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10 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
COP29: UK Priorities
I warmly thank the hon. Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) for securing this debate on such an important topic. In the spirit of focusing on what brings us together highlighted by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), I will not spend too long responding to the comments of the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) regarding the nuclear industry. Although I agree with him about other areas where he has policy expertise, in this particular policy area we need to focus on the quick, clean, green renewable energy investment that, luckily, his Government are driving forward. That should be our focus. Will the Minister comment on three specific points? The first is related, actually, because although we talk about energy supply mechanisms, and the Government are taking measures in that area, the hon. Member for Ealing Southall highlighted the urgent need for us to upgrade the UK’s housing stock and to put our money where our mouth is in terms of energy efficiency, thereby reducing the need to generate more and more energy. That means both retrofitting existing housing and putting in place the new build housing standards that will mean every home is warm and affordable to heat, because it is not leaking heat. That will also help with the need to subsidise people’s heating bills. Will the Minister please assure me that she will work with her colleagues to introduce measures in the planning and infrastructure Bill to ensure that all homes are warm homes? We need to put our money where our mouth is and lead by example in this country, in this policy area as well as in others. Secondly, will the Minister comment on whether the Prime Minister will attend COP29 to demonstrate the leadership that is so urgently needed? Will he show leadership, not followership, regardless of the outcome of the American election and regardless of what is happening in terms of policy elsewhere in the world, including in China and the EU? We need UK leadership on the global stage at COP29; will the Prime Minister provide that? Finally, the new collective quantified goal that colleagues have referred to is urgently needed. Will the Government commit to increasing overseas development assistance back up to 0.7% of GNI as soon as possible? Will they commit to international climate finance that is new and additional to official development assistance? Will they also commit to putting in place the “polluter pays” fiscal mechanisms that are required to finance our nationally required contribution to recognising our historical responsibility for the global problem of climate change, and to putting in place the measures necessary to enable every country globally to reduce emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change that are coming down the road whether we like it or not?
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10 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
COP29: UK Priorities
Will the hon. Member give way?
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10 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
COP29: UK Priorities
The whole point is that I have not heard anything about it. I have heard two speeches by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and she has not mentioned it at all, which is why I asked that specific question. I look forward to a written response, but I urge the Government to take the point on board, because even the warm words are not there yet, let alone the action.
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10 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Winter Fuel Payment
Fuel poverty is an enormous issue in my constituency due to a combination of demographics, geography, the housing stock and, indeed, living standards. I rise to speak on behalf of the many hundreds of my constituents who have written to me to express their deep concern about the Government’s policy. I do not have time to read out extracts from their very moving emails, but I know that Judy, Kenneth, Pat, Tom, Robert and Gwen are all deeply concerned about the impact that it will have. They have reported their health issues, their partners’ disabilities, and the fact that they are just over the limit and will not be able to access the winter fuel payment. That will force them into the classic, depressing choice between heating and eating that this country must avoid. I have voted against the Government’s policy today for three reasons. First, it is socially regressive and will increase poverty among about 2 million people, nearly 1 million of whom ought to be getting pension credit. The Labour party’s efforts are nowhere near fast enough to avoid increased poverty this winter. Secondly, the policy is economically innumerate. It will not save the money that the Government argue it will save. There are far better ways to save that money, and to fund the action that is certainly needed to support our public services. Thirdly, the policy is, frankly, politically inept. I really cannot believe that this Government have spent political capital on making such an unfortunate and unjustifiable political decision. The winter fuel payment is not, and never was, a perfect policy. I have some sympathy with Members who have spoken today about the inequity of the inclusion error, whereby those who have significant wealth were still receiving the payment, but that has been replaced by a policy with an enormous and dangerous error of exclusion for those 2 million people who will no longer get the support that they need.
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10 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Winter Fuel Payment
I thank the hon. Member for his point. Like him, I live in a rural constituency with many people who are not connected to mains sources of power. This cliff edge is a key problem, and it has been referred to today by Members from across the House. There must be a better way, and that requires a better sort of politics. I have been in this Chamber today for the entirety of this debate and the one before on the statutory instrument and I have been very disappointed by the tone of some of the comments, the discussion, the debate and the argumentation that I have heard. It is the sort of politics that puts people off what we do here in this Chamber. This is a classic example of how we need to find ways to speak better about such fundamental issues. There must be an option to find some common ground. In the spirit of constructive criticism and constructive engagement, I urge the Government to stop, to review, to think again and to work out a way of meeting their need to find funding for public services in such a way that it does not place the burden on those not with the broadest shoulders but effectively with the narrowest. We need to find a way of talking not just about how we deal with fuel subsidies but about making sure that every house is warm and well insulated, so that the money is not just going up the chimney, out of the windows and into the pockets of the energy companies. We must invest for the long term so that every home is warm and every pensioner can keep warm.
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10 Sep 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
COP29: UK Priorities
Thank you, Dr Huq, for reminding me of process and having patience with me during my first Westminster Hall debate. Thank you, too, to the hon. Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) for facilitating this debate. At the end of a year of record-shattering temperatures and climate extremes, COP29 will prove a test of our collective willingness to respond to the climate crisis with the urgency and resolve it demands. We know that there is no room for new fossil fuel infrastructure if we are to have any chance of staying within safe climate limits. That is a scientific fact—one that the International Energy Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and countless experts have made clear. Historic progress was made at COP28, when the UK joined nearly 200 countries in agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels, marking a major breakthrough for international climate action. One year on, COP29 has the vital task of locking in momentum towards that promise. Yet despite the science and the consensus reached in Dubai, Governments around the world plan to produce 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with just a 50% chance of limiting warming to the Paris agreement goal of 1.5°. About half of all planned oil and gas developments between now and 2050 will be sanctioned by five wealthy Governments who position themselves as climate leaders, one of which is the UK. With the COP29 summit being hosted in a country with plans to increase its fossil fuel production by a third over the next decade, there is an urgent need for other big polluters, such as the UK, to show better leadership. Unless the promise made in Dubai is seen as a clear instruction to quit fossil fuels, last year’s hard-won consensus is destined to fall apart. Rhetoric must be met with action. In that context, the Government’s intention to consult on ending licences for the exploration of new oil and gas fields is a welcome relief from the previous Government’s dangerous obsession with maxing out fossil fuels. It marks a small step towards ending years of climate hypocrisy, which have undermined our position in international negotiations. However, it is only the bare minimum of ambition. To do what is necessary for both the climate and the UK’s credibility in international fora, the Government must move quickly to lock in their no new licensing position, and take the urgent next step of stopping development consents for all new oil and gas fields. That must be done alongside bringing forward a coherent plan to transition oil and gas workers into the clean energy jobs of the future, so that we can show other countries that that transition can and will be done in a fair and just way. Let us take the example of Rosebank. Bringing that oilfield online would be catastrophic for our climate and our international reputation. Burning the oil and gas from that huge field would produce over 200 million tonnes of CO2—more than the 28 lowest-income countries combined produce in a year. The emissions created just by extracting the oil from Rosebank would see the UK’s oil and gas industry blow past its emissions reduction target. Aside from being a climate crime, the new field would go against what is needed to strengthen the UK’s energy security—lower bills and a just transition. I welcome the Government doing the sensible thing and deciding not to defend in court the previous Government’s approval of new oil drilling at Rosebank, which makes it even more likely that the legal challenge against the field will be successful. If Equinor then seeks approval for the field again, the Government will have the opportunity to make a fresh start and a fresh decision on Rosebank. If presented with that opportunity, will the Government make the right choice, reject the field and mark the end of the road for climate-wrecking oil and gas projects in UK waters? Only then can we begin to rebuild our credibility on the global stage and reasonably look other countries in the eye at the negotiating table as we ask them to keep their own oil and gas reserves in the ground. As a country with broad shoulders and historic responsibility for accelerating climate chaos, the UK not only has a duty to deliver the transition away from fossil fuels here at home, but must play a leading role in supporting those countries that are least responsible for, but worst impacted by, climate breakdown. Baku’s big test, therefore, will be the delivery of the new collective quantified goal on climate finance. This is a crucial opportunity for richer countries to contribute their fair share, following years of broken promises and failure to deliver the $100 billion on time. At this COP, we must ensure that past mistakes are not repeated. That means agreeing a new goal that is not just a political deal but a real number, based on the needs of people in the global south and of vulnerable populations on the frontline of climate impacts. A black-box headline figure without clarity on how it will be delivered will not do. We must ensure that the goal results in funds that are genuinely new and additional, not double-counted from existing aid budgets—a reprehensible practice that has played a huge role in allowing the climate finance gap to widen over the past decade. Indeed, in February, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact found that under the previous Government the Foreign Office reclassified around £1.7 billion of existing UK aid as international climate finance. The UK has one of the largest gaps between its fair share and the climate finance it has delivered. We are letting the world down—it is right there in black and white—so will the Government ensure that UK negotiators show up to COP29 with a mandate to champion an ambitious new climate finance goal, and will they unlock the necessary public finance in addition to private finance? There is much more the UK could be doing, from tackling tax abuse and evasion by the extremely wealthy and corporations, removing subsidies for fossil fuels and looking at undertaxed sectors such as aviation, where the “polluter pays” principle is simply not being upheld. Justice requires that the nations most responsible for the climate crisis step up. That is our cue.
