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1. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

   Bank Closures and Banking Hubs

   I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) for bringing this debate on banking before the House. I think bank closures affect every single constituency and every single person in the country, as we will hear throughout this debate. The final two banks in the town of Wetherby closed literally last month, but we were lucky, in the sense that we knew those closures were coming. I was working with the banks to get a banking hub in for a couple of years, and it has been in place in the town hall. This has given a huge advantage to the town of Wetherby, because the banks that had closed in the past are now represented again in that banking hub. Now that those last two branches have closed, the hub is going to take up residence in one of those ex-banks. That goes to show that if we can get a banking hub, we have the ability to bring things back to the community. The banks that have closed will have a representative in there on different days of the week, and as the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington pointed out, it is vital that people are able to have that face-to-face interaction. However, in other towns in my constituency—such as Boroughbridge and Tadcaster, which have a huge number of businesses—there is no banking, and there is no banking hub. The residents of those towns have been told that they are close enough to go to other areas, but as has been pointed out, that is not always the easiest thing to do. Then we come to Easingwold, at the further end of my constituency. Nationwide, with its policy of not shutting banks, still has its branch open, so Easingwold does not qualify for a banking hub. People are told that they have to go to Thirsk, a major town that is not easy to get to. As the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington outlined, there is a problem with the excuse that not enough people are using branches and therefore the banks shut them down. When branches have been shut down in the past and I ask the banks, “Can you please reconsider this?”, they say, “Well, we only had a few people come in last week—we cannot keep it open,” but they never actually do anything to encourage people to go to those branches. They never give an indication that the branch may be shut, and then they just shut it. Of course, people then miss the service, and the banks say, “There is one close by in another area.” As has been described, people are being charged to withdraw their money from a cash machine. As the hon. Gentleman said about free cash, it is their money to start with, but when banks tell people that they have to get a bus to go to the bank, they are also charging people to get their money out. Everything we are discussing passes on the cost from the banks to the consumer, just to get their money out. I am lucky that I have a banking hub in my constituency. Other towns are going to need them—they do bring advantages—but the way that the whole high street industry of banking is operating is causing huge disadvantages to people. Ultimately, it is constantly charging them to get their own money out.

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2. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

   Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

   I congratulate the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) not just on securing this debate, but on giving it such a wide-ranging and thoroughly comprehensive introduction. I am sure that many Members would have mentioned many of the areas he discussed in their own way. Madam Deputy Speaker, you and I are very good friends, and I know that you have been concerned about battery storage plants near the River Test and potential runaway fires that may lead to pollutants going into the river. As you are in your place, you cannot comment on that, so I thought it important to get that on the record. The hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) was focusing on some of the planning issues, and that is where I want to go, too. When we look at this debate overall, what we are talking about is a lack of statutory guidance. I want to get on the record immediately that this is not a debate of “Forget net zero and forget about renewables.” That is not the debate, and we are not deniers along that road, but there are serious concerns. The leader of my party has raised those concerns and immediately been accused of being anti net zero. We have to take the concerns seriously, because, as the hon. Member for Horsham outlined, there are changes, slowly but surely, in the materials being used. Nickel manganese, for example, has a vaporisation point of 900ºC. These fires can burn easily over 1,000ºC. I want to focus my attention on the fallout. I had a meeting with some soil scientists, among others, from the University of Leeds at a research facility in my constituency. They are involved in all aspects of farming. I asked about research into potential contamination and fallout and what it could mean for soils if there was a fire. They said no such research had really been done, and I think they had a couple of PhD ideas appear from that. It showed that that work has not been done. Where have we got to on thermal runaway? As has been outlined, such fires need a huge quantity of water. It is not just about trying to do whatever we can to stop the fire spreading. I read in the International Fire and Safety Journal about using high-pressure water mist at the starting point, monitoring the potential for thermal runaway and trying to cool the batteries before they get to that stage. Equally, if that mist is high pressure enough, it can contain the contaminants around the fire. Again, the science around this issue has to be closely managed. As the hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth has outlined, acids and other things can be created. We have to be careful about the chemistry, but we do not have any statutory guidance for planning authorities. We keep speaking about what we need to do with water, so surely it should be a condition of the planning process that there is a mains water supply to where such incidents are happening. In my constituency, planning applications for solar farms and battery storage are pouring in. They are being approved and pushed on, but there is no demand for water supply. These applications are for developments in the middle of a rural area, on farmland. Farmers are being offered a golden egg and told, “Sell us your land, and we will develop solar farms and battery storage.” Let me give the example of a planning application for Wetherby services. There were not really any objections or concerns about batteries, but Leeds city council then approved the development of hundreds of houses 600 to 700 metres away. As has been outlined, no one knows how far contamination goes. There must be a lot more statutory undertaking for planning authorities. I recommend a pause on approving planning applications until we fully understand what mitigation could be put in place for disasters, which unfortunately do happen.

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3. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

   Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

   There is a phenomenon called dendrite, which is a form of crystallisation—especially from lithium—with a tree-like structure. We do not fully understand where it comes from. Does that play into what the hon. Gentleman is saying about trying to understand the stability of battery storage?

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4. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

   Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

   Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the issues is that there is no statutory requirement on prevention methods that may stop us from getting to that disastrous situation in the first place?

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5. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

   Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

   When the Government do the research on mitigation that the Minister talks about, I gently suggest that they lay down in statute the minimum mitigation facilities that will be expected to be satisfied in planning applications. At the moment, there is no statutory outline for what mitigation must be put in place. Inspections are great, but we are not actually inspecting anything from a statutory point of view. I encourage her to ensure that the result of the research is that applicants have it laid out for them what mitigation needs to be in place.

