Engagements
We are not the ones referring ourselves to ethics advisers. The fact is that he is floundering. He—[Interruption.] Perhaps he should have a read—[Interruption.]
5,779 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
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Engagements
Labour Members can do the fake cheers as much as they like. The whole country knows what a mess of the economy they are making. It is clear that taxes are going up for everyone—except, perhaps, the Deputy Prime Minister. I warned before the summer that we would face weeks of speculation about which taxes would be going up. The former head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said: “This sort of…uncertainty is actively damaging to the economy.” And now we find that we have to wait until 26 November for a Budget. Does the Prime Minister really think that the country, or the markets, can wait that long?
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Engagements
This is desperate stuff from the Prime Minister. This week, he had another reset. This morning, the Prime Minister scrapped his five missions. After scrapping his three foundations, his six first steps for change and his seven pillars for growth, the truth is that this man has got no clue—zero clue. But this is serious. The Prime Minister’s incompetence is hurting real people. They are losing their jobs and the cost of everything is going up, from energy bills to the weekly shop. This is a crisis made in Downing Street. Is it not the truth that he is too weak to change course, and too arrogant to admit he got things wrong?
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Hospitality Sector
As Members of Parliament, we receive campaign email after campaign email every week on dozens of issues, from environmental matters to recent calls for a general election. Amid all that, there is one concern that continues to cut through: support for our pubs and the wider hospitality sector. Why? Because the UK’s hospitality sector is more than just about business. It is a vital part of the social fabric of our communities. Whether it is the Nook café in Anstey, the Ex-Servicemen’s Club in Groby or the Coach and Horses in Markfield, these are not simply places to eat and drink; they are places of refuge from everyday life, places where people come together and places that sustain the spirit of our towns and villages. Yet what do we see from this Government? With Starmer the pub harmer at the helm, it seems they are determined to call last orders on our fantastic hospitality sector. Since the general election, we have witnessed a series of reckless decisions that have shattered business confidence. Take the Chancellor’s disastrous autumn Budget, which slashed the rates relief for the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors and imposed damaging rises in employer’s national insurance contributions; or look at the Secretary of State for Business and Trade attempting to push one of the most damaging employment Bills in a generation through Parliament—and I know so, because I sat on the Bill Committee. The legislation will do more to hinder job creation than to help workers. In my own constituency, I have spoken to countless publicans and small business owners who are feeling the strain—none more so than the Royal Oak in Kirby Muxloe, which recently won my Mid Leicestershire best pub competition. Local hospitality businesses in Mid Leicestershire pose the same questions to me time after time. Should they raise their prices and risk losing customers, or should they cut staff and reduce their opening hours just to stay afloat? Neither choice is fair and neither is sustainable. Across the country, we have seen the consequences: 83,000 hospitality jobs lost as a direct result of this Government’s actions. And what for the future? We know the Chancellor is facing a self-inflicted £40 billion black hole as a result of her Budget, and with the recent reshuffle at No. 10, with supporters of high taxes and high spending being promoted, there is a worry among businesses in Mid Leicestershire that the worst is yet to come. It does not have to be this way. If the Government would only listen to industry experts such as UKHospitality and the British Beer and Pub Association, or to brewers such as Punch Pubs and Everards, we could actually help the industry rather than hinder it. I urge the Government to act boldly and continue to cut business rate reliefs for the hospitality sector, reduce duty on draught beer and lower VAT on products sold in hospitality settings, just as many of our European neighbours do. It is time that the Government stopped punishing the sector and listened to the rational arguments of those who work in and care so much about the industry they love.
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Property Taxes
Residents in Bromley, like those in Bexley, have been hit by the Mayor of London’s 77% increase in his share of council tax since he took office, alongside various driving taxes. Does my hon. Friend agree that this increase in property taxes would be the straw that broke the camel’s back for many residents?
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Property Taxes
As the hon. Member represents Birmingham Northfield, does he believe that residents in Birmingham deserve to get their bins collected in return for their council tax payments?
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Hospitality Sector
May I first thank Alex Leitch from my office for helping me to research what was going to be a long speech? I will use just little bit of it, given the limited time that I have in which to speak. I spent weeks in my constituency over the summer recess, as other colleagues did in theirs. I spent one week volunteering with small businesses and another visiting pubs in my constituency. I heard at first hand from many owners and employees about the dire situation they face, not just because of Labour’s increase in national insurance contributions, but because of its crippling Employment Rights Bill. As someone with a small business background, I am appalled that these policies have been cloaked as favourable to the working person. I have always been in favour of supporting hospitality, which is the cornerstone of our communities. In my constituency alone, the hospitality sector added more than £76.6 million to our economy, and the hospitality sector in general is growing at almost double the rate of the UK economy. The hospitality industry is one of the highest-taxed sectors in the UK economy, and I am very disappointed that the Government have continued to hammer our service industries with NIC increases and minimum wage increases, all while boosting the salaries of people like train drivers, who are already on £65,000.
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Hospitality Sector
There is not enough time. Others have already spoken about the retail, hospitality and leisure relief scheme in 2023, so I will not dwell on that. Let me just say that the hospitality businesses I speak to remain disappointed that the 75% discount applied previously has not been adhered to. Small independent businesses like the Kitchen Croxley in my constituency have warned me of the job losses that will become inevitable just to keep their doors open on account of Labour’s policy changes. If we continue down this path, we will only see higher levels of inflation and unemployment and increasing reliance on our universal credit programmes. I have no doubt that, despite putting an enormous additional £40 billion burden on British taxpayers—taking the tax burden to its highest ever level—the apparent lack of foresight will only lead to more dismay in the future. Other Members have spoken about the number of pubs that have closed, as well as the job losses in the hospitality sector. However, one point I have previously mentioned and I think is relevant to this debate is the lack of business experience among the Cabinet. Having run a small business and understanding the challenges associated with that would, I hope, lead to a better policy position than we are currently seeing. I look forward to further U-turns from this Government, because where they are doing the right thing, Conservative Members will support them. There is a long list of things they could be doing better, and I hope that when the Minister responds, he will give at least a glimmer of hope to the small businesses that are struggling.
