Parliament's party history for this member: Liberal Democrat ( – present).
Register of interests
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.
Date
Category
Entry
Declared value
Sitting for
Source
4. Visits outside the UK
International visit to Bangladesh between 02 October 2026 and 08 October 2026Alliance to End Malnutrition and Hunger Limited (known as United Against Malnutrition & Hunger)
Causing Death by Dangerous or Careless Driving: Sentencing
My constituent Darran is the father of Aidan Venison, who was only 19 when he was killed by a driver under the influence of drink and drugs who was not a first-time offender—he had already been banned from driving before, and on that occasion he was also uninsured. Aidan’s parents do not understand the leniency that might have been afforded to such a driver, or why they are still allowed to be on the roads. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that sometimes sentences that are perceived as lenient add to the heartbreak of parents?
Causing Death by Dangerous or Careless Driving: Sentencing
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as part of the road safety strategy, we should consider graduated driving licences, which have been introduced in Northern Ireland? He talked about the risks of dangerous driving, and he mentioned drink and drugs, but youth is also a danger, because if kids get into a car and start to speed, it can end up being a tragic situation. Does he agree that England, Wales and Scotland should have the same rights as Northern Ireland?
The Global Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Sanctions Regulations 2026
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. These regulations are a very welcome step forward. The Liberal Democrats have long pushed for greater use of the UK’s sanction regime to target those whose actions are actively undermining human rights, by targeting the most vulnerable and perpetrating war crimes. It is important and right that the regulations more fully provide for a response to egregious violations of international humanitarian law. That is particularly so at a time when millions around the world are facing humanitarian crises; yet while brave humanitarians are doing their best to provide life-saving assistance, other actors are actively undermining, obstructing or preventing those efforts.
The Liberal Democrats support the regulations and will back them, but in setting out our support for them, it is also vital to note that, while they are an important step forward, they are not the final step. They furnish the Government with the framework needed to stand up for human rights and international humanitarian law around the world. They are a powerful tool that allows the UK to take targeted measures to stand up for the most vulnerable people around the world.
What matters now is the Government’s willingness to use the tool given to them by the House to stand up for the values they have articulated and to take on, with our support, those powerful forces who believe that they can act with impunity. The Government must have the <span id="10" class="column-number" data-column-number="10"></span>courage of their convictions and, in the light of these regulations, they must evaluate without fear or favour the actions of all those, friend or foe, who are fuelling and carrying out violence, displacement, famine and human rights abuses around the world. The regulations open the door to further sanctions and greater accountability. The Government must grasp that opportunity, and Members across the House must demand it.
Three hundred and forty children in Gaza have died since the ceasefire of last year—an average of almost one per day—nearly half of them near the yellow line; aid workers call it the kill zone. UNICEF tells me that 100% of children are showing signs of stress because of trauma, hunger and the risk of attack from every side— <span id="166" class="column-number" data-column-number="166"></span>from drones, which fire at them from above, and from unexploded ordinance below them. They face malnutrition, and have not had a formal education for three years. Whoever is elected today, what will the Foreign Secretary do to ensure that Palestinian children are protected, sustainable humanitarian aid gets in, the terms of the ceasefire are obeyed, education is provided, and Palestinians are given the chance to heal?
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that when fully warranted neighbourhood police officers are put into civilian jobs to relieve pressure in places such as call centres, they are doing jobs that civilians should do? I support many of the Government’s priorities on policing, but if the police—whose job is to go on the beat—are pulled into different priorities, whatever they may be, that core policing is not available.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda) for securing this debate about our support for a country that is a friend and an ally, and one to whom we have owed gratitude over more than 200 years.
I start by adding my condolences to the families and friends of all those who lost their lives or remain missing in Nepal and Tibet, following the August floods and the floods in Nepal over the weekend. I pay tribute to the UK rapid deployment team and humanitarian crisis response specialists who have supported British nationals and the wider crisis response to the floods in Nepal. Those brave and skilled teams are a clear example of the UK’s world-leading excellence and expertise.
The news might have moved on, but the people of Nepal face rebuilding their country while experts note that such disasters might become more frequent in the region in the coming years. Indeed, the UK Government’s national security assessment of global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse cites severe degradation or collapse of the Himalayas as particularly significant for UK national security.