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6. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Sarah Bool

   Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

   I rise to speak on the looming crisis facing us in relation to battery energy storage sites. As Members have explained, the sites are beginning to play a larger and larger role in the transition to greener energy sources, but at the moment ideology is winning the day and pragmatism is disappearing. There is over 78 GW of battery capacity that is either operational, awaiting construction having been approved or in the early stages of the planning process. For context, that is enough power to supply nearly 200 million homes at once, which is almost 10 times as many as we have in the UK. One of the 1,100 installations that are proposed but not operational is a battery energy storage site just outside of Grendon in South Northamptonshire. It is part of the wider Green Hill solar farm proposal owned by Island Green Power, and I note the comments from the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on that. This proposal exposes how the Government are asleep at the wheel on this issue. The Green Hill BESS is a massive 500 MW site proposed for the edge of the town, just a few hundred metres from the centre and next to the beautiful Grendon lakes and the River Nene. On the border of a site of special scientific interest, the environmental importance and sensitivity of the site cannot be understated. The proposal is likely to come to the local planning authority eventually, which understandably has virtually zero experience in balancing the risks and benefits of a large-capacity BESS. The Minister for Housing and Planning wrote to me this week after I raised with him several of the significant risks that the site poses to residents and the environment. He said that the current regulatory framework was “appropriate, robust and future-proofed”. The hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) has already alluded to this comment. I am sure all Members will agree that that sounds rather good, but the title of the framework that the Minister spoke so highly of was “Health and Safety Guidance: Guidance for Grid Scale Electrical Energy Storage Systems”. Unfortunately for the Minister, he has exposed exactly what is lacking in our approach to BESSs. Our framework for regulating the design, construction, running and decommissioning of these sites is simply guidance. We have not gripped the potential threats of these sites and attempted to mitigate them. Thankfully, there are examples of where countries have faced up to the need to recognise the threats. The United States is further along the path of rolling out BESSs than the UK. As we have experienced here, they have faced large-scale fires, explosions, environmental concerns and, understandably, a gap in expertise when it comes to the emergency response to the unique challenges. In response, they realised that guidance did not suffice, so they passed, as the Housing and Planning Minister sort of alluded to, an “appropriate, robust and future-proofed” statutory framework that did simple things. It required co-ordination with local fire services during the planning process. It specified minimum distances from residential buildings. It mandated elevation in flood-prone zones, and it enforced the training of the fire departments and first responders to give them the expertise that they need. That framework is prescriptive, yes, but when it comes to the health of members of the public—health threatened by these sites in the ways that Members have articulated—we must be prescriptive. If we are not careful, much like a fire at a battery energy storage site, a fire will be lit that we cannot put out, and it will burn and burn. I ask that the Government immediately pause the roll-out of these sites until a proper regulatory framework is in place.

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7. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Rishi Sunak

   Relocating Civil Service Roles

   I thank the CDL for what he said, because the Darlington economic campus has been a huge success. It recently passed the milestone of 1,000 jobs, but crucially, 80% of those people were recruited locally, providing opportunities for constituents in my rural area and across the north-east, as we have heard. The Darlington economic campus is also pioneering a very strong cross-Government approach to working, which is helping to combat the strong departmental DNA that the CDL mentioned. Will he join me in praising the leadership team at DEC for establishing themselves as an indispensable part of Government policymaking, and will he join me in ensuring that Darlington can serve as a model template for other campuses across the UK?

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8. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Nick Timothy

   Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

   I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition, and I hope to give a voice to your constituents, Madam Deputy Speaker, given the interest in this important subject in Romsey and Southampton North. I congratulate the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) on securing the debate and making such a comprehensive speech. He was even wise enough to quote the fire experts from the county that matters most—by which I obviously mean Suffolk. The fact that there were such clear themes from Members across the House and across the divides of the House—right and left, net zero enthusiasts and sceptics—shows that we are dealing with an undeniable problem that the Government have not yet gripped. There was a clear consensus across the House, from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), that there is a total absence of regulation with this risky technology. There was also agreement, from the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), about the effects of the policy on the countryside, such as on the availability of good farmland and on rural roads, as well as the challenges of fire service response times in the country. The hon. Members for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) made the point that BESS fires can have serious effects on our precious rivers. I also want to single out the speech by the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage), who drew attention to the dodgy finances of a lot of the firms behind a lot of these applications. That is something we need to investigate further. There was broad agreement on the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) that these battery sites should not be allowed to go ahead until a proper system of regulation is introduced. I am afraid that I am going to breach the cross-party love-in by picking up on what my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) said about ideology. The Government are betting on battery energy storage systems thanks to their ideological aim to decarbonise the entire grid within five years, therefore choosing to depend on unreliable, intermittent and expensive renewables. That is the root cause of the dependence on the technologies we are debating. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) can intervene if he wishes. It is the consequence of the zeal of the Energy Secretary that we are debating these subjects. Thanks to net zero policy costs, which are relevant more than wholesale gas prices, Britain already has the highest energy costs in Europe. Pushing policy to run faster than technology will allow risks a crisis in the grid and in our economy.