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9 Sep 2024ParliamentSiân Berry
Medicines
Alongside hon. Members who have spoken on behalf of other parties, I welcome the changes. Naloxone saves lives: it brings people back from one of the most final and, in many cases, fatal mistakes they can make. This is a really important change to make, but I hope that the regulations will be kept more closely and continuously under review, rather than us just coming back to the topic in two years’ time, as is mandated. Drugs policy must be evidence-led. As we see the benefits, hopefully quickly, of wider access and of more people having naloxone available in their work, it might be a good idea to see whether we can widen access any further. I have been reading the careful, evidence-based and considered responses from a range of different charities, including Release. It seems that there are quite a few groups of workers who ought to be able to use the first route—the expanded definition of workers who can easily access and use the drug—rather than the second route, under which they access it not directly but via a separately accredited provider of naloxone. As Release says, one of the simpler ways to achieve that might be to make it a pharmacy-available drug rather than a prescription drug, with some exceptions, as we have now. I do not want to say, “Don’t do this”; I am saying, “Do it, then review it and go further if you can.” Many groups of workers will have the experience of unexpectedly meeting people who are going through overdose more often than others will in their daily work. There are now also more people working with those who will unexpectedly be going through overdose because of the wider prevalence of synthetic opioids and the other routes to becoming a victim of opioid overdose. They include student welfare workers, youth workers who are not necessarily involved in youth justice, local councillors potentially, night-time venue staff, transport workers, who are not currently on the list, street cleaners and park workers. Once we see the benefits of wider groups being able to access naloxone easily, it may become obvious that some of these other groups ought to be trained and given simple access—potentially through pharmacies to anyone who asks. This is not to quibble. I am obviously restating quite a lot of what was said in the consultation. I hope that we continue to look at the evidence and expand this as quickly as possible. Every life that we could save, we should save. The harm that could be done is minimal in comparison.
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9 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Teacher Recruitment
I recently visited Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire college, which provides excellent further education opportunities for students in my constituency. However, there is not parity of funding for teachers in the FE sector and those in the schools sector, meaning that post-16 education is now better funded for those pursuing academic courses than for those pursuing vocational courses. Will the Secretary of State roll out the 5.5% pay rise to teachers in the FE sector also, so that there is no increase in inequality between academic and vocational opportunities?
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5 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Business of the House
Five peaceful climate protesters are serving clearly excessive jail sentences made under the last Government’s profoundly undemocratic Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, with one given five years in jail. That is two years longer than a man who pleaded guilty to violent disorder and assaulting an emergency services worker during the riots in Southport. The United Nations special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, has made clear statements to the effect that the sentences violate the UK’s legal obligations under the Aarhus convention. Will the Leader of the House please make time for Members to discuss the urgent need to repeal this repressive anti-protest law that fundamentally undermines the UK’s obligations under international law?
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5 Sep 2024ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Great British Energy Bill
I have been enjoying the maiden speeches today, particularly those of the hon. Members for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon). Having enjoyed a week’s holiday in Cornwall last week, I have enjoyed hearing even more about Cornwall today. I am pleased to speak in this debate and to have the opportunity to welcome the Bill, particularly the commitment that it shows to achieving net zero emissions from the electricity grid by 2030. An exciting revolution in the way we produce and use energy is taking place. It is vital that there be new support and incentives to directly accelerate renewable development, giving the sector the confidence to invest and innovate that comes from the long-term predictability that we need. The Bill is an important step in the right direction. I hope that as it progresses through Parliament, we can have a constructive debate about being even more ambitious, in line with the climate science, and, crucially, about how we take the public with us. I am sure that we will return to that subject in future discussions, but today I will highlight three particular gaps that I hope the Minister will address in his winding-up speech. The first gap, which has already been referred to, is the opportunity to reflect that the climate and nature crises go hand in hand. I know that the Secretary of State recognises that point and recognises that renewable energy development can go hand in hand with protecting carbon-rich habitats and delivering more nature-based solutions on land and at sea, so it is disappointing that the Bill does not give Great British Energy a remit to contribute to nature’s recovery alongside accelerating the scale and pace of renewable energy delivery. A nature recovery duty would mean meeting climate targets and contributing to biodiversity targets set under the Environment Act 2021. It would mean automatically baking wildlife-friendly design into renewable energy project development from the outset. I also highlight the need to bake farming-friendly design into renewable energy developments. The second area on which I invite the Secretary of State or the Minister to respond is the glaring and gaping hole in the proposed legislation—namely, the failure to use the opportunity to more explicitly and definitively rule out the drilling and burning of new fossil fuel projects. A net zero carbon plan has to involve ceasing to use fossil fuels, not just increasing renewables. Put simply, fossil fuels increase carbon emissions. We have heard from the UN Secretary-General that fossil fuels are literally cooking our planet, and far more needs to be done to remove their use. Although we have recently seen some encouraging developments from the Government in making it clear that they will not defend the legal challenges to, for example, the Rosebank oilfield, they could go far further, so why not use this Bill to further reduce the UK’s exposure to price volatility and households’ exposure to energy price shocks by making it crystal clear that Great British Energy will not be allowed to facilitate, encourage or participate in any projects based on fossil fuels? The third area I want to highlight is community energy, to which other Members have drawn attention today. Like other Members, I have a community project in my constituency; it is in the village of Palgrave, where there is a community-owned wind turbine on the playing fields. I heard the Secretary of State talk about community energy earlier, so perhaps we just need clarification of the Government’s intention, but the legislation does not appear to explicitly mention community energy, despite its huge potential. I hope that this is an unintended omission, and that the Minister or the Secretary of State can confirm that there will be community energy representation on the governance structures of Great British Energy, notably from the co-operatives that are such a big part of the sector. I put on record my support for the excellent Local Electricity Bill, which won significant support in the last Parliament. I very much hope that the proposals in it are taken forward, including by enabling renewable energy generation schemes to sell directly to local people and making sure that that is acted on without delay. In conclusion, I welcome this Bill and commend the Government for bringing it forward. Great British Energy has the potential to make a game-changing difference, but I would welcome clarification on the level of ambition needed in the areas that I have highlighted.