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Maternity Care
Once again, this Labour Government have failed women and girls through their inaction and blinkered mindset on safety in their communities and their slow action on the 2024 birth trauma inquiry report by Theo Clarke and the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield). That report recommended a national maternity strategy, which we committed to. Over a year on, a so-called rapid inquiry announced in June only has a chair with no experience in maternity services and an expectation to fix this national scandal by the end of the year. That is asking too much of one woman to support many women across the country. How will the Minister address ongoing and widespread concerns, which we have heard again in the Chamber, react to the existing evidence and stop the belief that many women are being failed by this Labour Government?
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Topical Questions
Writer and comedian Graham Linehan was apparently arrested by five police officers at Heathrow, then questioned about three tweets that he says were based on his gender-critical views, a belief protected by the Equality Act 2010. Despite this Government’s claim to protect free speech, Mr Linehan has been banned from using that platform as part of his bail conditions. Can the Minister confirm whether it is now a crime in Britain to tell potentially offensive jokes, and whether those who do so may face armed arrest?
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Hospitality Sector
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have received hospitality below the threshold from UKHospitality, the British Beer and Pub Association, the Campaign for Real Ale and probably the British Institute of Innkeeping. Hospitality, as has been said, offers more than just a place for food and drink. With Pub is The Hub, I was fortunate to see pubs in Cornwall that offer everything from the last village shop to jobs, clubs and even the village hairdresser and barbers. I think of the venues that provide drop-in sessions to tackle loneliness and isolation in our communities, and I think of all the pubs, cafés and restaurants up and down the country that fund grassroots sports and raise enormous amounts of money for charities and local good causes. That is why the previous Government worked so hard to try to support them. They scrapped Labour’s beer duty escalator. There was a series of freezes and cuts in alcohol duty, and a new draught beer duty differential, so that a pint in a pub always pays less duty than equivalent beer bought in supermarkets. We had 75% business rate relief for hospitality businesses, taking three quarters off their bills. We must not forget the tens of billions of pounds invested in supporting hospitality during the pandemic and as we recovered from the effects of covid. Even though that support made the difference between surviving and going under for many, it was still tight. Many still carry a lot of covid debt and they still need our support. Instead, they have suffered a continuous onslaught of taxes and higher costs caused by Labour’s choices since the election. The changes to national insurance contributions, the national minimum wage and business rates have piled an additional £3.4 billion a year on to businesses, and the Government have hit hospitality businesses that rely on many part-time staff particularly hard. It is no wonder that eight in 10 operators have been forced to raise their prices since April. Business rates more than doubling for a small independent pub or café have meant that thousands of pounds is out of the till before a single pint has been pulled or a single breakfast served. Those are fixed costs that many just cannot meet. Some 69% of businesses are running below required capacity because of staff and cost pressures. One in eight are planning to cut sites and two thirds have cut staff hours. As has been said, the chair of UKHospitality put it plainly last month when she said: “At a time when the country needs jobs, the Government should be encouraging hospitality to grow and create jobs, not tax them out of existence.” As we prepare for the pre-Christmas Budget, we need the Government to take this issue seriously and to take hospitality needs seriously. They need to fix national insurance contributions by raising the threshold, particularly for smaller venues. They should introduce exemptions for young people and returners to work. We need them to reconsider their plans to pile further burdens on small businesses next year. We need them to come good on their promise to reform business rates and make sure that when that reform finally happens, those businesses are paying bills that are lower, not higher than what they were paying last year. Finally, the Government should look at how some flexibility can be added to covid loan repayments so that those loans do not threaten otherwise viable businesses.
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Hospitality Sector
Hospitality is at the heart of our local communities. It is the best of British: the pubs we visit for a pint or two, the restaurants where we go to celebrate a special occasion, or the bars that power our night-time economy. My constituency is home to some truly incredible hospitality businesses—if you have never been for a night out in Yarm, you have never lived. We do not love pubs just because we love pints. The great British pub brings communities together. They tackle isolation, provide a safe environment where people can consume alcohol, support more than a million jobs and help many youngsters get their first foot on the employment ladder. The best ideas are usually the ones we come up with in the pub. Pubs are places where community spirit is found and fostered. If I had more time, I would tell hon. Members about the innovative and generous support shown to local charities by the Locomotion in Eaglescliffe and the Griffin in Thornaby. Like several MPs, I host my own pub awards, recognising and celebrating the best of our local pubs. This year’s winner was Courtney and the incredible team at the Myton House Farm pub in Ingleby Barwick. I am looking forward to celebrating more places in the coming years, such as Luna Blu, a fantastic local tapas restaurant and bar in Yarm; the Derry in Long Newton, where people can get a warm welcome, great grub and all the village gossip while enjoying one of the best beer gardens around—if Carlsberg made beer gardens, the Derry in Long Newton would be its aspiration—or the Masham in Hartburn, a must-visit eatery that arguably serves the best parmos on the planet. I would love to tell the House more about the incredible hospitality businesses in Stockton West, but time does not allow.