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9. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Nick Timothy

   Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

   The hon. Member will note the enthusiasm and ideological zeal of the Energy Secretary, which began, I think, in his very first week when he came to this House and announced that he was imposing masses of solar farms on parts of the country and, in the case of the solar farm in my constituency, completely disregarding the independent expert examining authority. That is a clear difference between the two Governments we are discussing. Mass solar is inefficient and produces less power even than wind, which has a higher load factor—between 10% and 11% for solar, between 22% and 28% for onshore wind, and between 30% and 38% for offshore wind. And that is wind, which is unreliable in itself. The comparison worsens next to nuclear, as it would take 8.5 million solar panels, taking up at least 10,000 acres of often top-quality farmland, to produce enough power to match an average reactor. To the surprise of no one, the World Bank says we are one of the countries with the “least generous conditions” for PV. Indeed, we rank higher only than Ireland. Batteries and solar panels also expose us to dependence on China, which produces more than 80% of the world’s solar panels. Many are made with slave labour, and perhaps all contain kill switches controlled by Beijing. While an amendment to the GB Energy Bill was passed to ban the Government’s new quango from using slave-made imports, it does not apply to private sector purchases. So much for ending our dependence on foreign dictatorships and human rights abusers. So much for our energy security. Giant solar fails even on its own terms, because it is four times more carbon-intensive than wind and nuclear. Apart from biomass, solar is the most polluting of all renewables. As this debate has shown, there are very real safety concerns about the battery sites that we must address. These battery sites pose a public safety risk that the Government are simply ignoring. With 150 BESS sites already in operation, and with well over 1,000 planning applications in the pipeline, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) noted, this needs to be confronted as a matter of urgency. Building these sites and trying to deal with the safety questions later is reckless, expensive and dangerous. When a fire starts at a BESS site, highly toxic emissions are released into the air. They include chemicals such as hydrogen fluoride, heavy metals and carcinogens, forcing people to stay indoors. These fires do not need oxygen to keep burning, so they can last for weeks. They can be reignited easily, and the health effects of exposure to these gases are a major concern. Just look at the fire in Liverpool four years ago, which several Members cited. It took 59 hours to put out. In answer to my written questions, the Government have confirmed that no environmental impact assessment has been made of that incident, so no lessons are being learned. And this year we have seen fires at battery sites near Rothienorman in Aberdeenshire, and in East Tilbury in Essex. I have repeatedly raised fire safety directly with Ministers, but no satisfactory answers have been given. The Government have made no assessment of the adequacy of fire services near battery sites. There is minimal oversight from the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency. The National Fire Chiefs Council recommends a minimum distance of 25 metres between grid-scale batteries and occupied buildings, but it is only guidance and there is no statutory requirement to maintain this distance. As the Liverpool fire proves, a major blaze can affect people over a much wider area anyway. We need clear involvement from the fire and rescue services in the planning application process for battery sites, looking at concerns around construction, fire safety and retrofitting. Henry Griffin from Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service has described battery sites as an “emerging risk”, saying: “There can be complications with vapour clouds and fires will last a long time.” Fire services have no legal power to enforce safety measures on battery sites. We need legislation and residents need a say. Sunnica is one of the biggest solar and battery farms in the country, as mentioned by my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane), and it has been imposed on our constituents by the Energy Secretary. Three days after entering office, the Energy Secretary approved the application, overruling the advice of examining authorities and, quite clearly from his answer to my question, he had not read the evidence—breaching his quasi-judicial responsibility. Sunnica will cover over 2,500 acres of prime agricultural land across West Suffolk and East Cambridgeshire. Three battery sites will be built, and the whole project will actually increase carbon emissions. Sunnica has treated residents with contempt and used consultants who specialise in questionable assessments of the quality of farmland. Sunnica is also located very close to the RAF bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath, which host the US air force, and many service personnel live in the area. We believe Russia has already targeted those bases with drones recently, and the director general of MI5 says that arson and sabotage are part of the Russian modus operandi in European countries. To approve Sunnica without assessing this very serious danger is grossly negligent. Rushing towards mass solar and battery farms like this is an act of ideological irresponsibility. It is bad energy policy, reducing our energy security while increasing the cost of energy for families and businesses.

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10. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Nick Timothy

    Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the hon. Member for Ipswich were more confident in his arguments, he might want to stand up and take part. As I was saying, it is bad energy policy, reducing our energy security while increasing the cost of energy for families and businesses. It is bad farming policy because it puts some of our best agricultural land beyond use, and as this debate has shown, it is bad for public safety, because the Government, in their haste and zeal, want to ignore the very serious dangers these batteries bring.

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11. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Neil O'Brien

