Parliament's party history for this member: Labour ( – 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 Switzerland between 05 November 2025 and 08 November 2025Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland
First, may I associate myself with the condolences expressed by the Transport Secretary and others about the terrible tragedy in Spain yesterday?
There are many bottlenecks on the national rail system that are holding back rail freight growth. I welcome the Government’s announcement of the interim rail freight growth target of 40% by 2040, but without a clear and deliverable strategy, the Government risk falling behind on the expansion of rail freight, which is such an important sector for us all. When will we see a rail freight growth strategy, or will we have to wait for the overall rail enhancement strategy?
This Budget gives my constituents and people up and down the country much-needed breathing space and fresh hope for our long-term future. It tackles the big issues facing our country, from the cost of living pressures facing all our constituents to the need to bring growth back to our economy. The Chancellor was honest about the impact that the war in Iran has had on our economy, energy prices and supply chains. I remind the House that we Labour Members opposed that war, but the Conservatives supported it.
I will address the impacts of the Budget, first on my constituency, and then from my perspective as Transport Committee Chair. I am pleased that the Budget delivers for house building, and will mean more council and social housing, as too many families in Hounslow, Brentford and Isleworth live in temporary housing. There is also the new Your First Home scheme, which <span id="498" class="column-number" data-column-number="498"></span>will support many who are earning, but do not have a deposit to get on the housing ladder. The Treasury listened, and raised the sale price cap for the scheme in London. I am grateful.
Over the past year, I have met businesses across my constituency, from restaurants such as Sam’s Waterside and coffee shops such as Ballucci in Isleworth and Hounslow to small specialist manufacturers Ormiston Wire and Newmont Engineering. Their common message has been that costs, particularly energy and business rates, are too high. I am therefore pleased that the Chancellor has committed to taking more businesses out of paying business rates—900 each in the Hounslow and Richmond boroughs—and frozen business rates for many more.
I know that to support businesses, we need to get more money into people’s pockets. Increasing the national living wage and the minimum wage, addressing energy bills, keeping commitments on tax and introducing the new pension tax allowance, among many other measures in the Budget, are all much welcomed by my constituents. I also welcome London now having the fiscal devolution that our city has long deserved, bringing it more into line with other world cities. It allows the mayor to kick-start projects across the capital, one of which is the West London Orbital, a much-needed rail line linking Hounslow to Hendon via Old Oak Common, opening up development and employment opportunities across a swathe of west to north London.
As Chair of the Transport Committee, I will mention several transport-related elements in the Budget that I welcome: the Government’s work to bring international rail services to Stratford, which will increase rail connectivity and choice; the work to address the costs for electric vehicle drivers using public charging points; and the decisions on fuel duty, which not only benefit car drivers but save a light goods vehicle driver £472 on average, and the average heavy goods vehicle driver nearly £4,000 per year. Given the impact that fuel prices are having on the critical logistics sector, we all end up benefiting from those changes.
Rail infrastructure costs far more to build per kilometre in the UK than in any equivalent economy; I refer to my Committee’s February ’26 report, “Rail investment pipelines: ending boom and bust”. I welcome the announcement of the review of rail infrastructure costs, and the publication of the more extensive infrastructure pipeline. The review’s terms of reference responded to many of the issues discussed in our inquiry, including investment certainty, with clarity about at what point costs are fully understood and when funding will be committed. That drives efficiency, safeguards workforces and enables skills planning. Investment certainty is certainly needed if we are to allay the concerns of the rail supply chain and its investors.
Although the Government review is restricted to rail, its scope is otherwise very similar to the scope of the Competition and Markets Authority’s review of road and rail procurement, so I want to know from the Government how the two will relate to each other. Strangely, in their response to our report, the Government denied that there was such a thing as boom and bust in investment; I hope that the review will be more open-minded on that front.