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4 Sep 2024ParliamentSiân Berry
Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report
I thank the Prime Minister for his very serious and compassionate statement. The events of June 2017 feel like yesterday. Although I cannot imagine how the people directly affected are feeling right now, we must act in every way we can, and we must act together as much as possible. However, I note that the inquiry’s report does not make new proposals on transparency and accountability for social housing tenants and leaseholders, particularly on access to fire risk assessments and related information, which are still very hard for residents to access—I saw that for myself in London, and I am still seeing it in Brighton. The previous Government did not act on the calls for housing associations to be subject to freedom of information requirements, despite them including calls made by the Information Commissioner as long ago as August 2017. Will the Prime Minister act now to fix these gaps in resident empowerment and access to information? That would be very simple, but it is not covered by today’s report.
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4 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Budget Responsibility Bill
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for her excellent maiden speech. Indeed, we have heard more than half a dozen excellent maiden speeches today, several of which touched on the climate crisis and the future of children in our country, themes that relate to my amendment. I was touched to hear the passion with which all the new Members spoke about their experiences and commitments. My amendment 5 requires the OBR to report on the impact of fiscally significant measures announced by the Government on the UK’s statutory net zero target. The justification for my amendment is that we simply cannot separate the economy and the climate—they are interlinked. To deliver the green economic transformation that we so urgently need, as referenced by hon. Members speaking earlier, every single policy must be aligned with the UK’s net zero target and every Government spending decision should be as well. It makes sense to increase the OBR’s remit on net zero to specifically consider the impact of climate risks on economic stability, and how far policies introduced at fiscal events will reduce or increase these risks. Fiscal events, namely Budgets and spending reviews, lock in what is happening in our economy for years to come, even generations, so it beggars belief that they are not properly taking account of climate impacts. Whether those policies are spending on new roads, subsidies and tax breaks for oil and gas, investment in renewables infrastructure or giveaways like a freeze on fuel duty, they all have direct impacts on the UK’s prospect of meeting our net zero targets. Those impacts should be made clear and considered explicitly in the policy-making paper. We need to be thinking about the impacts of today’s economic policies on the prospects for future generations. The costs of failing to take an approach that considers climate impacts are eye watering. A 2022 report by the Grantham Institute found that climate change damages to the UK are projected to triple by 2050 and more than double again 50 years later, so climate prudence and fiscal prudence are one and the same thing. Given that the OBR’s main duty is to assess the health of the UK economy and the sustainability of its public finances, it needs to be charged with assessing whether fiscal events are reducing or increasing climate risks to the economy. Bringing net zero into the OBR’s mandate is consistent with the Government’s five missions. Indeed, in announcing its clean energy superpower document, Labour said that it will add net zero mandates to all relevant regulators that need it. I would argue that the OBR is a relevant regulator that needs a net zero mandate. That is why I am proposing this probing amendment today. As other Members have mentioned, it would also represent increased transparency around how fiscal policy choices are impacting the UK’s progress towards our net zero targets and help ensure that future Governments also consider that. It is also an important stepping stone towards a net zero test, which would assess the aggregate climate and nature impact of every fiscal event. Again, this is something that Labour committed to in opposition. In his winding-up remarks, will the Minister comment on whether he is able to ensure that this test is integrated into the legislation that he is proposing? I hope that Labour will use this opportunity to commit publicly to introducing a net zero test in government, and will take a step towards doing that by backing my amendment.
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4 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Budget Responsibility Bill
Does the Minister agree that having committed to give a net zero mandate to all relevant regulators, the OBR is indeed a highly relevant regulator?
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3 Sep 2024ParliamentSiân Berry
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
The Greens are not agnostic on privatisation. We very much support the principle of the Bill and look forward to its progress. I want to make a short speech on amendments 2 to 5, which I tabled. They are very simple and common sense; their goal is to leave open the opportunity for elected devolved bodies to set up companies that they own, in order to bid to run railway services under the overall guidance and wing of Great British Railways. The Bill, which restricts the definition of a public sector company to those owned by Ministers, either here or in Wales or Scotland, does not allow for that. That seems to clash with the direction of travel towards more public sector devolution, with which my party and I agree. It would improve and future-proof the Bill if we amended proposed new section 30C of the Railways Act 1993 so that Ministers could in future choose a company set up or owned by combined authorities, or by groups of unitary, county, district or borough councils who decided to co-operate, ahead of further devolution, on improving their railways. Any decisions on the award of franchises, on the suitability of a body to run and own local railways, and on where investment should go would remain fully with Ministers. I tabled the amendments in a constructive spirit, and I hope that they will start a constructive conversation that will continue here and in the other place as the Bill progresses.
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3 Sep 2024ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Healthcare Provision: East of England
I thank the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for securing this crucial debate. Our region is rural and many Members have talked about the decline in health services in rural areas. I want to talk about some issues that particularly affect my constituents in Waveney Valley, which straddles the Norfolk-Suffolk border. Whether it is the long waiting lists for surgery, long delays in getting assessments for mental health or the difficulty in accessing a GP or a dentist, we have seen a decline in our health services and it is becoming harder and harder for people in our villages and market towns to access them. At the Budget in a few weeks’ time, I very much hope the Government will look at all options for increasing funding to the NHS, including being willing to ask the very richest in society to pay a little more in tax—modestly more—in a way that could enable us to get the funding needed to keep pace with demand. I want to raise three specific issues on the decline of rural health services that particularly affect my constituency. I would appreciate it if the Minister addressed them in summing up the debate. The first is the lack of hospital services in rural constituencies, which others have already referred to. For example, Hartismere hospital in Eye is a wonderful building that has had a lot of investment, but lacks the services that the local population, particularly older people and people without a car, would really like to be able to make more use of. The League of Friends at the hospital showed me round the excellent facilities a couple of weeks ago. The hospital runs a range of clinics that people really value. However, both the league and local doctors would like to see facilities such as an X-ray scanning unit, the return of a community consultant, particularly in services for older people, and a GP walk-in surgery. Will the Minister consider how hospitals in rural areas, such as Hartismere hospital in Eye, can be given the resources and support to provide a greater range of services?
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3 Sep 2024ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Healthcare Provision: East of England
I totally agree with the hon. Member’s point. I have had family experiences in recent months that have shown me, starkly and at first hand, just how much we need to address the crisis in social care and the lack of integration with the health service. I want to highlight that on the Norfolk-Suffolk border, in towns such as Eye and Diss, people are 20 miles from the nearest big hospital in Norwich, Bury St Edmunds or Ipswich—and in towns such as Halesworth, which does not have a local community hospital at all, people are even further away. I ask the Minister to consider what support can be given to rural hospitals to provide more services, and particularly to encourage cross-county border working in the health services that will enable us to look at how services can be provided in a way that benefits communities straddling the county border, as they do around Diss and Eye in my constituency. Secondly, is no surprise that we have heard about dentistry from nearly every hon. Member who has spoken in this debate. We have the Sahara of dental deserts in the east. In the winter, I conducted a survey of residents in Waveney Valley to which more than 800 people responded. A quarter had given up on dentistry treatment altogether because of lack of NHS provision, others were driving long distances to access a dentist and some had even pulled out their own teeth. That is just not tolerable in the 21st century. I welcome the Government’s commitment to reforming the dental contract. From my discussions with dentists and dental organisations such as the British Dental Association, it is clear that reform of the dental contracts is the root cause of the big exodus of dentists from the NHS. Dentists are not being paid appropriately for the work they do. Can the Minister set out the timescale for reviewing that contract? Health organisations have told me that for every effort they put in to getting new dentists into the NHS, dentists are leaving at a greater rate. We must address the root cause of the problem. Thirdly, I want to highlight optometry. I received correspondence from an optometrist in Norfolk concerned about the lack of post-operative aftercare, particularly for operations such as cataract surgeries. They highlight that private companies are operating services of that kind and then discharging members to the community without aftercare, which is having a knock-on effect on A&E. Can the Minister ensure that, where private companies provide such services, the proper aftercare is also provided? Will she commit to looking at whether that highlights the problem of relying on private companies, which might seek to cut corners in the name of profit, to provide services? To conclude, our rural services, particularly in market towns and villages, are severely affected by the decline in health services. Whether it is dentistry or a lack of local hospital services, we need urgent action and I would welcome the Minister’s addressing my specific points.