    Maths: Contribution to the UK

    I congratulate the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) on securing this important debate. We have had some fantastic speeches, and any debate in which Johnny Ball gets a shout-out is a good debate in my view. Our profession, politics, is awash with mathematical metaphors. Lyndon Johnson famously said that the first rule of democracy is that you have to be able to count. In Westminster, the Treasury is always insisting on making the numbers add up. Lots of junior Ministers who interact with the Treasury and try to get money out of it discover that they get the square root of naff all from those discussions. Occasionally, when I listen to hon. Members who are less concise—they are not in this debate—trouting on in the main Chamber, I am reminded of the space-filling Hilbert curve, which is repetitious and capable of filling an infinite amount of space if left unchecked. One of my greatest beliefs is in the non-linear nature of innovation. As hon. Members have already alluded to, mathematics is a brilliant example of that. It was never obvious, when the obscure philosophers who became logicians were faffing around with strange upside down a’s and backwards e’s, that they would lay the foundations for the computation that defines our world today. I read in Quanta magazine that in the ’60s we discovered something that seemed perfectly useless: Penrose tiling—infinitely non-repeating patterns, which are very pretty and obviously totally useless, right? No: they are now used in quantum encryption. We have found a use for that seemingly useless thing. The same is true of one of the UK’s greatest industrial successes: Arm, which does obscure-seeming work on reduced instruction set computing. What use is that? Why would anyone need a really tiny thing that does not use much power? But we all have mobile phones, and the intellectual property from that bit of Britain’s industrial policy is now in everyone’s pocket, all over the world. Mathematics is hugely important. I completely agree with all hon. Members who have said that. I have been goaded by the brilliant speech of the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), who said that I would talk about the last Government, and of course I will. It would be inappropriate not to add some numbers to a debate on maths, so what happened to mathematics under the last Government? Let us look at some international comparisons. In the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study—TIMSS—between 2011 and 2023, England went from 10th in the world to sixth in the world for maths, and from ninth to fifth for science. That is remarkable progress that puts us top in the western world. We are not quite at the level of the Asian people who dominate the table, but we are the best in the west. I cannot tell hon. Members how Scotland and Wales are doing on that metric because their Governments chose to withdraw from those competitions as they did not like the scrutiny. However, I can give a comparison by stating where those devolved Governments are in the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment. Between 2009 and 2022, England went from 21st to seventh in the world for maths in PISA results, and from 11th to ninth for science. Whereas Wales —where a lot of the reforms that we had in England were avoided for ideological reasons—went from 29th to 27th for maths, and slumped from 21st to 29th for science. That is part of a wider picture. I encourage everyone to read the brilliant report “Major challenges for education in Wales” by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which points out that the average deprived child in England is now doing as well or better than the average child in Wales. The gap is so big, and the deprivation progress has been so great in England, that the deprived child in England is now in a better position than the average child in Wales. That is an incredible situation. Looking at the improvement in school attainment by IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index—decile, we see improvement across the income distribution under the last Government, but the biggest improvement in England was in the bottom half of the income distribution. That is true for maths throughout the educational life cycle. Today, 90,000 more children at key stage 2—the end of junior school—meet the expected standard in reading, writing and maths than in 2015-16. That progress was driven by a number of measures, including our putting in 27,000 extra teachers over our time in government. Over the last Parliament, we increased real-terms per pupil funding by 11%. We brought in things such as maths schools and maths hubs, lots more low-stakes testing—my daughter is about to do the year 4 times tables test—and the key stage 2 tests. All those things, by the way, are still opposed by some people in the trade unions even though the evidence for the effectiveness of low-stakes testing, for example, is so strong. The National Education Union still opposes all forms of testing in primary school—a crazy position that we were right to reject in England. There has been real progress as a result of those reforms. Although everything in England is far from perfect—there is loads of room for progress and lots of problems to fix—we can see what the alternative is. Where those reforms were not made for ideological reasons because the unions said no to academisation, school choice and school accountability, things got worse. The people who suffered from that ideology were not the rich and those who could afford to go private, but the poorest. Some of the things being done now in schools are a mistake, such as hammering the budget for the advanced mathematics support programme. As has already been touched on in this debate, and as quite a lot of the people who care most about maths have pointed out, that is a big mistake. Jens Marklof, president of the London Mathematical Society, said that it will harm the chances of children from poorer areas. He said: “There’s no AI without maths and if the government is really serious about its AI strategy they have to significantly scale up the support for maths education at all levels…The big success of AMSP was to enable kids who went to schools that didn’t offer further maths to give them this opportunity”. Likewise, Adrian Smith, the Royal Society president, said it is “spectacularly short-sighted to pull funding from programmes designed to support teachers and schools to deliver better maths provision.” He also said: “Our maths education is not up to scratch—too many young people are leaving school without the skills they need for life or the well-paid jobs that will drive economic growth”. Dan Abramson, the chief executive of U-Maths, the umbrella organisation for university maths schools in England, and a professor of maths at King’s College London, said: “For the UK to be at the forefront of AI and the data-driven modern economy, we need excellent mathematicians from all backgrounds, and we need more of them—that means more investment, not less”. We set up the advanced mathematics support programme in 2018 to provide extra maths help to schools, and the Government have now cut it. I think that it is a mistake and I hope that they will look at it again. Unfortunately, that is part of a pattern. The Government have cut support not just for maths, but for physics, computing, Latin, cadets and behaviour hubs. A lot of the things that were doing a lot of good, including for maths, have been axed even though they are very small in the grand scheme of the Department for Education’s £100 billion budget. I hope that the Government will rethink those cuts. The hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire also wanted to talk about the higher education part of the piece. It is very striking that although 50% more people are now doing A-level maths—a great success—and the number of people doing double or triple science at GCSE has more or less doubled, which is great progress, that has not always translated into increases in the number of people doing maths at university. In fact, while there has been about a 20% increase in the total numbers entering HE courses at university since 2018-19, the number going into maths, while marginally up, is broadly flat. Why is the improvement we are seeing in schools not leading to larger numbers doing maths at university? I am afraid that goes to the heart of the issues with our higher education system more broadly. I understand the logic of why tuition fees were brought in and I accept up to a point the idea of a market in higher education, but it seems to us that that market has gone too far. It is really a pseudo-market, because we rely entirely on young people aged 16 and 17 to drive the allocation of resources into our enormous higher education system. The gradual move from teaching, or T, grants to a highly fees-based system gives Ministers far less control than they previously had. The Government’s decision last week to further reduce high-cost subject grants—T grants, as they used to be called—by a further 10% in real terms is a mistake in its own right because it hits the subjects such as engineering and science that we need for the future, and gives Ministers less control over what is going on in higher education. The incentives set up by the pseudo-market in education have led to a great growth in courses that are cheap to provide but do not necessarily give great value to either the student or the taxpayer. We know from the leading work of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that, when we look at the combined perspective of the taxpayer and the student themselves, higher education is not worth it, at least from an economic point of view, for around 30% of those who go into it at the moment,. Since the work that the IFS did, which is based on those who graduated during the mid-noughties, we have seen the graduate premium decline even further. The marginal students who we have been adding have even lower earnings, so those figures could easily be worse if we were to rerun that analysis now. That needs to be addressed. There is absolutely sometimes a case for higher education to be simply beautiful—to do theology, art or whatever—and for it not to be of economic value, but we should be clear about when we choose to subsidise that. We should also be clear that things that are highly economically useful, such as mathematics and science, also have intrinsic value. They are also beautiful and there is an intrinsic value to studying them—that is not just the case for some of those things, particularly the creative arts, where we see the great concentration of those who end up with very low earnings and negative returns from an economic point of view. We need to rethink. We need not just to patch up and mend the existing system, but to fundamentally rethink the incentives that it has set up. We should give ourselves the ability to make sure that we are investing in and driving up the growth of subjects such as mathematics, which are so critical to our future economy and security as a country. I will not go further into it than that, but the issues facing mathematics are, in a sense, part of the wider issues facing higher education. I hope that the Government will move from a patching up and mending attitude to a reformist and overhauling one. The one thing I want discourage Ministers from doing is something that I am worried will come out of the Government’s curriculum and assessment review. Although I have lots of respect for Becky Francis, who is leading the review, one of the things that Ministers have been very keen to do is say that we need to have lots more time for arts subjects—for fun subjects such as music, drama and dance. That is fine in a sense, but Ministers have to be super clear about how they will find that time, and whether they are going to find it by funding some extra hours in the school day or something, because otherwise it inescapably means less time on other things. One of the good things that has happened, and one of the reasons standards have gone up, is that schools now spend about 13% more time teaching maths than they used to in 2010, so more time is going into this critical subject than was before. If we say that we want to have more time for something else, let us be honest about the trade-offs and what we are going to not do and let us also be honest about the consequences of that.