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Hospitality Sector
Very much so; I could not agree more. These are opportunities for young people to get a first foot on the ladder in the job market. Between October 2023 and July 2024, the number of hospitality businesses increased and the number of jobs in the sector increased by 22,000. Surprisingly, after Labour’s Budget, in exactly the same time period, we have seen 89,000 job losses—89,000 people unable to provide for their families or live out their aspirations and dreams. It is shameful, it is a disgrace, and people did not vote Labour for that. Speaking to landlords in my part of the world, I am told how real the fight is to save the great British pub. Labour’s jobs tax, its Employment Rights Bill and the slashing of small business rates relief have meant that 89,000 jobs have already been lost in the hospitality sector, and UKHospitality believes that the figure could be as many as 200,000 by the end of the financial year. Labour’s jobs tax means it costs £900 more to employ the average employee, meaning some hospitality businesses are unable to provide opportunities for those youngsters to get their first job. It is part of the reason 14% more people in this country are unemployed and left unable to support their families or fulfil their dreams and ambitions—
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Hospitality Sector
The hon. Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) should not shake her head—that is true. It is a fact. In the last Parliament, I campaigned for the 75% discount on business rates for leisure, hospitality and retail businesses. It was game changing for many, but with the stroke of a pen, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box and ended that lifeline thrown to many employers. With the average pub having seen its business rates increase from £3,938 to £9,451, and the average restaurant from £5,051 to a whopping £12,122, the Government are taxing the sector to death. Two hospitality businesses are closing every day and it is thought that more than—
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Methanol Poisoning (Travel Advice)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require travel advice issued by the Secretary of State and other persons to include guidance about the risks of methanol poisoning; and for connected purposes. I have been working closely on this issue on behalf of one of my constituents, Chloe Lassetter, who alongside her family, Sue, Neil, Tom and Amanda, have been fighting to raise awareness of the dangers of methanol poisoning abroad following the tragic death of Simone White last year. As Members may have seen from media coverage at the time, Simone was travelling with her friend Bethany in Laos. They were staying in a small riverside town about two hours north of the capital. It is a hub for backpackers travelling across south-east Asia. It was there that Simone and her friend consumed free shots of alcohol offered at the hostel. The next day both felt unwell, but they carried on with their plans. Hours later, after boarding a bus to their next destination, things worsened: Bethany fainted; Simone vomited. They were eventually taken to a local hospital, but doctors had no idea what was wrong and initially suspected food poisoning. Still confused and deteriorating, the girls made it to a private hospital. I cannot imagine how frightened and confused they must have been at this point, but sadly, by then it was too late for Simone. She started having seizures during dialysis and was eventually taken for emergency brain surgery. The surgery relieved the pressure but caused bleeding and the other side of her brain started to swell. The results confirming methanol poisoning were not available until two weeks later, but by then Simone had sadly already passed away. Although Bethany recovered following her hospitalisation, six other young people fell victim to suspected methanol poisoning, having drunk at the same hostel. Two young Australians, two young Danish women and an American all lost their lives. As the Australian Prime Minister said in November, this is “every parent’s worst nightmare”. My heart goes out to all the families who lost loved ones in the most unbelievably tragic circumstances. Over the last year, I have learnt so much about Simone, who was a much-loved young woman. She had a brilliant life ahead of her, and when I attended her funeral, it was clear that she was deeply loved by her friends and family. A year ago, like so many of us here, I did not know much about methanol poisoning, yet over 1,000 people die from it every single year worldwide. This is such a huge danger, but barely any of us know about it. I also went backpacking after university but never knew about the dangers, and sadly, the same is true of so many of our young people. That must change. For Members who are less aware than we should be, methanol is tasteless and has only a faint smell, making it impossible to tell if a drink has been contaminated. When consumed, it can lead to a coma, convulsions, blindness, nervous system damage and death. Medical specialists say drinking as little as 25 ml of methanol can be fatal, but it is sometimes added to drinks because it is cheaper than alcohol. Since their devastating loss, Simone’s family have campaigned tirelessly to prevent similar tragedies from affecting other families. Alongside Simone’s friend Bethany, they have been raising awareness of the dangers of methanol poisoning, and it was an honour earlier this year to help to arrange a parliamentary drop-in session on the subject, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) and the hon. Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson). The family were joined by representatives of the travel industry, the National Poisons Information Service, the British Toxicology Society and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to educate MPs, and the message was clear: awareness saves lives, but only when Government guidance is accurate, clear and consistent. Sadly, current official travel advice is falling short. In some high-risk countries, there is very little warning at all. Where advice does exist, it is vague and understated. Travellers are told that certain drinks “might carry a risk” or that they “should exercise caution.” This is not a matter of caution: this is about a lethal, preventable danger. I appreciate that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has updated the health section of the travel advice on its website, but we must do more to make the warnings clearer and more explicit, so that information is more readily available to everyone. The Government’s Travel Aware website has an informative section on methanol poisoning, but more must be done to make that advice and guidance better known to young people before they travel. As things stand, they really have to search to find it. My Bill, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington and the hon. Members for Dartford, for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) and for Lewisham North (Vicky Foxcroft), proposes a straightforward, proportionate solution. It does not attempt to police alcohol sales abroad. It does not require costly programmes or enforcement. It simply requires the Government to provide prominent, clear and consistent guidance about methanol poisoning for countries where the risk is known to exist. Other Governments have already taken steps to warn their citizens. Australia’s Smartraveller service provides unambiguous, practical advice and reaches young travellers through targeted campaigns. We should do no less, and we must not be left behind. Families such as Simone’s, who have endured unimaginable grief, are not asking for the impossible. They are asking for honesty, clarity and actionable guidance, so that other families do not have to suffer the same loss. We have already shown in this House that collaboration between families, experts and parliamentarians can and does raise awareness. Now it is time to turn awareness into action. I know that Ministers in the Foreign Office are well aware of Simone’s story, as we have exchanged many letters on the topic, and the Foreign Office kindly hosted me, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington and the family at a meeting earlier this year. I thank them for their engagement to date and I look forward to continue working with them, as I know they understand the grave risks at stake. As Simone’s mother, Sue White, said: “If it can happen to Simone, it can happen to anybody”. So let’s start the process today to prevent future tragedies. I commend the Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Laura Trott, Gareth Bacon, Jim Dickson, Tom Morrison and Vicky Foxcroft present the Bill. Laura Trott accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 29 May 2026, and to be printed (Bill 300).
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Hospitality Sector
Is the hon. Lady aware of the comments in the Scottish Parliament yesterday by the chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance? He said that “the first half of this year was brutal”, and that the increase in employer’s national insurance contributions has resulted in a “loss of jobs”. Is he wrong?
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Hospitality Sector
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech about the importance of these businesses to her constituency. Does she agree that those businesses are often the very heart of local communities, and that if residents lose them, they lose a vital part of their community?
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Hospitality Sector
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and demonstrating why he is such a great champion for Teesside. Does he agree that many businesses are not just facing the prospect of closing, but of possibly laying off more and more jobs? In my constituency, Mainstreet Trading, a fantastic award-winning bookshop, deli and café, wrote to all its customers earlier this year to say that opening hours were going to be reduced because of Labour’s tax on jobs. Is he experiencing the same in his constituency?