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2 Sep 2024ParliamentSiân Berry
Violent Disorder
The ugly, racist mob violence in our towns and cities this summer was incited and organised by far-right groups, often using electronic platforms including Telegram and X. For example, on Telegram, groups have distributed instructions for making petrol bombs. Locations of hotels housing migrants and offices of immigration lawyers were also shared. Elon Musk, the proprietor of X, has greatly amplified some accounts that promote racist violence in our cities, while failing to take action to remove others. In the Home Secretary’s response, will she look at options for prosecuting those who own platforms that may have enabled or committed crimes under section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006?
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2 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
New Build Homes: Construction Standards
Given the Government’s ambitious house building plans, the energy crisis and the climate crisis, will the Minister bring forward legislation in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure Bill to ensure all new houses have solar panels on their roofs as standard, so they can generate their own power, and net zero building standards are brought forward as soon as possible, so that homes are well insulated, warm and cheap to heat?
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2 Sep 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Middle East Update
The news about the suspension of some export licences is indeed welcome, and I know that many in my constituency and across the country will be glad to hear it, but I am alarmed that the principle underpinning criterion 2C seems to have been inconsistently applied. In particular, the justification that the Foreign Secretary offered for not suspending licences for the F-35 appears inconsistent. There appears to be clear evidence of risk—I understand that there are online posts from the Israel Defence Forces indicating that F-35s have been used in bombing Gaza—so I urge him to review the case again and to suspend those licences. Will he also clarify whether licensing continues for R902(W) Wankel engines, which were involved in the attack on World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers?
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30 Jul 2024ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Building Homes
Many residents in my constituency of Waveney Valley find themselves priced out of living in their community, as is the case in so much of the country, because the homes that are being built are not affordable for local people. I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement on affordable housing, but how many of the 1.5 million homes that she has pledged to build does she expect to be affordable? In particular, how many does she expect to be council homes? What action will be taken to address the fact that we have a million empty homes in this country?
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29 Jul 2024ParliamentSiân Berry
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
I thank all the Members who have given their maiden speeches. It was moving to hear all of them, particularly that of the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean). I am making a note of everybody who mentions youth services, and he did some very good advocacy: he is on my list. It is great to be speaking on my first Bill in the House, and that it is a Bill that brings passenger railway services back into public hands. The fact that this measure made it through the dramatic sift of Labour policy that took place before the election, and is among the first and most urgent pieces of new legislation we are looking at, is I believe in no small way due to the Secretary of State’s own commitments to this policy and her dedicated internal advocacy for it. I wish that more of her colleagues had been so willing and determined to push for similar Bills to bring other privatised services such as water and the big six energy companies into public hands, but that does not diminish my delight this evening. I recently mentioned to her how much I was looking forward to scrutinising and where necessary helping to improve other upcoming Bills under her remit, including the buses Bill and the more detailed railways Bill. This is all great work. As far as this Bill’s key principle is concerned, the Secretary of State will have noticed that public ownership is popular with me and is popular with the people. In 2024, that principle is supported for the railways by 76% of the public. That support has risen steadily for the past decade; it was even backed before the election by 60% of those intending to vote Conservative. Bringing the railways back into public hands has been in my party’s programme for as long as I can remember. It is also close to the hearts of my constituents in Brighton Pavilion, for whom the legacy of the failed policy of privatisation is one of poor services, inefficiencies and very high costs for passengers. An annual season ticket between Brighton and London currently costs my constituents the best part of £6,000. That cost has risen by approximately 40% in the past 10 years—far more than wages in Brighton have risen. In the face of service cuts and failure to invest, passengers have had to form local pressure groups such as the Preston Park Train Campaign to save services. In so many stations, understaffing and disabled access remain dreadful, creating appalling discrimination against passengers—and don’t get me started on toilet provision. I am not just here to praise the Bill or celebrate its principle. I do have some questions and comments—all to be constructively taken, I hope. The Bill is very short and very simple, and I wonder whether it could benefit from some additional detail and a wider scope. I will keep my comments brief at this stage, but on each point I would welcome more detail from the Secretary of State on her thinking. I also request a meeting with her to discuss the issues before Committee of the whole House. First, I want to talk about the exceptions from the Bill. From the information I have, it appears that the Bill will not bring into public ownership the regional services currently let by concession contracts, including the Elizabeth line, Mersey Rail and the London Overground, or any of the services on open-access routes, including Eurostar, Grand Central, Heathrow Express, Hull Trains and Lumo. For passengers, hearing the Government promise to bring private operators into public hands, but then hearing that a service they use will be excluded, will be a disappointment. I hope we will hear more soon about how those gaps will be filled. Also out of scope, as the Bill’s title indicates, are rail freight services. The public might have expected those private operators to be among the first for action, especially as getting freight off the roads and on to rail has so many benefits in addressing road danger, congestion and climate emissions. Another exception from this Bill to bring passenger railways back into public hands is the rolling stock companies. Quite honestly, most members of the public do not have much awareness of it, but the rolling stock in which we travel is another public asset that is worthy of public investment and should not be held merely for private rent and profit by companies that add no real value to the service. At the very least, the Bill could have included a prohibition on new arrangements of that kind. Finally, I feel that there is a potential gap in the Government’s plans around rail devolution. The Bill’s definition of “public sector company” will allow franchises to pass only to companies wholly owned by the Secretary of State or her counterparts in Wales and Scotland, not to those owned by other elected bodies whose remit includes, or might in future include, managing transport in an integrated way within an area of the country. I am very interested in further exploring the Secretary of State’s thinking on that, because a Green principle close to my heart is subsidiarity: making sure that ownership and power are devolved to the lowest and most practical level. In the case of integrated, multimodal transport planning and investment, particularly for day-to-day travel, the best level is often a regional or sub-regional travel-to-work area. At that level of planning, sustainable travel across different modes can be linked up in a responsive network with convenient interchanges, rational timetables and shared ticketing across modes. Profitable commuter routes on a railway might also directly help to cut car dependency in isolated villages by subsidising essential connectivity by bus, for example. This kind of transport planning is best done alongside and in tandem with planning for new homes and businesses, for which the right scale is also a regional or sub-regional area, working with the involvement of local authorities, people and workplaces. Like many people, I am slightly concerned about the centralising tendency that we can detect in a range of recent actions from the leadership of our new Government; I hope that it will not dominate transport and planning policies in this House. If the Secretary of State agrees to meet me as requested, I will be very interested to hear more about how she expects the upcoming devolution Bill to interact with this Bill and with the future railways Bill in respect of her plans for how centralised the future planning, management and ownership of transport as a whole will be. Admittedly, the places in England where this kind of devolution applies, and where rail franchises might sensibly pass to companies owned by cities and regions in the near future, are currently very few. However, when we have franchises serving nearby metro mayor areas, such as TransPennine Express and Northern, which are already under the wing of the Department for Transport; when the Mayor of London already has his sights firmly set on taking over specific services; and when there might, as I hope, be greater devolution of powers to combined authorities and areas in the south-east region and Sussex, where I now represent many people dependent on rail services, it does seem strange to introduce a Bill that appears to need amendment to rule in such an exciting prospect. When the Government are about to give more powers to local authorities to run buses, it also seems strange not to help them to work together to run suitable railways. Will the Secretary of State explain what plans there are to better link up railways and bus services? Will she discuss them with me before Committee? Those are all my comments and questions. I am very much looking forward to the future, and I am looking to help build the best future we can from this new and refreshing approach of public ownership. I reiterate how pleased I am to be making such a speech, rather than one bitterly complaining about a Government who have completely the wrong idea; I hope that my questions and cautions will be taken in that spirit.