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12. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Neil O'Brien

    Maths: Contribution to the UK

    I am happy to agree that we can bring maths into many other things, and that is also a fun way of teaching maths. In return, I put back to the hon. Gentleman that there are limits to that. If we want to have more time for something else, we have to say where it is coming from. The improvement in those international league table rankings that I mentioned has not come about as a result of some sort of magic. It has come about by us spending more time on that, putting more resources into it and making it a priority. Unfortunately, not everything can be a priority. If everything is a priority, then nothing is. The last Government chose to prioritise maths and STEM. I think it was the right decision. One can argue that we should go for a different course, but if we are going to do that, people should be explicit about it and honest about what they are actually going to do. Let me not turn into the thing that I have already criticised—the space-filling Hilbert curve—and take up endless time in this debate. It has been a hugely important debate with brilliant speeches from lots of Members from across the House. I hope that the Ministers will act on some of the brilliant suggestions that have been made, and that we can further improve math education in this country.

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13. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Neil O'Brien

    Free School Meals

    I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The truth is that the families benefiting from today’s announcement are the same ones who are paying for it, because the same group of people are hit hardest by Labour’s national insurance increase. Labour promised not to increase national insurance, but it broke that promise, and someone earning just £13,000 a year will now take home £500 less as a result of the tax increase. Someone on just £9,000 a year—the exact sort of person who is supposed to benefit from this policy—will lose 5% of their income. The Government want to talk about the impact of the money they are giving today on poverty, but they do not want to talk about the impact of the much larger sum of money they are taking away. Disgracefully, they have not done any distributional analysis of the £25 billion that they are taking away, which is particularly targeted at low-income households. Will the Minister say how many households that will push into poverty? Will he finally admit what the figure is? While free school meals are obviously welcome, the things that are being cut to pay for them are much less welcome. For example, the Government broke their promise to fully fund the national insurance increase for schools, and some have been short-changed by 35%. They also broke their promise to fully fund the pay award. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that leaves a £400 million funding hole for our schools. Under the last Government, although there was an increase in achievement across the board, the biggest increase was in the lower half of the income distribution. That is much harder to achieve when the Government have taken £400 million out of our schools. What else is being done to balance the costs? We already know that the Government have cut support for maths, science, physics, Latin, computing and cadets in schools, and got rid of the successful behaviour hubs. We know that nurseries, which the Minister talked about, are saying they are on the brink because of the national insurance increase. In fact, the Early Years Alliance says the situation is “catastrophic”. We know that the Department for Education recently announced a real-terms cut of 10% to university teaching grants, and it has abolished 90% of higher apprenticeships—funnily enough, they announced that during the recess. Now the education press are saying that the next cost-saving measure to pay for announcements like this will be to abolish education, health and care plans for everything other than special schools. Will the Minister rule that out today? If he does not rule it out, the whole House will hear, and we will know exactly what is going to happen next. Turning to the numbers, what is the real net effect of all this? Transitional protections were established in 2018 to ensure that pupils who gained FSM would not lose them while universal credit was being rolled out. That has roughly doubled the proportion of pupils who are eligible from 13.6% to 25.7%. However, the Department for Education has announced that those protections will now end in September 2026, when the new policy comes in. By how much will the end of those transitional protections reduce the number of children who are eligible for FSM? Am I right in thinking that it is by 1.2 million? Will the Minister agree—he is looking away—to finally publish a figure? How many children who have been on transitional protection will lose their free school meals when they change phase of education? Will the Minister finally admit to the figure? There is another sting in the tail today, because school budgets are going to be hit—that is how this policy is being paid for. That is because FSM is the gateway to pupil premium funding. The pupil premium is a great achievement of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government, and it is worth £1,480 per pupil in primary schools and a bit over £1,000 in secondary schools. As a result of today’s decision, schools are going to lose that funding. With 1.2 million pupils on transitional protection, bringing with them about £1,200 each, schools are going to lose the £1.5 billion currently going to them in pupil premium funding. Will that funding be replaced by this announcement? No, because today the Government have for the first time broken the link between FSM eligibility and pupil premium funding. On one side of the ledger, £1.5 billion has been lost, and on the other side of the ledger, schools are not getting it back. I had wondered where all the money was coming from, and now of course we know. I ask the Minister to spit it out: how much will this decision cost schools, and how much is it saving the DFE? On a similar point, will the Minister confirm that the Government will apply the same approach to holiday activities and food, which would also not trigger an increase in that funding? Is the same also true of home-school transport, and how is this all being paid for? I think we need a little more detail. Opposition Members have become rather cautious about positive-sounding announcements from this Government. For example, the other day Ministers were here to announce that they would continue the adoption and special guardianship support fund, but it must just have slipped their mind to mention that it was being cut by 40%. That is why we like to know the detail when we get positive announcements. I will end by asking some questions about the facts. Will the Minister agree to publish information on how many children are currently on transitional protection and how much the end of that protection will reduce entitlement to free school meals? Will he agree to publish how much pupil premium funding schools will lose overall as a result of breaking the link between FSM and the pupil premium? Just to ask again, so that the whole House hears the answer, will he rule out abolishing EHCPs outside special schools—yes or no?

