Liberal Democrats MP for Thornbury and Yate since (elected).
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269
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As currently published
| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lib Dem | MP | Thornbury and Yate | – present | elected | — | Party history |
Every entry the member has in the Register of Members' Financial Interests, as Parliament currently publishes it. The wording and values are the member's own declarations; nothing here has been assessed by this site.
Totals add only the entries that declare an amount received: payments for work, donations, gifts, and funded visits (register categories 1.1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Ongoing employment is listed but not added, because its figure is a rate rather than a sum received. Each entry is dated by when the benefit happened, not when it was registered, and placed under the party the member sat for on that date. A member who changed party therefore has a separate total for each.
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<Question HRSContentId="{4F8FDC9E-6215-4F4C-B3CC-B75719F1965A}">3. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{9528A2D5-41A0-4FC7-853A-49E01A35F74E}">What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the autumn Budget 2026 on household living costs. </QuestionText></Question>
The Treasury is cutting £1 billion from the warm homes fund, including a smaller than planned pot for the boiler upgrade scheme. Combined with tax rises on heat pumps, these cuts risk creating a boom-and-bust cycle for installers and leaving more households exposed to the volatility of the oil and gas market. Can the Chancellor explain how cutting support for clean heating is consistent with the Government’s own mission for a clean energy transition?
This is a hugely uncertain time for workers at Poundland in Yate, and I am sure that I am not alone among MPs in finding the DWP one of the hardest Departments to get answers out of. I am concerned about the practical support that the local jobcentre will be able to offer Poundland workers who lose their jobs. Can the Minister assure me that jobcentres will support those people?
<Question HRSContentId="{8269437C-66A5-4279-8EF6-BE499C446581}">T1. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{75CF2F87-1DBD-4C01-A7FA-3EBE2CE540A4}">If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.</QuestionText></Question>
The Housing Minister promised me in January that we would see protection from fleecehold exploitation in this Parliament. The Government are running out of time. When can my constituents in freeholds expect unfair service charges to be properly regulated?
The Chancellor called this a “breathing space” Budget, but it seems only to be breathing space for the Government to put off the hard decisions. It is not a breathing space for my constituents, with frozen tax and student loan repayment thresholds. It is not a breathing space for my local businesses: the rise in employer national insurance contributions has not been reversed, there is no emergency <span id="674" class="column-number" data-column-number="674"></span>VAT cut for hospitality to help our high streets, and on business rates, which I have repeatedly raised in this House, the Budget just tinkers with a system that needs wholesale reform. The Budget is not a breathing space for farmers. There is no change in the family farm tax. The cut to fertiliser tariffs will make little difference when, as the NFU has pointed out, much already arrives tariff-free. I am disappointed that the Budget does not treat food security as national security. The Budget is not a breathing space for local transport users. In a Budget that mentions the north repeatedly, the west barely gets a look in. South Gloucestershire is mentioned once—a brief reference to a mass transit system that we have been hearing about for decades and that is unlikely to touch our rural villages. A £1 bus fare cap and discounted rail fares would have helped families in the short term, and investment in rural transport would help them in the longer term. The west of England is a growth engine outside of London. It deserves more ambition than that. The Budget is not a breathing space for energy bill payers. Suppliers forecast that the price cap will rise by around a quarter in January. Although welcome, the £100 for this winter and the promise of scrapping gas standing charges in the future do not touch the sides. Scrapping the standing charge will save people just £45 on average—and only those who actually use gas. One in five properties in Thornbury and Yate is heated by oil. Those households have no price cap at all, and there is nothing to ensure that the removal of import tariffs on kerosene is passed to consumers. The surest way to bring down bills is to insulate homes and move people off volatile oil and gas, so why is there a £1 billion cut in the warm homes plan? What of the promised growth? When will we hear about plans for new nuclear at Oldbury? The outcome of Great British Energy Nuclear’s review was promised this autumn. If data centres that meet the new British data centre covenant are to get priority grid connections, then, given the problem with providing nuclear connections, where is the grid capacity for new homes to meet the Government’s own housing targets? Where is the investment in skills in the rural west of England so that our local young people can access the technical jobs available? This Budget is a missed opportunity to provide real breathing space for our constituents, our businesses and our economy.