank production facility has now arrived at the field; it is ready and just waiting for the Government to permit it. Rosebank would bring £25 billion of investment into the economy and 2,000 jobs. Would the Secretary of State welcome that economic boost and those jobs for Scotland? If so, when did he last speak to the Prime Minister or the Energy Secretary about having Rosebank permitted?

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33. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Renewables Sector: Employment

    8. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on levels of employment in the renewables sector in Scotland.

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34. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Renewables Sector: Employment

    We are losing over 1,000 jobs a month in our oil and gas industry, and despite what the Secretary of State has just said, we are not seeing a similar uptick in green jobs. Skilled workers are losing their jobs in oil and gas, and are actually leaving the country. The Government’s actions are making the United Kingdom poorer and less secure, and we are waving goodbye to highly skilled jobs. How can the Secretary of State honestly tell this House that there is a transition going on?

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35. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Draft Clean Air Zones Central Services (Fees) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

    It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Wishart. Across the country, drivers, particularly of older, often less expensive vehicles, have been hurt by the fees imposed by low emission zones and so-called clean air zones. Between ultra low emission zones and clean air zones, it is estimated that over £1 billion has been extracted from the public who are just trying to get about and live their lives: travelling to work, taking the kids to school, completing the family shop, getting to medical appointments or visiting relatives. Despite clear guidance that clean air zones are not to be used to raise revenue, in practice they are used for precisely that, generating significant money for the authorities that will be impacted by today’s regulations. If we consider two of the largest authorities impacted by the changes, Bristol’s clean air zone brought in over £22 million in 2024-25 from daily charges and penalty notices. That brought a transfer to Bristol’s reserves of over £16 million, which contributed to the spending of £14 million on other transport projects. Meanwhile, a 2026 report by Birmingham city council showed that the authority had spent over £92 million from net surplus revenue since its scheme was put in place. Of that £92 million, over £73 million was spent on active travel and transforming the city centre. While these can be worthy goals, it reflects a complete disregard for the motorist, with only £10 million being spent on issues such as road safety. That is indicative of the fact that authorities have repeatedly used clean air zones as a mechanism for funding other projects. The Minister will no doubt recognise that is not the purpose of the system but a by-product of it, and one that these regulations will impact. I listened carefully to the Minister’s speech, in which he extolled the virtues of clean air. Getting clean air is a worthy goal, but it is not the stick that works on this occasion; it is the carrot. It is using technology as our friend—even modern diesel cars are cleaner than their predecessors. It is the evolution of technology and leaning on future technologies, from battery electric to synthetic fuels and more, that will deliver clean air, not just punishing people for what they happen to be able to afford today. The draft regulations will impose a fee on authorities that use the central services function operated by the Government. On the face of it, there should be nothing to be worried about. According to the Government, there will be no impact on motorists. However, it would be naive in the extreme to believe that further costs will not be imposed on drivers—in other words, that these increased charges will not just be passed on to drivers who are already struggling with the cost of fuel, road duty, insurance costs and so much more. The Minister had the audacity to reference fuel duty, which is one of the weakest of the Government’s U-turns. They tried to pretend that they were keeping it low, but then they U-turned and said, “It won’t be September that we put it up; it will be a few months later.” The Government are still going to put fuel duty up and impose this additional burden on motorists. Are we really to believe that local authorities, which have revelled in using drivers as a cash cow, will allow the multiple millions that will be transferred to the Government on the basis of this increased fee to simply vanish overnight? Let me be absolutely clear: the Conservatives oppose this instrument. Our opposition to the proposal is because we are concerned that the effect will not merely be about cost recovery for the central services but will encourage further action from local authorities to raise yet more money from drivers. That is a consequence of these changes that I fear the Government have not properly considered. Furthermore, clean air zones are meant to be transitory, to improve air quality—although I question whether they do—and then find alternative solutions. That is why local authorities were strongly encouraged to find other mechanisms to control air quality, without resorting to clean air zones. Allowing these services to be used until 2031 suggests that there is no clear path for moving away from the existing rules, which cost motorists so dearly. Driving is not a luxury. For millions, driving a car is necessary for daily life. It is freedom and a right that all of our constituents should be able to enjoy unencumbered by the state, whether national or local. Driving is practical. A weekly shop for a family of five cannot be carried on the back of a bike. The measures that Labour is introducing walk all over the realities of life for millions for whom the car is essential. This is Labour’s war on the motorist, and it is unjust. This instrument fans the flames of that war on the motorist, and we will oppose it.

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36. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Draft Clean Air Zones Central Services (Fees) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

    If local authorities pass on the fee, what will be the Government’s response?

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37. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Railways Bill

    One concern that has been repeatedly raised during scrutiny is that Great British Railways will both operate services and have significant influence by being the directing mind over access to the network. If a future Hull Trains application were to compete with a GBR-operated service for scarce capacity on the east coast main line—I know that the Minister, like me, uses Hull Trains—who does he believe passengers would trust to make that decision: the independent regulator or GBR itself?

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38. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Railways Bill

    Does my hon. Friend agree with new clause 85, which would make the interests of disabled people a key performance indicator for Great British Railways? I have been contacted by Katrina, a constituent from Sproatley, who has an upper limb disability as a result of thalidomide and relies heavily on rail travel. There are many services on which she cannot pre-book a seat, which for many of us is a convenience but for her is essential, because she finds being jostled frightening. She needs to have her interests recognised by the railway. Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that it might be very useful for the Government to accept new clause 85?

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39. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Railways Bill

    The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech on this subject. Earlier I referred to Katrina, my constituent with thalidomide syndrome who struggles to reserve a seat and feel safe, and to use the railway as she wants to. Does the hon. Lady agree that those are the tests we need to see changed, so that people like Katrina can use the railway safely and see their needs recognised?

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40. 10 Jun 2026·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Railways Bill

    I speak to the staff on Hull Trains, which are used by the Secretary of State’s ministerial colleagues—to her left, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), and to her right, the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather). I speak to the customers of Hull Trains and I see the huge economic benefit that Hull Trains, an open access operator, has brought to our region and all the other areas it serves down to London. They are fearful of the perverse incentives of a GBR that does not necessarily have any regard for open access operators. What is there in the Bill to protect Hull Trains when it seeks access to rail track in future?

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