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14. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Free School Meals

    Order. I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

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15. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Free School Meals

    I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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16. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Free School Meals

    After this, we have two Select Committee statements and two Backbench Business debates. If colleagues do not keep their questions short, they are just denying others the opportunity to speak.

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17. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Free School Meals

    Order. There are 15 colleagues remaining. If you want me to get you all in, work with me and keep your questions short please. I call Yasmin Qureshi.

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18. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Free School Meals

    As the Minister is on a tour, I assume that he will be coming to Sussex Weald shortly.

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19. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Free School Meals

    I see that two Joshes remain.

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20. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Free School Meals

    I am personally delighted and looking forward to hosting the Minister in my constituency.

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21. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Governing the Marine Environment

    We now come to the second Select Committee statement on behalf of the Environmental Audit Committee. Mr Toby Perkins will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions and not full speeches. I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair and not the relevant Minister. Front Benchers may take part in questioning.

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22. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Bank Closures and Banking Hubs

    Order. We have shy of 30 Members hoping to contribute, so we will have a hard speaking limit of four minutes to begin with.

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23. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Bank Closures and Banking Hubs

    Order.

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24. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Bank Closures and Banking Hubs

    The speaking limit is now three minutes. I call David Mundell.

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25. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Bank Closures and Banking Hubs

    Order. I call Helen Morgan. [Interruption.]

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26. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Richard Holden

    Intelligence and Security Committee

    The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament is unique, made up of Privy Counsellors from both Houses. However, last month the Committee took the highly unusual step of publicly criticising the Government for their failure to allow the Committee the staff and independence to fulfil its role overseeing the circa £3 billion annual spend, for which “there is no oversight capability.” The Committee is led by an experienced Labour peer, and it just wants the basics: to have staff who are not totally beholden to the Cabinet Office, so that they can do their job on behalf of Parliament and the country, and to meet the Prime Minister. The work of our intelligence services has never been more important, given the grey zone that states are acting within at the moment, which must be properly overseen. I asked a written question about when the Prime Minister would deign to meet the Committee. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare), said that one was being arranged. Has that now happened? I also asked written questions about the independence and resources of the Committee and was told that discussions were ongoing. On a matter of this seriousness, does Parliament not deserve more than fob-off half-answers, and will the Minister provide further details now?

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27. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Richard Holden

    Business of the House

    I know that you, Mr Speaker, are an animal lover, like me and my Basildon and Billericay constituents, although sadly some people are not. After some horrific cases, will the Leader of the House push the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to get on with its consultation on licensing animal welfare centres? If not, will she allow a debate in Government time on this issue on the Floor of the House?

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28. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Business of the House

    May we have a debate in Government time on the three flagrant breaches of the ministerial code committed by the Defence Secretary on Monday? For the record, the Opposition received their copy of the strategic defence review mid-afternoon, the media received it at 10.30 am, and defence companies received it at 8 o’clock in the morning. Within minutes, there were share price spikes in a number of defence stocks. Section 8.11 of the “Ministerial Code” clearly states: “where commercially sensitive material is involved, no copies should be made available to the media before publication.”