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29 Jul 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
Asylum Seekers: Government Support
<Question HRSContentId="{077EA312-2743-45AF-B5A6-739DC64B8576}">6. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{7273B14E-04BD-4C71-8712-6E7B5567E9FA}">What steps she is taking to help prevent asylum seekers from becoming destitute.</QuestionText> </Question>
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29 Jul 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
Asylum Seekers: Government Support
No recourse to public funds is a policy that prevents most migrants in the UK from accessing most forms of welfare support. I would like to see the policy scrapped altogether to reduce child poverty and homelessness, but, at the very least, will the Minister stop applying it to the visas of any parents of children under 18 to ensure that children can be adequately protected against poverty and destitution?
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29 Jul 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
Topical Questions
<Question HRSContentId="{2214AF47-B982-43E1-9D74-DB53047FA112}">T7. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{FBB3B387-50B9-4FBC-B38B-DEF7B04EBD5A}"></QuestionText>The Government have rightly scrapped the Rwanda scheme, but the UK is falling behind our international counterparts in providing safe routes for refugees. We are now one of the only countries in Europe where refugee children cannot sponsor their family members to join them here. Organisations such as the Refugee Council have documented the harm that causes. Will the Home Secretary please confirm that the Government’s mission to improve opportunity for all extends to refugee children, and that they will amend the immigration rules accordingly?</Question>
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29 Jul 2024ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Public Spending: Inheritance
I have sympathy for the Chancellor’s seeking to address the issues that she has outlined, but the solutions that she has set out today are focused on spending cuts. Will she please say more about the opportunities that she is looking at for bringing revenue into the Exchequer, so that we can have the investment that is needed, whether in new hospitals—we all know that hospitals around the country are crumbling—or in the railways, as people are stuck in traffic jams and struggling with high rail fares? In particular, has she considered introducing a wealth tax? A tax on the very wealthiest in society—people with assets of more than £10 million—would raise tens of billions of pounds during this Parliament, and it could address the fact that we have growing billionaire wealth, while ordinary people are suffering from these cuts.
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26 Jul 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
Does the Minister agree that the energy crisis is a matter not just of supply but of demand, and that the cheapest bill is the one that does not have to be paid because the energy is not being used? Does he intend to announce today ways of tackling the demand side? We could, for example, ensure that all new buildings are built to net zero standards, and announce a timeline for getting to that point as soon as possible. We could also announce a nationwide, street-by-street insulation programme to tackle the need for energy efficiency; that is the cheapest and quickest way to address the energy crisis. If he is not going to make those announcements today, when will they be made?
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26 Jul 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
Will the hon. Member give way?
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26 Jul 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
I very much welcome much of what the Minister has said in this announcement, including on the need for a just transition for those working in the oil and gas sector. However, before the election, the Government made a commitment to end new oil and gas licences, although they are still planning to allow the new Rosebank oil field to open, despite it being connected to a level of carbon emissions that we simply cannot allow in this country. I have two questions about the future of oil and gas. First, will the Minister confirm how and when the ending of new oil and gas licences will happen? Secondly, will the Government reconsider the opening of the disastrous Rosebank oil and gas field?
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26 Jul 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
Will the Minister give way?
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26 Jul 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) raised a concern about solar threatening our ability to grow our own food in this country. I respectfully suggest that he checks out the recent research by Exeter University, which shows that we could increase the amount of renewable energy we generate in this country 13 times over using, I believe, less than 3% of the UK’s land, and none of the highest-grade agricultural land—
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26 Jul 2024ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your new role. I am honoured to follow the maiden speeches of other Members, including my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), with whom I look forward to working, and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), whose speech I enjoyed very much, particularly his closing remarks about delivering our speeches with some salt and showing a gracious approach to engaging with one another in this House. Many hon. Members, particularly new Members, have talked about the opportunity to set a new tone in our politics in this Parliament, one of working constructively and showing a respectful approach to how we work together. I thank the hon. Member for setting that out. I am grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech as a new MP, one of a group of newly elected Green MPs, and as the MP for a brand-new constituency, the beautiful Waveney Valley on the Norfolk-Suffolk border. As it is a new and additional seat, I do not have a direct predecessor to pay tribute to, but I will briefly thank all five of the previous MPs whose seats I have taken part of, for their work in representing the residents whom I now have the honour to represent. I thank Richard Bacon, Dan Poulter, Jo Churchill, Peter Aldous and Thérèse Coffey for their work as MPs. I am proud to be in this place today to represent Waveney Valley, which has been created as an additional seat in the east of England. As a native East Anglian, it is an honour to be able to represent such a wonderful constituency spanning such beautiful parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. I hope that other hon. Members, who are no doubt equally proud of their constituencies, will indulge me for a few moments as I try to give them a sense to what it means to me. From its vibrant market towns with lots of independent businesses on the high streets to the beautiful natural environment of East Anglia, with the Waveney and several other rivers running through it, Waveney Valley is a fine example of picturesque and historic East Anglia. The ancient market town of Diss is mentioned in the Domesday Book; Bungay has a Norman castle; the towns of Eye and Halesworth date back to Roman times; and Harleston dates back to the medieval period. Creating a constituency that spans the county border of Norfolk and Suffolk was considered controversial by some, but personally I think it is an exciting opportunity to embrace cross-county working, and much of the constituency reflects a natural community around the Waveney. That said, there is one contentious question that some people put to me: which football team do I support? I am proud to be a lifelong Norwich City fan, but in football as in politics, I am not tribal, and I warmly congratulated Ipswich Town on their recent promotion to the premier league for the first time since 2002. It is a great thing for East Anglia, and I very much look forward to celebrating having two premier league men’s football teams in East Anglia this time next year. What really makes Waveney Valley special is its people —people who care about their community; who, like me, have a strong sense of local identity; and who demonstrate great ingenuity and care for their communities. I could cite many examples of that ingenuity, whether from farming, the third sector or local businesses, but to give just one example, the indoor marketplace in Diss opened last year in a former department store. It is a community initiative, giving local traders affordable small spaces to sell their crafts and goods in a shared space—a lovely boost for the local economy in a building that would otherwise have sat empty. What a great example of regenerating the high street. People in Waveney Valley are rightly proud of our market towns and villages, but they also feel let down by the loss of local services and the degradation of our environment in recent years and decades, which has particularly affected our rural communities. As has been noted this week, we have “the Sahara of dental deserts.”