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Hospitality Sector
It was a great moment when my daughter pulled a pint for me as part of her duties as a barmaid in her first job as she worked her way through university. Although that job put vital cash in her pocket, it also gave her people skills and proof on her CV that she was reliable and trustworthy with cash valuable stock. Her work today is far removed from that bar, but the foundations of her career were laid there. Yet across Dumfries and Galloway, hospitality businesses tell me that they are pausing giving youngsters like my daughter that all-important first job. The increase in employer’s national insurance contributions to 15%, and the lowering to £5,000 of the secondary threshold, are Labour’s dreaded £900-a-head black spot curse on bright youngsters ready for the world of work. In Scotland, matters are made worse by the anti-business SNP, which is not passing on moneys intended for business rate relief, and whose multiple unit pricing alcohol regime makes Scotch whisky more expensive in the land of its birth than in many other places. Shrouded in pious health messaging, MUP has had little discernible effect on problem drinking and seems more like the SNP fun police given free rein. Spirits prices are high; business spirits are low. No doubt the wealth-finder general, the new Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister—tough on growth, tough on the causes of growth—will seek new ways to squeeze hospitality. Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is technically a fruit; wisdom is being wise enough not to put a tomato in the fruit salad. The Pensions Minister is, improbably, holding the pen on the nightmare-before-Christmas Budget. He has a lot of knowledge about taxes, but has he the wisdom not to deploy them in the growth basket? Hospitality is a canary in the economic coalmine. The fact that pubs are closing and restaurants open only a couple of days a week at best is a leitmotif for this anti-business Government. They think that business is a dripping roast to be devoured to fund ruinous policies such as the Chagos surrender deal. Terrifyingly, hospitality is supping in the last chance saloon, but surely it is last orders for this maladroit Labour Government? Haven’t they got three homes to go to?
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Hospitality Sector
My hon. Friend referred to the Minister’s representations to the Chancellor, but I think the Minister said he was not going to make any representations to the Chancellor.
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Property Taxes
The hon. Gentleman says that he cannot speculate on individual tax measures, but will he deny that the No. 11 machine has been leaking these stories to the national press over the summer?
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Property Taxes
The hon. Member and a number of his colleagues have referred to the reduction in interest rates as the sign of a growing economy. If he even googled it, he would realise that the first explanation for the Bank of England reducing interest rates is that it is worried about a weakening economy. Does he not realise that?
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Property Taxes
I have been told that we are speculating today, so I do not know whether I have to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. However, in an abundance of caution, I declare that I am a homeowner and I also have properties for rent. The kids in Downing Street—whether in No. 11 or No. 10—think it is clever to fly kites about tax rises. We had it last year, from 4 July onwards, with briefings to the press saying there would be tax rises because of a wholly fabricated £22 billion black hole in the economy. That was fabricated as a fig leaf for tax rises that were not in the manifesto. From July to October, those stories dripped in one after the other—and what was the impact? It has been the collapse in business confidence to pandemic levels, the collapse in consumer confidence as a result, and unemployment beginning its inexorable rise month after month for every single month that this Government have been in office. Now the Government are at it again. They have not realised their past terrible mistake, and they are doing it once more. Despite raising taxes by £40 billion last October and increasing borrowing by another £32 billion, they have created a genuine black hole, which the National Institute of Economic and Social Research suggests means that about £51 billion is required in higher taxes or lower spending. The briefings have started again—a property levy on mansions, the replacement of stamp duty with a national property tax, national insurance contributions on rental income and capital gains tax on primary residences with a value of more than £1.5 million. Even Which? magazine has said there may be changes to the in-life gifting regime to reduce inheritance tax.
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Property Taxes
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Do the Government not recognise that posturing from the Government Benches does not come for free? Construction activity has had a bigger fall recently than in the last five years due to the leaks from No. 10 and No. 11. The commercial property sector is in recession. There are hiring freezes and staff are being laid off. People are losing their jobs because of the Government’s kite flying. Residential property prices had a surprise fall last year. We are asked to believe that growth is the No. 1 priority of this Government. They say they are going to build 1.5 million houses during this Parliament. Merely saying that does not make it true, when their policies serve to do exactly the opposite. If Members do not believe me, look at the markets—they are not politicians. Look at the 30-year gilts that the Government are paying today. Government debt is now running at 5.73%. That is the highest rate this century. The markets think that further tax increases will damage growth. That means they will damage the fiscal environment in the future. We will have less tax in the future because of the tax-raising decisions the Government are apparently going to take in November. Labour is planning, literally, to rob Peter to pay Paul. This is no way to run an economy. As someone much more famous than me once said, the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. Stop now. Stop before it is too late to avoid a vicious debt spiral. I fear—I genuinely fear this—that the Government will be forced to cut spending. They have two options: they can be forced to do so by the markets in a chaotic fiscal event, or they can take the responsibility of government seriously and take the difficult but necessary decisions on spending that the country needs them to take as a responsible Government. Otherwise, they will be swept away by their own incompetence.
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Property Taxes
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. He mentions the hospitality sector. Does he recognise the Government’s cruel decision to reduce the business rates discount for the hospitality sector from 75% to 40%? It does not sound too bad, but it is actually a tax increase of 140% on the struggling hospitality sector. What impact does he think that has on future investment plans?
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Hospitality Sector
As we have heard, hospitality is a crucial part of our economy. Our pubs, restaurants, hotels and other businesses employ 3.5 million people—over 5,000 in my North West Norfolk constituency alone, contributing £136 million to my local economy—but this Government’s decisions have hammered the sector. As the owner of the Crown and Mitre pub in King’s Lynn, which I highly recommend, recently put it in the local Lynn News: “How many rising costs can you face before collapsing face-first into the till?” Will’s grim humour says it all. He says that costs are piling up faster than a “bad souffle in an over-heated oven”. But the reality is no laughing matter. When we were in Government, the Conservatives supported the sector. We boosted growth and helped it to recover from the difficult decisions that we had to make during covid. That record stands in sharp contrast to what we are seeing today. All Members will know from talking to hospitality businesses in their constituencies this summer just how worried they are about the increased costs. When I was at the Rose and Crown in Harpley during the summer, talking to the team that reopened that pub and had pubs across Norfolk, I heard just how damaging the increase in the national insurance rate has been. The lowering of the threshold to £5,000 has also been a real challenge. That change alone has brought 750,000 workers in the sector into national insurance for the first time—and what has happened? Well, as UKHospitality’s TaxedOut campaign shows, Labour’s decisions have already cost nearly 90,000 jobs in the sector, particularly hitting younger people, part-time workers and those starting out in entry-level positions, which they can then grow into the career that the Minister said that he hoped more people would have an opportunity to do. The jobs tax is costing the sector as a whole £3.4 billion a year. Little wonder that a third are now operating at a loss. Three quarters have had to put up their prices to cope with the increased costs that they are facing, and two thirds are reducing the hours of their existing staff, and are not taking on the people that they otherwise would have done. Little wonder, too, that UKHospitality has called the Government’s decisions a “hammer blow” for the sector. But it is not just the jobs tax; the Government’s choice to almost halve hospitality and leisure business rates relief from 75% to 40% will hit a quarter of a million businesses. I was very surprised, as I am sure the sector would be, to hear the Minister boasting about this damaging decision, given that the average pub is paying £5,500 more and restaurants are paying £9,000 extra. How does he expect them to absorb those costs without the consequences for employment that we are seeing? Depressingly, there is even more to come. The Deputy Prime Minister’s Employment Rights Bill—or whoever picks it up after her—will add £5 billion a year to employer costs, making it less likely that firms will take on people. Our hospitality firms are resilient, and they need to be with all they are having to weather. This Government are putting them under the cosh. With creativity, investment and the high-quality staff across the sector, hospitality firms can attract customers and support our local communities. I have seen many impressive hospitality businesses in my constituency, including ones that have newly reopened—the Ship in Brancaster, the Chequers in Thornham, the Pub in Clenchwarton, and new enterprises such as Nopa and VinedMe, which are also in Thornham—but the Government are making it far too hard for firms like those to thrive and grow. Members have the opportunity today to back our very sensible motion to back the sector, to think again about the doubling of business rates, and to amend the damaging Employment Rights Bill to protect seasonal and flexible work. With borrowing costs at a 27-year high, hospitality businesses cannot afford for a Government to be making such damaging economic choices. Ahead of the Budget, the Chancellor and her team of tax raisers should listen to employers and take action to live within our means, otherwise more pubs, more venues and more jobs will be lost.