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29. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy

    rose—

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30. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    I beg to move amendment 97, in clause 7, page 5, line 27, at end insert— “(d) conflicts with any regulations or rules of international football governing bodies, including FIFA and UEFA.” This amendment requires the IFR to exercise its functions so as to avoid conflicts with the regulations and rules of international footballing bodies. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, and to open day 2 of the Committee’s consideration of the Bill. On day 1 there was extensive debate about an issue that I am sure we will also get into today. We Opposition Members were keen to ensure that the Government’s new football regulator will improve transparency, help reduce costs to clubs and fans and stop political interference in football. It was disappointing that Government Members did not support those objectives. Amendment 97 seeks to ensure that there are no conflicts with any of the regulations and rules of international footballing governing bodies, including FIFA and UEFA. It clearly requires the Independent Football Regulator “to exercise its functions so as to avoid conflicts with the regulations and rules of international footballing bodies.” As we know, UEFA has written to the Secretary of State to set out its concerns with the Bill. The letter came after the Government introduced the expanded version of the Bill. It is disappointing that the Government continue to refuse to publish it so that all Members can have an informed debate about the risks that UEFA outlined. I will not go over that debate again—I might get a yellow card if I do. The amendment would require the Government’s regulator to exercise its functions in a way that avoids conflicts with the rules, statutes and regulations of international football governing authorities, especially FIFA and UEFA. The amendment is designed to protect the regulator’s ability to carry out the functions that the Government have assigned to it without inadvertently triggering consequences that could seriously damage English football’s standing in the international game and, in the worst-case scenario, lead to English clubs being removed from the Champions League and—perhaps more seriously—the national team being banned from competitions such as the European championship and the World cup. Let us make no mistake: if the Government’s regulator were to exercise its powers in ways that contravene the established framework of global football governance, the ramifications would be swift and severe. A particular area of concern stems from one of UEFA’s fundamental requirements, which is that there should be no Government interference in the running of football. As hon. Members might know, under FIFA’s rules, any form of what is deemed undue third-party interference in the affairs of a national football association can result in disciplinary action. That can include suspension of the football association itself, exclusion of clubs from European competitions or the ineligibility of players to represent England in FIFA-sanctioned tournaments such as the World cup.

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31. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    The Lib Dem spokesman makes an interesting comparison. As I said in the Committee’s debate on Tuesday, my focus is on football, and I am outlining with this amendment my concerns about the interactions of a sport with other international competitions. I will come on to explain why football in particular is interwoven with international principles. The majority of fans want to focus on the sport, rather than politics. I am sure that there are many more debates to be had on issues such as the ECHR in the rest of this Parliament. I will stick to football today, but I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s comments. UEFA’s ultimate sanction would be excluding the federation from UEFA and teams from competitions. That risk is very real: it has happened before and can happen again. In 2006, the Greek football federation was banned from European competition. People might argue that I am trying to scaremonger, but I am trying to highlight that this is a real risk. It is important to clarify what FIFA and UEFA mean by “third-party interference”. It is not a casual term; it is clearly defined in their statutes. It refers to instances where public authorities, including Governments or regulators created by Government legislation, exert influence over how football is run in a way that compromises the independence of football associations and clubs. Examples include dictating the appointment or removal of club directors—which the Bill does—influencing the outcome of football disciplinary procedures and imposing governance models that conflict with internationally recognised standards. Any new licensing requirements introduced by the IFR must be meticulously aligned with existing UEFA and national frameworks. It is therefore important that the IFR’s licensing criteria are complementary to football and created in full consultation with clubs and any other affected parties. Does the Minister accept that clubs, as entities directly impacted by licensing regulations, must have a full voice in the development and implementation of those requirements? What consultation are the Government or their regulator currently undertaking on these regulations? Let me be clear: I understand that the creation of the IFR in and of itself is on the borderline of what constitutes third-party interference. We are taking great care to help the Government to redesign a regulator that is fully independent of Ministers and professionally competent. However, in the absence of clear statutory guidelines to avoid conflicts with international rules, there is a risk, or perhaps even an inevitability, that the Government’s regulator may, at some point in the future, cross a line drawn by UEFA or FIFA.

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32. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. That is exactly what we are trying to do. This is not a wrecking amendment; we are just trying to tighten the Bill to ensure that no conflict arises that would damage the participation of English clubs or the national team in future competitions. We know that UEFA is concerned about the potential for scope creep and that the Government’s regulator may expand its mandate beyond its loosely defined current competences. That expansion, intentional or otherwise, into broader aspects of football governance could undermine established structures and processes of the sport and amount to Government interference. That is why my amendment is needed. It would place a duty on the regulator to abide by long pre-existing international frameworks within which English football exists. It requires the Government’s regulator to ensure that, in pursuing its objectives, it does not create legal or procedural clashes with the statutes of FIFA and UEFA. Legislation that compromises the FA’s autonomy as the primary regulator of football in England would be non-compliant with those international statutes, which are upheld and enforced rigorously across Europe and globally. Some may ask why Parliament should concern itself with the rules of unelected international bodies. Why not simply legislate as we see fit and allow the regulator to act as robustly as necessary? On the surface, that is a fair political question, but we must recognise the reality of football governance. FIFA and UEFA are not advisory bodies; they are the organisations through which our clubs gain access to international competitions, including European competitions. They are custodians of the World cup, the European championship and the Champions League, to name just a few. Their statutes form part of the accepted legal architecture of the global game and all member associations, including the FA, are bound by them.

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33. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    I appreciate what the Lib Dem spokesperson is trying to do, but I point out that English football has been involved directly with the rules that have been made and continue to be made.

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34. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    I think I know where this is going, but go on.

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35. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    I would argue very strongly that when the English football team finally wins the World cup, it will get much more out of FIFA than this country would ever get out of the European Union. English football does not exist in a vacuum, but the Bill acts as if it does. The global football ecosystem is fantastically complex, but the Bill is simple, clunky and—I am afraid to say—full of holes, which would potentially leave English football to drown among its international competition. I also fear that it will create even more legal cases, whereby clubs end up spending more time in courts than they do focusing on the football matches themselves. To act as if we can disregard those international rules, or to suggest that a domestic regulator can impose conditions without reference to them, would be to invite precisely the sort of jurisdictional collision that could see English football punished because of the good intentions of Members of this House. We cannot just pander to the politics; we must be practical about the potential havoc that the Bill will wreak across the English football pyramid. If FIFA or UEFA were to exclude English clubs or the national team from international competitions as a result of perceived third-party interference, the consequences would be nothing short of catastrophic. As hon. Members will know, the Premier League generates more than £6 billion in revenue annually, with over £1.8 billion coming from overseas broadcasting rights alone. In fact, I understand that the Premier League is the first sporting competition in Europe to generate more from its international broadcasting rights than it does from its domestic rights.