—[Official Report, 23 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 506.] One of my constituents told me that they make a four-hour round trip to access a dentist. Over a quarter of the residents I surveyed over the winter said that they are going without dental treatment, and like the hon. Member for Lowestoft—from whom we heard earlier— I have had examples in Suffolk of people telling me they have resorted to pulling out their own teeth. This cannot go on, and I welcome the new Government’s commitment to reform the dental contract, which is the root cause of this issue and of the exodus of dentists from the NHS. I hope to hear a timetable for that plan as soon as possible. We have also seen a decline in other health services in my rural constituency. People find it hard to get access to a GP appointment in many areas; we have had local hospitals close in market towns; and we also have rural isolation, with so many bus services axed or cut back, particularly in villages. At the same time, we have the scandal of sewage in our rivers, which the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) spoke about so eloquently, and which I know so many Members across the House feel extremely strongly about. People are horrified by this threat to people’s health and to wildlife, and they rightly see it as a sign of wider environmental neglect. I very much hope that the restoration of nature and tackling the sewage scandal are made top priorities by this Government. Whether it is on the growing use of food banks, people suffering from flooding or the decline in our services, I want to see real action that genuinely accounts for the needs of our rural communities. Because of their anger about the loss of local services and the decline in our environment, people in my area were determined to vote for a change at this election. They are used to having Green councillors standing up to represent them, and they voted for an MP to stand up for their area. I will press for the restoration of local services and the defending of the local environment. It is my intention to serve the people of Waveney Valley by seeking to bring people and places together. I will work across political and constituency lines to get things done, scrutinise and constructively challenge the Government, and work to improve the lives of my constituents. As many other hon. Members have said, we have an opportunity with this new Parliament to put our politics on a more mature and civilised footing and move beyond tribal approaches, and I am confident that that is what the public expect of us. I have had thousands of conversations with local residents over the past few years, and I know that they want an active and visible local MP. I am determined to fulfil that role—to be Waveney Valley’s voice in Westminster and not Westminster’s voice in Waveney Valley. I would like to set out how I am approaching an issue in East Anglia that has attracted a lot of interest from some right hon. Members and the media. I have been a climate campaigner for 25 years—that has been my primary passion since I was a teenager—and making a difference on climate and the environment has guided everything that I have done in my career, including spending the last decade leading national charities whose purpose is to support the renewable energy sector. I am the first to argue that we need to scale up all types of renewable energy, and there was much in the Minister’s speech to welcome. If we are to scale up renewable energy at the pace required to tackle the climate emergency, we need to take communities with us and make infrastructure decisions that are right for the long term. What I have called for in relation to the infrastructure proposals that are currently on the table for East Anglia is a proper options assessment of the different ways in which the energy generated by new wind farms in East Anglia is connected to the grid. Today I have heard two hon. Members from two different political parties from mine refer to the fact that there are different ways in which we can connect that renewable energy to the grid. I think that simply calling for an options assessment is a very reasonable approach. I am also calling on the Government and the planning process to account for the points raised by wildlife trusts, local councils and communities about the impacts of the current infrastructure proposals. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has set out that there is a planning process to be followed, which the Government should not prejudge, and the Prime Minister has said that he wants to reset the tone on the political debate—something I very much welcome. In that spirit, I ask that we move beyond some of the comments that have been made in this Chamber on the particular infrastructure proposal that I have referred to; that the Government commit to working with communities to ensure that infrastructure decisions are made in a way that properly accounts for the issues raised by wildlife organisations and local communities, and genuinely look at the options that different Members are highlighting; and that if a version of the current proposal does go ahead, the mitigations proposed by organisations such as Mid Suffolk and Babergh district councils, and the wildlife trusts, are properly taken on board and full compensation is put in place that accounts for the impact on farmers’ livelihoods and on others affected. On the wider subject of today’s debate, I welcome the creation of Great British Energy and much of what the Minister shared in terms of scaling up renewable energy. I politely point out, though, that to get to net zero we have to move away from fossil fuels as well as increasing renewable energy. To that end, I would ask the Government to place a strong emphasis on energy efficiency measures. The Minister referred to home insulation, but what I have heard so far will only scratch the surface of the home insulation measures needed to keep bills down and homes warm. I also urge the Government to reconsider the Rosebank oilfield, which will have carbon emissions equivalent to 28 low-income countries, and to ensure that carbon capture and storage projects are never allowed to be an excuse for millions of tonnes of carbon pollution. I have two other points on climate. First, with significant climate change already happening around us, or already locked in as a result of emissions to date, far more public policy attention needs to be given to how we adapt to a changing climate, as well as to mitigating the worst excesses of climate breakdown. We need to look at those things together, and I look forward to returning to this issue on another date. Secondly, the decline of climate and nature must be seen as equal and twin problems. I stand ready to work with those from across the House to shift the UK from being one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries to getting on track to meet environmental targets, including on nature recovery. It is an honour to be here to represent the people of Waveney Valley. I have set out my guiding principles as a Member of this House, which are to stand up for our rural communities, for the restoration of public service and for the most vulnerable in our society, and to press for the urgent action needed on the twin climate and nature emergencies. I will play a constructive role in this House by supporting the Government and working with other parties where I agree with them, and in pressing the Government to be bolder on restoring nature, responding to the climate emergency and rebuilding our public services. And I will always speak up for the people of Waveney Valley.
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25 Jul 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Code of Conduct and Modernisation Committee
I welcome the statement that the Leader of the House is making. Does she agree that being an MP is an honour and a privilege, and should be a full-time job; and that the problem of second jobs goes wider than the limited issues she is addressing in her motion today? An example of the sort of behaviour that in my view should not be permitted would be an MP acting as managing director of a financial services company headquartered in a tax haven, in which case they might have a conflict of attention, potentially assisting people to avoid tax when of course we should all be serving the public interest. Will she act urgently to put forward further measures to prevent the type of behaviours that I have drawn attention to?
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25 Jul 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Code of Conduct and Modernisation Committee
Given that this is a Select Committee that you are setting up—[Interruption.] I am sorry. Given that the right hon. Lady is setting up the Committee specifically through a motion on the topic of modernisation, is this not an opportunity to demonstrate a tiny bit of that modernisation by ensuring that the smaller parties—not necessarily one member of each of them—are represented in its make-up? Would that not serve as an indication of good will towards the concept of modernisation?