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Use of Drones in Defence
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I know you take a great interest in these matters because you served on the Defence Committee when I was a Minister, and I am sure you regard this debate with great interest. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) on introducing this debate, because the issue of drones is so timely, interesting and, I dare say, urgent for defence procurement, defence training and all aspects of defence. He made a brilliant speech. It was not only delivered well but made some important and substantive points on, for example, countering drones, which should be considered as important in this debate as the acquisition of our own strike-reconnaissance capabilities and so on. I am pleased that we have the Veterans Minister here, and I know he is also very passionate about this subject. I quickly say, especially as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is here, that people are still the most important capability, despite everything we will say in this debate. I hope he will be as robust as possible in standing up for our veterans in the weeks ahead, because this stuff will come to a head. All of us who care about the British armed forces have to stand by those who served all those years ago, so that we do not undermine the morale of those who serve today. On the key subject of drones, my main argument is that they are an amazing opportunity for the United Kingdom to fundamentally modernise its armed forces in a way we have not done for a long time. In many ways, we are quite lucky, because drones bring mass and lethality to our existing forces relatively cheaply and relatively quickly. Above all, and this is underestimated, we are in an amazing position to capitalise on that in many ways, for reasons that have not been fully shared with the public. I will now try to do that. The day I became Defence Procurement Minister in April 2023, there was a vote in the House of Commons. People came up to congratulate me as I walked through the Lobby, and every other colleague said, “By the way, you’ve got Ajax,” which is what defence procurement was known for at the time. Two months later, I made a statement to the House about Ajax resuming field training with the Army and the Household Cavalry, and how it is a highly capable vehicle. However, I had a sense, as Defence Procurement Minister, that there was a parallel universe. There was business as usual, with long procurement times and many delays under successive Governments—the old way. On the other hand, there was what we were doing in the MOD for Ukraine. It was like a parallel universe. We acted at pace for Ukraine with incredible scale and innovation. We got thousands and thousands of shells from around the world and delivered them to Ukraine. It was an incredible exercise, of which I am very proud. I am also very proud that the current Government have continued it. Nowhere was this difference more striking than in drones. I would not quite call it an epiphany—I do not know the right word—but my most memorable moment as Defence Procurement Minister came in the autumn of 2023, when I visited an SME in the south of England. It had developed a drone—at the time it was highly sensitive, dare I say classified—that went on to be used in Ukraine. It was a highly effective long-range, one-way attack drone, now a matter of public record. This SME, not a big prime, had developed a drone relatively cheaply and very quickly, and it made an impact on the frontline against a peer military of Europe. That was extraordinary. Revolutionary. I was so struck by it, but what really got me—the thing that is most important about the uncrewed area—is that the SME was getting feedback from the frontline within days, if not hours. It was using that feedback to immediately upgrade the capability by changing various important but relatively subtle parameters. I was immersed, as all Defence Procurement Ministers are, in the endless emails about delays to the latest big platform, or whatever it was, so I was struck that there is a different way. What did I do about it? As my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) and the hon. Member for Strangford said, I launched the drone strategy in February 2024. It was relatively simple. The Secretary of State always says it was only 12 pages, but the truth is that it was a lot shorter when it was first presented to me. I was pretty furious about that, because to me drones are a fundamental part of defence. The key point is that I wanted it to reverse the sense of living in a parallel universe. I wanted us to embrace what we were doing for Ukraine so that our armed forces could benefit in the same way. It is simple to summarise the strategy: to continue delivering drones at scale for Ukraine—thousands of them, as we did and as the current Government have done—but, in parallel, to develop our own SME drone ecosystem for the British armed forces. That is what I wanted to do. In February 2024, I also announced the integrated procurement model, which I am very grateful that you mentioned in the recent Defence Committee debate, Ms Lewell. The key thing is that it was also relatively straightforward. Instead of these very long development times for new equipment, it is about setting minimum deployable capability—to get things into use as quickly as possible, where they can be used if the balloon goes up, to put it bluntly—and then to develop them spirally in service. That is how the modern world works, and it is how software companies have always sought to work: get it going, and then constantly upgrade. That is the only way to keep pace with technology. That procurement model went live in April 2024, and the general election was called in May, so it is fair to say that there was not a huge amount of time to introduce some of it, but we made some progress. I now want to talk about some key points about how to ensure that the UK seizes this opportunity so that our armed forces are world leaders in the use of drones. The first point is the most important. This has not been a political debate, and I am not trying to play party politics, but I have also been a Treasury Minister. When I was the Minister for Defence Procurement, I was in all the discussions about how to get to 2.5%, so I know what it is like to deal with the Treasury. What happened is that when the new Government came in—they are not the first to do this—the Treasury put a clamp on procurement as a way of controlling in-year budgets. It is very common. The Treasury frequently tried to do it with us, but Ben Wallace and Grant Shapps, the Secretaries of State, always pushed back. I tried to work with the Treasury to find compromises and to prioritise the procurements that were most important to the Department. The consequence is that, for months, there has been an effective procurement freeze. Defence companies tell us that they are waiting and waiting. They were waiting for the SDR, and now they are waiting for the defence investment plan, which will put in place the decisions of the SDR. They have been waiting for the defence industrial strategy. They have been waiting for the appointment of a national armaments director, who will come in as a great white knight and solve all these problems. By the way, when the problems are really tough, the companies will turn around to the Defence Procurement Minister, who earns about a thirtieth of what they do, and ask them to solve it because it is political, which it always ends up being. In the meantime, we need to get on with it, so let me suggest an idea. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill said that when we tabled a written question asking how many drones have been ordered since the general election, we were told three, which is extraordinary. When I raised the matter with the Secretary of State, he said that it was a specific answer to a specific question. It certainly is, but it is still fairly shocking. What we have found, particularly when we talk to those in the Army, is that there are drones coming into their units, but they are, for example, through sports—they do drone sports. There is not yet a central push to transform the forces to fight with uncrewed systems. So where could we get the money? My personal view is that the Chagos deal is basically bonkers. Next year, we as a country will spend £250 million leasing back a base that we currently own freehold—the islands too, of course. Half that budget could transform the UK drone ecosystem, because tens of millions of pounds would make a difference. There is one risk: how do we buy drones when, in theory, they go out of date so quickly? There is no risk to what I would call a training order. We should buy enough drones from British companies so that the Army can start training with them at scale. But the crucial thing is not the manufacture or the initial buy; it is establishing the relationship between our forces and those SMEs so that they are constantly developing them in service. That is how new technology works. That is a relatively inexpensive step to take; it just needs leadership, and I know the Minister wants to make it happen. Another key point is testing. In June 2023—two months after I became Defence Procurement Minister— I held a roundtable in Larkhill with what were then the main UK defence drone SMEs. It was a really fascinating meeting. I went round the table and said to all of them, “Name the one thing the Government could do to help you,” and they all came up with the acronyms CAA and MAA—in other words, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Military Aviation Authority. They all wanted it to be easier to test drones, particularly kinetic drones, in the UK. I was encouraged recently when I attended the Royal International Air Tattoo and was told by a relatively senior military officer that there will be testing on the Outer Hebrides range—in Benbecula, I think, which I visited when I was a Minister—for firing what are still dummy drones, but testing them as far as we can in the UK. I fully accept that there is a limit to how we can test, particularly if the drones have explosives, but we have to be able to test more than we currently do. It is not just testing for the SMEs. My team met some reservists recently who talked about the red tape and what they have to fill in even to be able to use a reconnaissance drone for Army training. As is so often the case in the MOD, others will assure us, “It’s all fine, Minister.” On the MAA and the CAA—we set up a working group with the Department for Transport—I remember being told, “Minister, it’s all sorted. It’s all fine,” but then the SMEs told me something different. We have to grip this competition because we want to win it and it is vital to our prosperity. Colleagues talked about training. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) made a very good point about making drone use part of regular training. This is not so much my area of expertise. The Minister obviously has great expertise in this area, and I hope he will touch on how we are bringing forward training in the use of drones at a unit level. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon, having served in the infantry, obviously speaks with massive experience. He made the point that we need an Army that can fight with these things. It is all well and good talking about procurement, which is the side I have seen, but how do we get them into the Army to rapidly boost its lethality and survivability? That is what we all want to see, and it is what the new head of the Army, the Chief of the General Staff, will deliver. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon raised an important point about GCAP. When I worked on GCAP as a Minister, it was primarily on the diplomatic side. [Interruption.] The roof is creaking slightly. Hopefully that is merely the power of my oratory and rhetoric, and nothing to be concerned about. On GCAP, I will refer to a couple of points I made last September when we were invited to make submissions to the SDR. At the time, I was merely the interim shadow Defence Secretary while my party awaited a new leader. I do not know if anyone read our submissions—I think AI read a lot of the submissions—but my two points are still worth considering. First, instead of focusing on 10-year equipment plans, which would become the defence investment plan, we need much more focus on a three-year war readiness plan in each of the forces. That is something that the Chief of the General Staff has, in effect, been talking about. If that were done with the RAF, it would be much harder for it to meld all the elements of GCAP into one. The other point I made is that we really need a two-pillar GCAP—a bit like AUKUS. The first pillar is the platform, which is where the focus inevitably always is in defence—that is the old, platform-focused procurement model. Instead, we should have a second pillar with all the ancillary stuff. That would include, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon said, the “system of systems,” particularly electronic warfare capability and drones. That needs to come into service much faster. The key thing to all of this is the threat. If the threat really is only two or three years away, we have to be stronger in two or three years. The aspects of RAF development that are to do with loyal wingman are about helping our current aircraft. Forget about the stuff that will arrive in 2040, important though that is; it is about the capabilities that can help the current Typhoon fleet and the F-35s to be even more lethal and capable. We know that drones can fly with them. We need to accelerate all of that. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill made an important point about the Red sea, which has also been a key testing ground for drones. The key point is that the drones were not only threatening Ukraine; they were threatening our own Royal Navy. HMS Diamond was attacked. As a Minister at the time, I had a real sense that this was a clear and present danger because the drone attacks had to be thwarted with much more expensive missiles, which is the key issue. However, we know that Iran was supplying more and more sophisticated ballistic missiles to the Houthis. That is on public record. How could we defend against all those things? I therefore felt we needed to accelerate all ranges of technology that could help to intercept drones relatively cheaply, so that we could keep our missile stocks for the really exquisite threats. We need a balance between expensive and cheap capabilities, which is why DragonFire is a good example of something we should take forward. All Members have focused on the counter-drone point. I cannot think of a better symbol of the parallel universe—the way we have delivered for Ukraine but not for our own armed forces—than the fact that, if we visit the Army today, its electronic countermeasures will be the box that was used in Afghanistan. That was very good at the time, but it is not up to date. Nevertheless, a British company has been delivering, in real time, countermeasure kits to Ukraine that have been incredibly successful and are saving lives on a real frontline. We should be buying those for our Army at the same time. That is why I say it feels like a parallel universe, which is what we need to break. I know the Minister understands that and is as passionate about it as I am. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) spoke about how to defend against the drone threat, and he particularly spoke about armour. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon spoke about tanks and the need to protect their tracks. I do not have that level of battlefield experience, but it is true to say that we must move quickly on lasers, directed energy weapons and, particularly, sound weapons that use radio frequencies—they are currently a bit indiscriminate, but they have a lot of potential if they are refined. We have to go at these things as fast as possible. Britain has an amazing science base. That brings me to my final point, which is about autonomy. This is really about technology and the need to outthink one’s opponent, as much as anything. If we are honest, we will never have every aspect of every drone made in the UK. The areas where we really need to lead are the brain—the science. Britain has an amazing science base. I always found the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s advice fascinating. The DSTL has huge experience and works well with the military. We could go further on the way in which DSTL and the defence science base link in with SMEs. There has been a lot of progress on that, but we can go further. Going back to the drone I was talking about, the company was successful because its link to the data really gave it the edge. That is what we have to do: we have to enable SMEs to come into Main Building or other secure environments and to be constantly fed the battlefield data—what is really happening in warfare—so that they can respond quickly. This is really about autonomy. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) spoke about the situation in Gaza. I know that there are people who are worried about the ethics of the autonomous use of weapons, and I understand that. I appeared before the AI in Weapons Systems Committee in the House of Lords, where the Bishop of Coventry asked me some interesting questions about the ethics of all this. I would simply say—okay, this is a defence point of view—that we should be very wary of in any way tying our hands on the use of autonomy, because you can bet your bottom dollar that the Chinese and the Russians will not be doing that. We have to maintain our ability to compete with them. Phalanx is the gun on the side of some of our ships. When it is on, it is effectively autonomous. If something flies into its sight that fits certain parameters, it will fire. No one presses a button. The point, though, is that there is a chain of command and a way back that will have been built by someone from a country with a democracy and so on. So it is the whole life cycle that we have to take into account. We should really invest in autonomy. We should back our science base, working closely with our SMEs. I finish by saying to the Minister that we are all patriots here. We want to succeed. We want to have the world’s best armed forces. We want to lead in this. We know we can. We have done amazing things. When we supply Storm Shadows and leading drones to Ukraine, we are going to know a bit about how to use them. We have never been directly involved, but we have done so much that we are well placed to learn from it. I hope the Minister can drive this forward. He knows he has our backing in doing so, but we need to see greater pace and urgency and, ultimately, not just big defence documents, but kit in the hands of those who serve our country.
- Hansard source
Use of Drones in Defence
The Minister is making a fascinating speech, and he knows that I am as interested in this subject as anyone. On the naval point, it was an incredible moment in May when a Ukrainian naval drone downed a Russian Su-30, I think. Does that not point to some of our looming procurements—for example, future air dominance, the Type 83, and all those things in the Navy’s assumptions about how we defend this island in the future? We are an island, so the potential for us to be protected by uncrewed barges and sensors carrying effectors way out in our ocean is an exciting development.
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Use of Drones in Defence
I called my reform the integrated procurement model, because I think the Minister is right: integration is so important, and it has been a deficiency of our bottom-down approach. However, does that not mean that we will need some kind of C2 system for our military? When I was in post, there was a lot of talk about ACCS, which was the system developed for NATO, but frankly was not fit for purpose. That would be a very significant investment. Is it something that the MOD is currently looking at?
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Engagements
Q12. Like many, I was deeply concerned that a police force deemed it necessary to take five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer from a flight. Some may have found Mr Linehan’s comments offensive, but that is not the point. If we do not support speech that we do not like, we do not support free speech. Will the Prime Minister commit to reviewing our speech laws to ensure that legitimate free expression is protected and will he condemn the culture within the public sector that prioritises this dangerous and perverse nonsense?
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Property Taxes
I thank the shadow Chancellor for introducing this debate on such an important issue. Properties and assets are vital to the country and to people. On the lifetime limit for inheritance tax, over the past year everyone will have heard the Government telling farmers and family businesses to get their affairs in order and to plan. Not having a limit on the lifetime cap was what allowed them to plan. If that is cut or the cap is not in the right place, it will negate every argument that the Government have made in the past year to justify their family farm and family business tax. Will the Minister please acknowledge that and rule out any change to the cap, which would penalise family farms and businesses?
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Property Taxes
The fact that the Government hope to build all those new homes shows that they recognise the importance and value of a home to a family. The Minister says that he will not talk about specific tax measures, but does he recognise the principle that we should not tax people’s homes if we are a country that values home ownership?
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Use of Drones in Defence
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, with which I agree. Like him, I have been part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme with the Royal Marines. Over the past year, he and I have seen drones deployed—I will not say where. More importantly, there is innovation in the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, but it is compartmentalised and bitty, and it is not at the scale that he is talking about. Is it not time for the Government to use the innovation in the armed forces to expand out into the private sector?
- Hansard source
Property Taxes
The Treasury has been flying more kites than we saw at the end of “Mary Poppins” in the papers over the last few weeks, but if they are genuine, the Chancellor is preparing the most destructive raid on homeowners in living memory. Families across my constituency are bracing themselves for new taxes on homes worth more than £500,000, capital gains tax on family houses, a revaluation of council tax, and even a land value tax. This is not reform; this is a sledgehammer aimed squarely at aspiration, mobility and stability, and once again it is the south and the south-east that will be punished the most. In Farnham, where the average house price now exceeds £608,000 with the price of detached homes at nearly £900,000, families could face annual bills of nearly £5,000 on top of mortgages, council tax and energy costs. In Haslemere, Liphook and Bordon, households will not be spared; these levies will strip thousands from budgets already stretched to the limit. And what of pensioners and downsizers in Grayshott, Churt, Bramshott, Tilford, or Frensham? They will face the grotesque prospect of capital gains tax on their primary residences.
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Property Taxes
My hon. Friend is entirely right. Once again, the Government are showing that they do not understand and do not value pensioners and the sacrifice that they have made. Everyone—pensioners, farmers and business owners—is seen as a cash cow for this Government.
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Property Taxes
I do not want to correct the hon. Gentleman, but I was not here to oppose or support any of them. I gently remind him—I use the word “gently” because I know that the Minister loves the word “gently”, so I have used it twice now—that there was a pandemic that had to be dealt with, and that had to be funded. There was a war in Ukraine, and dealing with that had to be funded. As we have gone back in history a bit, let me add that we also had to deal with the deficit that the last Labour Government left us. That is the reality of the situation.