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) for securing this timely debate. I want to focus on Ofcom’s role as the regulator of postal services. That is a different aspect from its work ensuring that news is impartial or keeping our young people safe online, and therein perhaps lies the problem—it is being asked to be a jack of all trades and, as a result, it is the master of none. Earlier this week, I spoke about the effectiveness of Ofcom during a debate in the Chamber on Royal Mail, and I have come here today to reaffirm that argument. Since 2022, Ofcom has fined Royal Mail £5.6 million, then £10.5 million, then £21 million for failing to meet its targets. In the year to March 2026, only 75.7% of first-class mail arrived the next working day, against the target of 93%. Ofcom opened an investigation into that failure on 1 June. Nearly five months later, we are still waiting for the outcome. Meanwhile, the targets themselves have been lowered, to 90% for first class and 95% for second class, and second-class deliveries have moved to alternate weekdays. The public are being asked to accept a reduced service, measured against easier targets, from a company that has not even managed to meet the old ones in years. In May, the Business and Trade Committee concluded that Ofcom is failing as a statutory regulator, and that its approach has for years failed to deliver the step change in performance that the public deserve. Part of the problem is that fines are simply not a deterrent. The law allows Ofcom to fine postal services up to 10% of turnover, <span id="249WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="249WH"></span>but its largest penalty is a small fraction of that, and every penny goes to the Treasury. Nothing reaches my constituent who missed a hospital appointment because the letter arrived a day after the actual appointment. Where is their opportunity for recourse? At the moment, Royal Mail’s own complaints process is aimed at the sender of the mail and is all about compensating them for the cost of postage by giving them books of stamps; it does nothing to compensate recipients of mail for the consequential losses from that mail not arriving on time, which can be significant. Aside from missed appointments, there can be financial issues, and we had an example where someone had received a court summons too late, which obviously had very serious consequences. If a constituent makes a complaint to Royal Mail and they are not happy with the outcome, they cannot go to Ofcom and make a complaint about the individual case. We have been told that Ofcom will not look into local cases and will look only at the picture across the country as a whole. We need a regulator with teeth, legally binding penalties that can actually change a business’s behaviour, automatic compensation and a proper complaints system. A regulator ready to use its powers could solve this problem. I have raised this issue in questions and letters to Ministers, but each time the response is essentially a regurgitated, “This is a matter for Ofcom.” However, Ofcom’s powers are set by this Parliament, and I do not believe they are working, so Ministers have a responsibility to intervene. Either Ofcom’s postal powers and its approach must be fundamentally reset or its responsibility for postal regulation should move to a dedicated independent regulator that will take it seriously. Surely, that is what Ministers must now be considering. If the Minister stands here today and again tells us that Ofcom is an independent regulator, and Royal Mail a private company, so nothing can be done, it will be utterly embarrassing. Where are the Government’s teeth? Are they seriously taking the same lacklustre approach as Ofcom? I have two direct questions for the Minister. First, do the Government accept the Select Committee’s conclusion that Ofcom is not effectively regulating Royal Mail’s performance? Secondly, will the Government commit to a review of Ofcom’s postal powers, including whether those powers would be better held by an independent postal regulator? Too much time has been spent bringing Royal Mail’s failures to Ministers’ attention. They have heard enough. Will they now act?
Millions rely on daily medication to stay alive and healthy. We know the concern shortages cause; the NHS does not allow people to stockpile prescription medicines, and some require refrigeration. Will the NHS therefore now <span id="209" class="column-number" data-column-number="209"></span>allow people to keep a small amount of spare medicine, and how will the Government ensure access to essential medications during widespread disruption to supplies, movement of goods or power?
On the hon. Member’s point about lack of clarity, my constituent Richard went to his GP with early symptoms of prostate cancer, but because he did not fit the screening profile his GP refused a PSA test. Does the hon. Member agree that Ministers could issue guidance to make sure that GPs are not misinterpreting the new situation?
Another weekly surgery, another Capita complaint—this time, a constituent was told on one of her many calls to Capita that she would have to wait while they accessed the spreadsheet because someone was already using it. When the Minister talks about some slow improvements in technology, one can only imagine that Capita’s starting point was a typewriter and abacus. Even with the support of officials, does the Minister really trust Capita to safely deliver an AI-enabled service to our constituents?