The August floods were not unexpected. Nepal’s mountains are warming rapidly. In 2023, the UN Secretary-General reported that they had lost almost a third of their ice in just over three decades. The wider Hindu Kush Himalaya region is also warming significantly faster than the global average. All the while, international agreement founders when it comes to action that truly meets the moment.
Rebuilding comes at a great financial cost. The Government of Nepal have written to the UN loss and damage fund to request $20 million, which is 0.7% of the reported $2.7 billion it has estimated in physical damage to infrastructure and economic losses. The loss and damage fund itself is suffering from a lack of finance. It has reportedly already received requests totalling $2.8 billion from 119 countries, but only $400 million has been given by the international donor community. The demand vastly outstrips supply. With the impact of climate change intensifying, and with the super El Niño <span id="146WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="146WH"></span>in the process of biting, it is deplorable that the international community continues to fail when it comes to preparing for climate shocks.
Although I welcome the rapid deployment of UK personnel and the £5 million in humanitarian aid to help with the crisis, that £5 million is not enough and does not reflect the closeness of our relationship with Nepal. I remain deeply concerned about the wider UK aid budget, which has been slashed to 0.3%. That includes the cutting of the UK humanitarian crisis reserve by 12%, from £85 million to £75 million, leaving less flexible money for rapid support in humanitarian emergencies. Cutting the humanitarian crisis reserve at a time when many of the world’s poorest countries—the ones often most vulnerable to the impact of climate change—are dealing with those impacts is strategically illiterate. I ask the Minister, as I have before: when will the Government set out a road map for a return to spending 0.7% of GNI on official development assistance, and will the Government revisit the cut to the humanitarian crisis reserve?
Climate finance has also been cut—there has been a halving of the UK commitment to the Green Climate Fund and a significant cut to our international climate finance, despite an ambitious new Government ICF strategy. The reality does not match the rhetoric. It is also a matter of national security for us here at home, as I have mentioned. The national security assessment of global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse is brutal in its assessment of the impact on our national security and prosperity, with crop failures, intensified natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks. It points out the critical ecosystems that support major global food production areas and impact global climate, water and weather cycles, and their importance, including in the Himalayas, and how their degradation and collapse will lead to water insecurity, severely reduced crop yields, fisheries collapse, changes to global weather patterns, release of trapped carbon exacerbating climate change, novel disease and loss of pharmaceutical responses. It will drive migration and serious and organised crime and lead to black markets in scarce food, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals, with non-state actors gaining control over scarce resources, and there are pandemic risks. As instability grows, it leads to conflict and military escalation.
Wider development finance can provide some solutions, but definitive action on debt sustainability, illicit financial flows and reform of the multilateral development banks is necessary. Given that the countries most vulnerable to climate change are often also vulnerable to debt distress, it is imperative that the Government use their upcoming G20 presidency to take real and meaningful action on the issues, as well as charting a course forward on climate finance.
This is, after all, a fairness issue—a justice issue. Nepal is responsible for only 0.1% of global emissions, yet it is bearing the consequences of runaway carbon emissions and global inaction in tackling them. As the Nepali Prime Minister recently said at the UN General Assembly, countries like Nepal are
“hit by the climate we did not warm and hit again by the wars we did not start.”
What does fairness look like? Estimates that we heard at the International Development Committee, on which I sit, put the UK’s fair share of international climate <span id="147WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="147WH"></span>finance, as the world’s sixth-largest economy and fifth-largest historical emitter, at £9 billion a year. Add in inflation and the changes to the Government’s accounting methodology, and the ODA element of ICF4 diverges even further from the UK’s fair share. Given all those factors, our ICF allocation is roughly 50% lower than ICF3.
Failure to tackle the climate crisis will erode development gains and push more people into humanitarian need, resource competition and a vicious cycle of poverty and instability, and will damage the UK’s reputation as a leader in climate and development. With COP31 fast approaching, what will be the Government’s strategy for real and meaningful action? How will the Foreign Secretary go beyond words to action that is reflected in tangible UK commitments, both domestic and globally? The floods in Nepal have shown us what can happen and what will continue to happen if we do not act.