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Property Taxes
No, I will not. I have already given way a couple of times. This is a tax on the family home, and it will hit hardest those who have worked hard, saved responsibly, and played by the rules. Let us be clear: this is not simply a question of numbers on a balance sheet. It is about whether families can stay in the communities where they raised their children, whether pensioners can pass on their homes, and whether young people will ever see the ladder of opportunity come down again. A capital gains tax on main homes will trap people in their properties, create a locked-in market, and dry up the supply of homes. Transactions will slow, chains will break, and first-time buyers—the very people whom Labour claims to champion—will be shut out even further. The Government have tried to defend this agenda by talking about “fairness”, but there is nothing fair about a pensioner in Greatham being forced to sell his or her family home to pay the taxman. There is nothing fair about young families in Lindford choosing between childcare and a new annual property levy, and there is nothing fair about placing the heaviest burden on one region of the country simply because the value of its housing stock is higher. In truth, this is a south and south-east tax dressed up as national fairness; and it is part of a pattern. From scrapping the pensioner fuel allowance, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), to threatening VAT on private schools to punitive business tax rises, every single decision seems to be about sending a political signal rather than supporting families or growing the economy. The consequences are plain to see: falling business confidence, another year of negative hiring expectations, and growing unemployment. Wasn’t the Government’s White Paper meant to be called “Get Britain Working”? All we are seeing is Britain grinding to a halt. The Chancellor may talk of fairness, but she is stripping away the last sanctuary for working people—the roofs over their heads. Over-taxation, without clarity, will paralyse the housing market, punish my constituents, and undermine economic stability. If you tax homes, you tax hope, and that is the surest way in which to drain ambition from our country. We should be protecting families, not forcing them to sell up. We should be supporting aspiration, not taxing it into extinction.
- Hansard source
Hospitality Sector
Hospitality has been battered by a perfect storm of punishing taxation, regulation and soaring operational costs, which has left pubs and restaurants fighting for survival. In recent months, I have visited 36 of the 55 pubs in my constituency and hosted a hospitality roundtable. I will shortly be sitting down again with the family chain, the Healy Group. Everywhere I go, the story is the same: rising costs, thinning margins and landlords asking, “How much longer can we keep the lights on?” In this darkness, I can bring a little ray of delight and hope to my constituents. During the summer recess, I continued my constituency pub tour, part of my best pub campaign. I am delighted to announce to the House that the Crown at Arford has won that accolade in the Farnham and Bordon constituency. You may be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that Fleetwood Mac’s “Down at the Crown” was inspired by this pub, so if the Chancellor ever finds herself lost in East Hampshire, she might fancy a visit—though judging from Labour’s economic stewardship, she would probably relate more to one called “Closing Down at the Crown”. I joke, but there is nothing amusing about the reality. Since May, four pubs in my constituency have been driven out by Labour’s relentless war on small businesses, including the Wheatsheaf Inn at Grayswood, which has closed indefinitely. The sector is collapsing, despite what Government Members say. Six pubs are closing every single week. That is because, from April this year, relief collapsed to 40%, halving their protection while doubling their pain. The Budget hiked national insurance, increased the minimum wage and added £3 billion to their bills. The Chancellor’s 1p off a draught pint gesture was not just laughable but insulting. Jay at the Six Bells told me bluntly that on a £5.50 pint, pubs make about 8p. That is the future that Labour is offering. The Bluebell in Dockenfield, a family business run by Lucy and Robin Catchpole, is fighting tooth and nail to thrive. Pubs are the heart of our towns and villages, and Labour is ripping out that heart.
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Hospitality Sector
That sounds like an interesting idea. I will support anything that will get the pub industry thriving, but to be frank, Labour is destroying the opportunities for pubs to thrive, and I am afraid a guest ale will go no way towards solving that problem. I am conscious of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will touch briefly on the fact that it is not just Labour in Westminster that does not understand the hospitality industry. The Liberal Democrats in Waverley are showing the same wilful blindness. Farnham is undergoing major infrastructure works, and its hospitality and retail businesses are struggling. I urge the council to act. It has the powers to provide business rates relief, but it has done nothing. Borelli’s Wine Bar and Grill, for example, has operated since 1987, yet the Lib Dems sit on their hands, proving that they share Labour’s contempt for small businesses. Hospitality is being taxed, squeezed and regulated into oblivion. If Labour carries on like this, the last orders bell will ring not just for our pubs, but for the very character of British life itself.
- Hansard source
Pavement Parking
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in today’s debate on pavement parking, an issue that may seem mundane at first glance, but that, in reality, touches on safety, accessibility and dignity in every one of our communities. Pavement parking is not just unsightly; it is downright dangerous. When cars mount pavements, they force pedestrians off the footway and into the road, directly into the flow of traffic. For many, that is inconvenient; for many others, it can be life-changing. For someone in a wheelchair, a single car blocking the pavement can mean a 10-minute diversion, or the frightening prospect of rolling into a busy road. For someone with a visual impairment, it can mean walking straight into the bonnet of a car—an obstruction they cannot anticipate. Carers supporting people with hidden disabilities—perhaps guiding an autistic child who finds traffic overwhelming, or pushing a specialist buggy—find themselves in exactly the same position: what ought to be a simple walk to the shops or to school can suddenly become an obstacle course. Guide Dogs research tells us that 85% of people know that this issue is a danger for those with sight loss, and nearly three quarters say that it is common in their area. Local councillors, including my own in Buckinghamshire, hear directly from residents and overwhelmingly report that pavement parking creates a safety risk, with many saying that it is one of the issues raised with them most often. Of course, as the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), has already said, London has had a ban on pavement parking for many years, but the rules are far less clear outside our capital. Local councils can bring in restrictions through traffic regulation orders, and they have had permission to use standard signage without asking Whitehall for approval since 2011, but that system is patchwork, complex and slow. That is why, in 2020, the last Conservative Government consulted on how to go further. More than 15,000 people responded. The consultation looked at a nationwide ban with sensible exemptions—recognising, for example, the realities of narrow rural lanes or terraced streets, where pavement parking has been part of the layout for decades. Yet here we are, nearly five years later, and there is still no formal response from the Department for Transport. Public opinion, though, could not be clearer: eight in 10 drivers want action. Two thirds see pavement parking in their neighbourhoods on a regular basis, and a third see it every single day.