Labour Party MP for Crewe and Nantwich since (elected). An MP continuously since .
Parliament recordVoting recordWritten questionsEarly day motions
Entries on this tracker
139
Each filed under the party they sat for that day
Register entries
0
As currently published
| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | MP | Crewe and Nantwich | – present | elected | — | Party history |
Parliament's party history for this member: Labour ( – present).
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.
No entries in the current register. Parliament's register page
Framing today’s statement is the fact that under this Labour Government and this Home Secretary, net migration is down 82% from its peak under the previous Conservative Government. However, can she confirm that alongside the changes that she is making to legal migration, there will be serious consequences for settlement for those entering our country by dangerous and illegal means?
My constituents will strongly welcome the decision to extend small business rate relief to many more businesses in the Crewe and Nantwich constituency, but they will also welcome the decision to remove small business rate relief from adult gaming centres and vape shops. Will my right hon. Friend join me in saying that this is an important step to incentivise the kind of businesses we want to see and disincentivise those we do not?
The hon. Member talked about the Opposition’s clean power plan, and how marvellous it is, but if those ideas are so good, why did the Conservatives not implement them when they had 14 years in government to do so?
Community policing is fundamental to public confidence in our police service. When people know their local officers and PCSOs, see them on their streets and can raise concerns directly with them, communities feel safer and more confident that crime and antisocial behaviour will be tackled. First, I thank the officers—and, importantly, the staff, who do not often enough get the recognition they deserve—in the Crewe local policing unit. I thank all the warranted officers, PCSOs and staff in the LPU for the work they do to keep our communities safe. We have seen a welcome increase of four additional neighbourhood officers in the Crewe LPU, working across my constituency, which will go a long way to tackling some of the problems that we have. However, significant challenges remain; many of them have already been covered in this debate, including endemic antisocial behaviour, which too often is treated as low-level offending, but needs to be taken on and taken out at the roots. In the brief time that I have left to speak, I also acknowledge the important work being undertaken by Cheshire police in relation to the investigation concerning allegations against members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, and I just ask that consideration be given to urgent, unexpected and complex investigations that police sometimes have to respond to, and to the extra burden that those place on police forces. I welcome the fact that I have a meeting with the Minister next week to discuss that issue, but, if she could say something about it when she responds to the debate, that would also be really welcome.
I anticipated that the shadow Minister might want to have a knockabout on numbers. Does he not acknowledge that the previous Conservative Government were replacing the 20,000 police officers that they had cut, and that the police uplift programme created perverse incentives that meant that many of those replacement officers ended up behind desks? That is not where we want them to be, is it?
My hon. Friend mentions some fantastic local businesses in his area, leading the way on the transition to clean power and net zero. Crewe and Nantwich is home to Bentley Motors, one of the area’s largest manufacturing employers. The company recently announced 93 early-career opportunities, including 29 apprenticeships, 15 graduate positions and 49 industrial placements, investing directly in the skills of the next generation of workers. Does my hon. Friend agree that employers such as Bentley are demonstrating the long-term commitment to skills we need to see across the country?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank the Petitions Committee for tabling this debate and I pay tribute to Paris Shears, who is in the Gallery, and everybody who supported the petition, whether they live in Crewe and Nantwich or not. Controlling and coercive behaviour is one of the most difficult forms of abuse to identify, investigate and prosecute. It often leaves no visible injuries, yet its impact on victims can be utterly devastating. It systematically strips away an individual’s confidence, independence and freedom until they feel trapped in a situation that can appear invisible to those around them. I regularly see the devastating effects of coercive control in the cases that come through my office. Victims speak of lives overshadowed by intimidation, harassment, financial abuse and in some cases physical violence. What strikes me about those cases is that the abuse itself is often only part of the story. Many of the cases we deal with concern the aftermath. We help constituents who need emergency housing because they fled an abusive relationship. We help people struggling with financial independence because their finances were controlled by an abusive partner. We help those dealing with debt, mental health challenges and family breakdown after years of manipulation and psychological abuse. The effects do not end when the relationship ends. That is why I have a great deal of sympathy for the concerns raised through the petition. Victims of coercive control often spend months and sometimes years living under the domination of another person. When a defendant initially pleads not guilty, requiring a victim to prepare for trial and relive deeply traumatic experiences, only to change their plea at the last moment, it is understandable <span id="274WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="274WH"></span>that many victims feel the justice system has become another tool by which their abuser continues to exert control over their lives. That prompts the question that lies at the heart of the debate: is the criminal justice system fully recognising the unique nature of coercive control? By its very definition, coercive control is about power and domination, creating fear, uncertainty and dependence. We therefore need to listen carefully when victims tell us that prolonged court proceedings, uncertainty over