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36. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is something that we discussed at some length during the Committee’s first sitting. It is disappointing that all members of the Committee, including my hon. Friend, do not have access to that information to help them to make informed decisions. I appreciate some of the what-aboutery and counter-arguments that are made, but, as I have said, I will defend the right of Committee members to have full access to information. It is so important, in particular given the Committee’s function in respect of this legislation, that its members should have full and frank information. It is disappointing that that has not been disclosed so that we can fully understand all the risks. The Premier League’s broadcasting rights are in no small part predicated on English clubs’ participation in the Champions League and the Europa League. Exclusion from those competitions would make our top clubs less attractive to global audiences and sponsors, shrinking the broadcast value of the league and undermining its international appeal. Without wishing to confuse my sporting metaphors, that would have a knock-on effect further down the pyramid. If the Premier League makes less money, there is less money to distribute to the English Football League or the National League, which we will come on to when we consider other parts of the Bill. The Champions League alone contributes more than £300 million each season to English clubs, not including the knock-on commercial benefits. For top clubs, it accounts for up to 20% of their total revenue. Stripping that away would lead to cost-cutting, player sales and job losses, not just in clubs themselves but across the local economies that depend on matchday trade and revenue. The FA also receives critical funding linked to England’s participation in international tournaments, as I know a number of pubs do; for example, when we are in the Euros in the summer, that normally means that the economy receives a boost. A ban from the World cup or the European championship would not only harm national pride but cut investment in grassroots football, which is often funded in part through FIFA’s global redistribution programmes or revenues generated by the national team.

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37. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    I believe “Blue is the colour, football is the game” is the motto in the song. That is of course Chelsea. I congratulate them, as well as Spurs, on their recent victory in Europe. I probably should say that every other club that has won—

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38. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    Oh, here we go.

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39. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    I am genuinely surprised that the hon. Member did not talk about Crystal Palace’s success in the FA cup final. I am sure his point is noted by the Committee. More broadly, the football industry supports around 100,000 jobs in the United Kingdom, contributes more than £7.6 billion to GDP and delivers £3.6 billion in tax revenues annually. A major disruption to international participation because of this Government’s regulator would clearly put a serious dent in all that. In short, any move that risks our relationship with UEFA and FIFA is not just a sporting gamble but an economic one, and a profoundly reckless move for any Government to take. We must also consider the practical impact on clubs and fans. Imagine a scenario in which the Government’s regulator intervenes in the ownership model of a particular club in UEFA competitions and in doing so breaches UEFA’s licensing criteria. That club could find itself barred from the Champions League, the Europa League or other leagues through no fault of its own. Fans, players and club employees would suffer, and the club’s value and viability undermined, all as a result of a conflict that could and should have been avoided through foresight and careful drafting of this legislation. There is precedent for this kind of statutory provision. In sectors such as financial services, we have long recognised the need for domestic regulators to align their actions with international frameworks that they are part of. The Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority operate in a global regulatory environment and Parliament has provided them with duties and powers that reflect that reality. This is not a novel concept; it is standard practice where cross-border frameworks exist. As the Government have chosen to model their regulator on those in financial services, perhaps the Minister can tell us why they have not done so in this regard. Football is different. It is more internationally integrated than most sectors. Rules are more intertwined and clubs more interdependent on foreign clubs for competition, particularly at elite level. English clubs compete weekly in cross-border tournaments—for example, when Arsenal sadly lost to Paris Saint-Germain, who went on to win the Champions League. What a final that was. Players move freely between jurisdictions. Broadcasting rights are sold and consumed around the globe, as we have heard. Football’s regulatory framework must reflect that international dimension, not wilfully ignore it. Some will say that the amendment is unnecessary because the regulator can use its discretion to avoid conflict, but without a statutory duty, it could operate without full regard to the consequences abroad. The amendment would place a clear and proportionate duty on the Government’s regulator—something that its leadership would be required to consider in every decision they take. Importantly, the amendment would not hand international bodies a blank cheque. It would not bind the regulator to follow their rules blindly or to give up domestic responsibilities. What it would do is make sure that the Government’s regulator takes those rules into account and, wherever possible, avoids direct conflict. That is entirely reasonable and, in my view, essential to the credibility and effectiveness of the Government’s regulator. We do not want to create a regulator that acts in splendid isolation. We want a regulator that defends English football’s integrity but also safeguards its place in the global game. It would be the height of irony if, in the process of attempting to strengthen our domestic football pyramid, we inadvertently isolated it from the wider footballing world, solving one problem only to create a much worse one. The amendment would act as a safeguard and send a signal to fans, clubs and international partners alike that we in Parliament understand the integrated nature of modern football and legislate accordingly.

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40. 5 Jun 2025·Parliament·Mr Louie French

    Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

    A point that is being slightly missed in this exchange is something that I mentioned in my speech: the impact and risk for clubs and whether the line is crossed. In particular, the qualification for the Champions League each year in the Premier League is a huge source of revenue, as I explained. Having that risk at play could deter the inward investment into clubs that we know is key to the future success of English football, as we have already seen. Does my hon. Friend agree?

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