There is still time to take action. World Bank research estimates that climate change could force 260 million people to move within their countries by 2050, but that immediate action to reduce global emissions could reduce that number by up to 80%. I urge the Minister and the Government to take bold steps with our development and climate strategy, our aid and our G20 presidency so that the catastrophe in Nepal does not become the norm for communities everywhere. The UK has an opportunity to lead, and we should take it.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. In the 2016 Brexit referendum, there were many who argued that our future must involve aligning with the USA—a stable and reliable partner that shared our values—and those who thought that the days of Russian aggression were over. Now we are in the world of Trump and war in Europe. The US is waging its own war that is hurting all our wallets, and Brexit has made the UK economy smaller.
The world in which we voted in 2016 has changed, and we must make decisions based on the world as it is. But even in 2016, we were promised that voting for Brexit would usher in an economic boom, open the funding floodgates for our NHS and other cash-strapped services, and put an end to immigration. The then Prime Minister hoped that the referendum would settle the issue of EU membership for a generation, yet here we are, 10 years on, still debating this very subject at the public’s request. Let us look at the impact that Brexit has had on the country—and on constituencies such as my own, Esher and Walton—on its own terms, as it was sold to us.<span id="29WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="29WH"></span>
On the economy, one recent publication argued that:
“We left the European Union without the economic plan that should have gone with it.”
That would have been a damning indictment coming from my side of the argument, but it came from the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), the leader of the party that delivered Brexit. By ripping us out of the single market and customs union, the Conservatives blew an enormous hole in the UK economy, costing us roughly £90 billion in lost tax revenue in 2025 alone. That is money that could otherwise have been used to lower the tax burden on workers and fund our public services.
The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that Brexit
“will reduce long-run productivity by 4 per cent relative to remaining in the EU”,
and that
“Both exports and imports will be around 15 per cent lower in the long run”.
Brexit has stifled investment and job creation. It is handicapping our economy and failing British businesses and workers. The funding windfall for our NHS and other public services has not materialised; we would have more money to fund our public services had we not embarked on this failed experiment.
On the question of immigration, which was so central to the Brexiteers’ case for leaving the EU, after Brexit—and under a Government run by the very people who had pushed for Brexit—net migration reached a record level of nearly 1 million people in the year to June 2023. As we have heard, we also left the Dublin agreement.
Brexit has failed on its own terms. I know from the many conversations I have had over the last decade that many of my constituents, the majority of whom voted to remain, foresaw those problems and take no pleasure in being proved right. Brexit has failed on its own terms.
What is the case for the EU, then, as we stand here today? The challenges we face today are not confined to national borders, and our solutions must reflect that. I could point to our strength in numbers in tackling climate change, terrorism and people smugglers, or in regulating the risks from AI and taking on the tech giants. Cross-border problems need cross-border solutions and strength in numbers. The EU is far from perfect, but it represents an important ideal: it is worth working together to find common solutions that benefit all of us.
Secondly, there is the economic case. We recognise that, when it comes to economics, geography matters. The EU is our largest trading partner for a good reason. Trade deals with countries on the other side of the world cannot replace a market of millions of people right here on our doorstep.
Lastly, as the Prime Minister says, let us give the next generation real hope. The last decade has been a difficult one for young people, so let us give them back their ski seasons or their right to tour Europe. I have just come from the Chamber where the Prime Minister talked in positive terms about Europe. It is good, at last, to hear a Labour leader making the case for Europe. It has been a long decade.
I welcomed the Foreign Secretary’s speech on Sudan at the UN General Assembly. The Prime Minister recently said that he would be “really concerned” to lose Sheikh Mansour, vice-president of the United Arab Emirates and owner of Manchester City FC, from Manchester, but does he recognise that the same individual is reported by outlets including <em>The New York Times</em> to have a “central role” not only in Man City’s contested success but in the genocide, famine and forced displacements happening across Sudan because of the Rapid Support Forces? When will the Prime Minister stand up to Sheikh Mansour and the UAE, and call out their dishonest roles in Manchester and in fanning the flames of conflict, leading to the world’s biggest humanitarian disaster in Sudan?
I thank the Chair of the International Development Committee for giving a very powerful speech. As she pointed out, Nepal was hit by another flood yesterday, after 1,400 people were killed by those earlier in the year. These extreme weather events are having a huge impact on biodiversity, and I urge every Member to read the Government’s national security assessment of global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. There is a threat to our national security, and the challenges can be met only if public money is available. That means a return to spending 0.7% of GDP on ODA. Does the hon. Lady think that is important, and how does public funding marry with the private investment that she talks of?