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25 Jul 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Code of Conduct and Modernisation Committee
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome you to your place. I pay tribute to the very moving and passionate maiden speeches we have heard from across the House today. I probably do not have time to go through all the details in them, but I shall remember not to fall asleep in the Library. I recognise the passion with which many people spoke about defending their constituents’ interests and, in particular, tackling child poverty. I would like to speak to the formal topic of the debate: the modernisation of the House. I very much welcome the initiative by the Leader of the House in setting up the Committee and I look forward to feeding into it in whatever way possible, including through this debate. Modernisation should be about how we can become more efficient and effective as a House, and therefore more productive in our roles as MPs. That is what we have been elected to do. As I mentioned, I hope the Committee can be as representative as possible. It strikes me that as more than half the MPs are now newbie MPs—as, indeed, am I—there is perhaps an opportunity to ensure that the Committee is balanced in that way, so that the voices of new MPs, who are able to draw on a wide range of experience and perhaps have fresh eyes and fresh insight, which I think was mentioned in one of the maiden speeches, are represented. From my perspective as a newly elected Member, I would like to offer observations on three elements of how the House operates, to feed into the deliberations of the Committee. I would like to speak about sitting, speaking and voting—very day-to-day activities. I have spent only three weeks in this House, but I know from conversations in the corridors that my observations are shared by other Members in all parts of the House. My first point is about sitting. We are in a Chamber that is far too small to fit us all. I know that is not a novel observation, but as a newly elected MP, I find it really striking; it is quite extraordinary. I have served as a councillor for several years, and I have served as a Member of the European Parliament. In each of those chambers, we would have our own seat and our own desk, and we could plug in our devices, so that we could work off electronic materials. It seems extraordinary that we do not have space in this Chamber for each of us to sit and speak. Indeed, I was amazed to discover that there are seats in this Chamber on which we can sit, but from which we cannot speak. That seems an extraordinary limitation on the ability for everybody to participate in our debates. Would it not be wonderful if we all had somewhere to sit? The limitations on space also lead to some frankly rather ridiculous behaviour, such as the practice of queuing up at the opening of the Chamber to place a prayer card and book a seat. At times of great demand, such as the King’s Speech or Prime Minister’s questions, that leads to a contestation over space that simply would not happen if we had enough space for everybody. While I am on the topic of prayers, there is a practice in this place of having Christian prayers. As the daughter of preachers, I am very familiar with those, but I suggest that in this day and age, in a country of all faiths and none, it might be time to consider an approach a little more like Radio 4’s “Thought for the Day”, with a moment of reflection at the beginning of the day and an opportunity to hear views from people from a range of faiths, and indeed with none. I will move on to speaking. I am glad that a time limit has been introduced for speeches today; I am used to speaking in chambers with a time limit. Time limits aid the democratic process, because they mean that everybody gets a fair crack of the whip and an equal chance to have their voice heard in the Chamber. If we had more time limits, there would be more opportunities for people to participate, and perhaps MPs would be keener to participate in debates. There is also the process of getting a slot. I have been busy bobbing up and down to attract your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I did for five solid hours last week without managing to attract the Speaker’s attention. In recent days, a number of Members have wanted to make a maiden speech but have not been able to do so. The practice of bobbing might be good for the glutes, but I suggest that it is not so good for democracy. Perhaps we could find a more efficient way of allocating speaking time. While we are on the topic, I note that the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) spoke about the processes for Government or non-Government control of speaking time. An initiative to increase Back-Bench influence over the allocation of speaking time would be very useful. My final point on speaking is about the culture in this House. In the few short days that I have spent in this Chamber, I have witnessed everything from excessive deference to, frankly, braying. As other Members have said in their maiden speeches, we really need to clean up politics. We really need to show that we are all here to debate in as positive a spirit as possible, as the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis) said. It is extraordinary to me that we do not have electronic voting. We have a semi-system. While I have been here, I have participated in five votes, which has taken at least an hour and a quarter. If we add up all our votes, it basically comes to a month of MP time. It is an utter waste of time and totally unproductive. We could be getting through far more. Let us get rid of the voting Lobbies. We can double the physical size of the Chamber if we get rid of them—that is a genuine, practical suggestion. We can take the opportunity of the decanting process and having newbie MPs to really modernise how we operate here. Finally, if we want to be a truly modern House of Commons, we need proportional representation.
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25 Jul 2024ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Convention on Biological Diversity
I thank the hon. Member for securing this crucial debate and I agree with the analysis that he has set out. On his point about the need to move beyond the previous Government’s commitments, this week, environmental groups published new economic analysis that showed that almost £6 billion of investment is needed every year in nature-friendly farming to meet legally binding nature and climate targets. Does he agree that it is vital for Ministers to confirm urgently that the budget for nature-friendly farming will be not only maintained but increased in this Parliament?
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24 Jul 2024ParliamentAdrian Ramsay
Engagements
<Question HRSContentId="{CA452E30-9D10-460D-A89F-987AD814AADA}">Q14. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{0077AC0A-58B4-46A3-B5B0-7530E5E7CE48}"></QuestionText>The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth, so I welcome the Government’s signal that they are committed to nature recovery. That is critical to humanity’s future, as it affects everything from food security to public health and wellbeing. Please could the Prime Minister tell us how he will show leadership personally on this existential issue? In particular, will he attend the 16th biodiversity COP later this year, and will the UK Government be launching a bid to host a future UN nature summit?</Question>
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22 Jul 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
Border Security and Asylum
It is a huge relief that the vile Rwanda scheme has been scrapped. I have listened carefully to the Home Secretary’s statement. Given that 94% of people seeking asylum in this country are ready and eager to work to support themselves, and that freezing them out of work leaves them in destitution and means that the UK misses out on tax revenue from their work, and on much-needed specialists and professionals such as the nurse I met recently in an asylum seeker project in Bristol, will the Home Secretary take the advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and urgently lift the ban on asylum seekers working?
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19 Jul 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Israel and Gaza
I welcome the Foreign Secretary and his team to their places. I also welcome the statement, in particular the emphasis on the need for an immediate ceasefire, for the immediate release of all hostages and for a stop to settler violence and expansion in the west bank. I welcome the resumption of funding to UNRWA. I add my voice to the calls that a couple of hon. Members have made for the Foreign Secretary to commit to publishing the comprehensive review of Israel’s compliance or non-compliance with international humanitarian law, as soon as officials have completed it. In the meantime, will he apply the precautionary principle and act to stop all UK arms exports to Israel, given the already widespread evidence of considerable breaches of international law?
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18 Jul 2024ParliamentDr Ellie Chowns
Foreign Affairs and Defence
I am grateful to be called to make my maiden speech in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Midlothian (Kirsty McNeill) on her passionate advocacy for children and young people. I congratulate all new Members, especially those who have made their maiden speeches today. There have been some really excellent contributions. I would like to warmly thank all the staff of the House, who have made us feel so welcome here and helped us all to find our feet. I am particularly pleased to be called to speak in this debate, which focuses on foreign affairs and defence, having spent my own career working in the field of international development and having served in the European Parliament. These are issues that are very close to my heart and I will be following them with a close eye during the period of this Parliament. I would like to focus my remarks today on North Herefordshire, my constituency. It has been my home for over 20 years, and it is an incredible honour and privilege to be standing here today as the first woman MP from the county of Herefordshire. I would like to thank the voters of North Herefordshire for putting their faith and trust in me. During my campaign, I promised to work my socks off to represent and serve the people of my constituency. Having arrived here in this House, I was delighted to discover that the House of Commons gift shop stocks socks in a delightfully fitting shade of green, so I have no fear of running short while I work them off in this place. I reiterate my pledge to my constituents to do everything in my power to repay the trust they have put in me, and to represent and serve them well. Before I go further, I would like to honour the tradition of paying tribute to my predecessor, Sir Bill Wiggin, who served as the MP for North Herefordshire for 23 years. I would like to recognise his long years of service and his contribution to local improvements, such as the installation of the lift at Leominster station; local improvements were referred to by another Member earlier. That sort of improvement makes such a difference in people’s day-to-day lives and is key to being a good constituency