pleas and delays in securing justice can feel like an extension of the abuse that they have already experienced. In my career before entering this place, I worked for the Independent Office for Police Conduct. I am acutely aware of the work that it has done thematically on violence against women and girls, and specifically around coercive and controlling behaviour. It has repeatedly highlighted the need for agencies across the justice system to understand the dynamics of coercive control and violence against women and girls. That understanding must inform not just policing, but prosecution decisions, victim support and sentencing policy. I welcome the progress made in recent years. Awareness of coercive control has increased significantly. The inclusion of certain offenders in multi-agency public protection arrangements and the Government’s commitment to update guidance are positive developments, but the experiences that constituents continue to bring to our surgeries show that there is still work to do. Whatever view Members take on the specific proposal in the petition, I hope we can all agree on one principle: victims of coercive control deserve a justice system that understands the particular harm that they have suffered, and places their experiences at the heart of decision making. I therefore welcome today’s debate and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
I will begin by saying that I respect the right of hon. Members across the House to come here and give voice to their constituents. I respect the voices of the women of Piddington who are in the Gallery today, making their presence known to Government. That is their democratic right, and I respect that. In office, the Conservatives designed an asylum accommodation programme that took over much-loved hotels in some of the most deprived parts of our country, including the Crewe Arms Hotel and the Royal Hotel in the centre of Crewe. Local services and community cohesion were put under severe strain, and people were forced to cancel weddings and other events of sentimental value in their lives. Of course, it is not only the Tories who are up to their necks in that policy, because who designed it? Who championed it on the airwaves, boasting that more and more hotels were being brought on stream in deprived towns like mine? It was, of course, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), now Reform’s Treasury spokesperson, aided and abetted by former Tory Ministers who “betrayed our country”—not my words, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the words of Zia Yusuf. In opening this debate, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) said that this should not be about class, and I think she is right. But why were places like Crewe chosen by the Conservatives when they were in government? It is precisely because such places were deprived and because land values were lower in those places.
I will not give way, because I do not want to take time away from other people. I do not think that approach is fair. I was delighted when I was informed that, after much campaigning, the Crewe Arms Hotel would be closing as an asylum hotel. I hope to see the Royal Hotel also closed for such purposes in the coming months, and I urge the Minister to say more, if she can, about when we might see progress in that regard. It is important to say that such outcomes are possible only if the Government continue to make progress with small boat crossings coming down, which they are, and the processing of claims going up—in stark contrast to the previous Government, under whom numbers collapsed—as well as deporting people who have no right to be here. But crucially, with regard to this debate, <span id="392" class="column-number" data-column-number="392"></span>we will also see those outcomes only if accommodation for asylum seekers is spread more fairly across our country, using appropriate disused military sites. The proposition that the Tories have put in front of us today seems to be that my constituents have to accept more of the burden of asylum accommodation while other parts of our country do not, and that is simply not fair. I know where my constituents will stand on that question, and I am with them, not with the Opposition. As for the European convention on human rights, it blocks just 3% of total removals from this country, and underpins relationships—including the Good Friday agreement—with other countries around the world. Even the Tories’ much-loved Rwanda deal was contingent on compliance with international agreements on human rights and refugee law—not because a UK or European court said so but because the Rwandan Government insisted, as any third country that we might want to work with would. By seeking to tell my constituents that they should continue to do more than their fair share in response to the phenomenon of small boat crossings, the motion signifies the official Opposition’s retreat from being a serious national party of government. I will not be supporting it.
The reality is that there would not be an early release scheme if the Conservatives had not presided over a record that left our prisons at 99% capacity, having built a staggeringly low 500 places in their 14 years in government. My constituents are angry about the situation in which we find ourselves, so will the Minister set out the steps the Government are taking to reassure victims and to ensure that we never end up in this situation again?
Held . Recorded result: Lab Gain. Majority 9,727. 47,197 votes cast from an electorate of 78,423. Parties are as each candidate stood at the time.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connor Naismith | Labour | 20,837 | 44.1% |
| Ben Fletcher | Conservative | 11,110 | 23.5% |
| Matt Wood | Reform UK | 9,602 | 20.3% |
| Matthew Theobald | Liberal Democrat | 2,286 | 4.8% |
| Te Ata Browne | Green Party | 2,151 | 4.6% |
| Brian Silvester | Putting Crewe First, Independent Residents Group | 588 | 1.2% |
| Phil Lane | Workers Party of Britain | 373 | 0.8% |
| Lord Psychobilly Tractor | Official Monster Raving Loony Party | 250 | 0.5% |
| Seat | Dates |
|---|---|
| Crewe and NantwichElected 1 time | – present |
| Committee | Dates |
|---|---|
| Courts (Remote Hearings) Bill | – |
| Licensing Hours Extensions Bill | – |
| Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill | – present |
| Renters’ Rights Bill | – |
X (formerly Twitter)
Only the details Parliament publishes for this member. Contact page on Parliament's site
Profile data retrieved from Parliament on .