MP. Our party politics may be very different, but as a former shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, he proudly championed North Herefordshire and its farmers. Indeed, Sir Bill is famously fond of Hereford cattle and featured them prominently in his literature and on his parliamentary letterhead. I wish him all the best as he enjoys spending more time on his farm and with his family, and I want to thank him for his long service in this House. North Herefordshire is one of the largest constituencies in England. It is an hour’s drive east to west, from the Malvern hills to the Welsh border, and an hour’s drive north to south, from Shropshire nearly all the way down to Ross, the birthplace of British tourism. I am clearly going to be competing with others in inviting Members to visit our delightful constituencies to sample their touristic delights. North Herefordshire is rightly famed for its bustling market towns, Leominster and Ledbury, Bromyard and Kington; for its distinctive black and white villages; and for its people and its produce. It includes two of the UK’s 46 national landscapes, the Malvern hills and the Wye valley, so its landscape is indeed gloriously green! Running along the southern boundary of the constituency is the stunning River Wye, about which I shall have more to say shortly. Farming is of course central to life in North Herefordshire, and our county is famous for both its cattle and its apples. Since my predecessor made it his business to promote the cattle, I will take this opportunity to talk up our Herefordshire apples, which—although hon. Members from Somerset may wish to debate this—undoubtedly produce the finest cider in the country. Indeed, it is one of my ambitions while in this House to introduce some of my county’s most famed beverage into the aforementioned House of Commons gift shop. However, it is not just the landscape and the produce that make North Herefordshire special; it is the people. One of the immense privileges of becoming involved in politics has been the opportunity to get to know the multitude of local institutions, charities, community groups and thriving businesses that make up our community. The people of North Herefordshire are creative, innovative, entrepreneurial, and deeply caring. It is impossible to mention all who deserve it, but perhaps I can give the House a flavour by highlighting some of them. I think of the creativity of the recent Ledbury poetry festival; the innovation exemplified by Wye Valley Brewery’s approach to energy efficiency; the entrepreneurialism of award-winning local food businesses such as Peter Cooks Bread and my sons’ favourite place to eat, The Beefy Boys, home of officially the best burger in the UK; and the care exemplified by St Michael’s Hospice, by ECHO, a local charity that is very close to my heart, and by innumerable other local charities and community groups. The people of North Herefordshire are what make the place so wonderful, and they are why I am here. In my election campaign I focused on three issues in particular—renewing our economy, repairing our NHS and restoring our rivers—and I want to say a few words about each of those topics here. First, renewing our economy is urgent. The cost of living crisis has hit many people very hard indeed. Fuel poverty is a real issue in my constituency, where the combination of relatively low wages and particularly hard-to-heat housing stock makes home insulation an urgent priority. I will be pressing the new Government hard to take the urgent action that we need to ensure that every home is an affordable home and a warm home. For too long, the previous Government neglected the opportunities offered by the green economic transformation, and I very much hope that this new Government will not make the same mistake. The King’s Speech indicated some welcome steps in the right direction, but we need to do more to renew and rebuild our economy on a sustainable basis, one that is compatible with the challenge of climate change that so many Members have said they recognise. As will already be clear to the House, a key area of interest for me is housing. The Green policy—the right home in the right place at the right price—will be the guiding principle for my colleagues and me as we scrutinise the new Government’s proposals on planning. The country desperately needs new homes, especially new social housing, and it is vital that those homes are accompanied by the right infrastructure so that health, education and transport services are not put under yet more strain. It is also crucial to ensure that new houses are built to the highest possible energy efficiency standards. It is so much cheaper to do that now than to have to retrofit them further down the line. Given that we enjoy an average of eight hours of glorious sunshine each day in my constituency, I hope the House will forgive me in advance for repeatedly making the case for every single new building in North Herefordshire, and indeed the country, to be fitted with solar panels, ready to harness that sunshine. It is extraordinary that we still build houses without solar panels on top of them. So I assure colleagues, and my constituents, that I will work my socks off in the House to bring forward the policies that will deliver sustainable prosperity by renewing our economy. Another issue that is of great concern to my constituents is the urgent need to repair our NHS and nurse it back to health, along with the urgent need to invest in the local public services on which we all rely. Far too often, on the doorsteps and in the village halls of my constituency, I have heard stories of people who have been waiting far too long for the urgent treatment that they need, and far too often I have heard concerns expressed about the potholes that are perhaps the most visible symptom of under-investment in local government. We need real change. We need an end to the way in which our local NHS and Herefordshire council have been starved of cash. We need funding to match the level of local need. We need a return to multi-year funding settlements for local government, for both revenue and capital funding, to allow councils to plan long-term for the infrastructure and services that are needed. We need more investment in preventive healthcare services. We need to show our wonderful public-spirited NHS staff how much we value them—not just with warm words and applause, but with training bursaries and salaries that keep pace with inflation. And this Parliament really must address social care. For too long it has been a political hot potato that no one wants to touch, and I confess that I was somewhat disappointed to see no mention of this crucial topic in the King’s Speech. I believe that mechanisms such as a citizens’ assembly on social care could really help us move forward in this vital area with cross-party agreement, and I look forward to working with colleagues on this and other measures to help repair our NHS and public services. Finally, let me turn to a topic that is very close to my heart and to those of my constituents: the need to restore our rivers to good health. I have already extolled the virtues of the beautiful River Wye, which forms the southern boundary of my constituency. It is an integral part of the landscape and was voted the nation’s favourite river in 2010, but the ecological health of this much-loved river and its tributaries— including the Lugg, the Arrow and the Frome—is under threat, particularly due to phosphate pollution. Last year, Natural England officially downgraded its condition to “unfavourable - declining”. The Lugg catchment has been subjected to a planning moratorium since 2019 due to excess phosphate levels. There is good understanding of the causes of the problem in my constituency—primarily agricultural run-off—with the recent major expansion of the industrial poultry industry clearly playing a key role. For too long our rivers have, unfortunately, been effectively treated as free sewers, and this cannot continue. Businesses cannot free-ride on the natural world, and companies must not profit from pollution. Local campaigners have done an excellent job of highlighting the condition of the river, and there is now a great deal of good will among all players. What we need now is a supportive Government who will take the action needed to enforce pollution rules and invest in genuine solutions, because we know that restoring the river, and all our rivers across the country, goes hand in hand with renewing our economy. Indeed, sectors such as tourism and the construction industry depend on it. Farmers have a key role to play in this restoration and, indeed, in nature restoration across the whole country. I live on a farm, and I am particularly inspired by the fact that so many farmers are leading the transition towards more nature-friendly farming. I will be a voice for those farmers in this House and call for the investment that farmers need to ensure that we can grow more good, healthy and affordable food in the UK in a way that generates and protects good jobs, and that protects nature and the health of the soil and the water on which all life ultimately depends. In closing, I would like to say that I believe in the politics of co-operation. I believe we can do more if we work together, rather than against each other. I believe we can do more if we focus on our areas of common ground, rather than our disagreements, and I know that people in my constituency and across the country want to see a better sort of politics. That is why I am a passionate supporter of a fair voting system in which everyone’s vote counts equally. I pledge to my constituents, and to all other Members of this House, that I will work with you to find common ground. I look forward to working my socks off together with you to renew our economy, to repair our NHS and to restore our rivers. In doing so, I hope that together we can create real change and rebuild trust in politics.
Hansard source
18 Jul 2024ParliamentCarla Denyer
Clean Energy Superpower Mission
I welcome the Secretary of State to his role, and welcome the Government’s recognition that public investment must play a substantial role in decarbonising power. I have seen that from my previous career in offshore wind. However, this public investment must not be only about de-risking private sector investment, though some of his colleagues have implied that that would be the principal role of Great British Energy. Will the Secretary of State confirm that Great British Energy will invest in fully publicly owned, or at least majority publicly owned, renewable generation projects, and will not confine itself to taking minority stakes in private sector-led projects that would give it very little control?
Hansard source

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COP29: UK Priorities

COP29: UK Priorities

COP29: UK Priorities

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Winter Fuel Payment

COP29: UK Priorities

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Healthcare Provision: East of England

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Asylum Seekers: Government Support

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Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

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Code of Conduct and Modernisation Committee

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Clean Energy Superpower Mission