I am glad that the Chancellor has heard the pleas of the owners of airports and private rail infrastructure, such as St Pancras and High Speed 1, who are concerned <span id="499" class="column-number" data-column-number="499"></span>about the exceptional and unpredictable rateable value increases. I hope that a rational and predictable system can replace the current mess, which is holding back long-term investment in our rail and aviation infrastructure.
I welcome the work that the Treasury is doing to enable the Prime Minister’s drive for devolution and partnership with local leaders. Northern Powerhouse Rail and a whole host of local transport projects will deliver local growth across Britain. Finally, the Chancellor is also backing British bus manufacturers, with a new look at bus procurement, which is very welcome indeed. I conclude by thanking the Chancellor for tackling the big issues that face our economy, and for a Budget that delivers both for constituents and for the whole economy.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) for securing this debate. For 17 years, he has been limpet-like in this campaign for justice for Equitable Life victims, as have other Members of this House. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who asked some very pertinent questions of the Minister, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
I am sorry once again to have to stand up on behalf of my constituents who have faced a clear injustice over many years. I know at least four constituents who have been impacted, and it is likely that there are many more. I want to touch on a slightly wider theme: the injustice caused by what I can describe only as a series of financial scams and the weak response of successive Governments. This is not just about the Equitable Life scandal. Since I first entered this House in 2015, I have spoken up on the loan charge scandal, the Football Index scandal, the London Capital & Finance scandal, and now the Equitable Life scandal. The common theme of all those scandals is that the victims suffer financial hardship.
One constituent affected by the Equitable Life scandal was estimated to have had over £20,000 taken from him. “Taken” is the key word; it was not lost. That is what campaigners who were fleeced when Football Index collapsed made sure to tell me: “Use the word ‘taken’, not ‘lost’, Ruth.” A wallet is lost behind a sofa; money is taken from a wallet by a crook.
My constituent is not alone. Many people have had money taken from them as a result of this scandal. As other Members said, many are now much older. My constituent is in his 80s, and that is precisely the stage of life when people need money for social care, for their families or simply to enjoy their remaining life. It should be a time when people can relax, but they cannot. In too many cases over the past 30 years, the actions of private companies have led to constituents suffering.
During the Football Index scandal, one of my constituents had £10,000 taken. During the collapse of London Capital & Finance, a constituent had £120,000 taken. In both cases and that of Equitable Life, it is clear that the regulators, which exist to protect our constituents, failed to act.
Why does that matter? First, our constituents end up having money taken from them and their lives turned upside down. Secondly, the Government have to step in and provide financial compensation—taxpayers’ money—but it is too often inadequate and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East said, some do not get any money at all. It is right that the Government <span id="479WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="479WH"></span>provided compensation for my constituents and others who suffered as a result of this injustice, but we should not have got there in the first place.
The Equitable Life scandal is a reminder of what happens when regulators fail to act and private companies operate in an underhand manner and get away with it. Over the past decade, too many regulators have become hollowed out and either have failed to act at all or have acted too late. I feel somewhat nervous about even my own party in government talking about doing away with regulators. We sadly need regulators, because there will always be scammers.
It is the Government, taxpayers and ultimately the victims who end up picking up the tab when operators act against the honest aspirations of hard-working people. Far too often in these scandals, the private companies and directors get off scot-free. In many cases, they get to make more money and go on to fleece someone else.
The Equitable Members Action Group continues to campaign on behalf of those affected, and has argued that there needs to be greater transparency from the Treasury about the remaining money that has not been allocated to victims. I hope the Treasury can meet and engage with those campaigning on this injustice. I hope the debate serves as an opportunity for this House to remember the importance of having regulators that are able to act and to act swiftly.
I respect the shadow Minister’s views, but adequate powers and adequate resources go together. Too often since I have been in this place I have heard again and again that regulators would like to have done more and simply do not have the capacity. They do not have the staff in place. That is my view.
Such schemes are hardly new: in London, we have had the congestion charge for many years now—<em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> We have it elsewhere, too; drivers in and around our major cities are used to a charge they have to include in their budgets.
It is been interesting to listen to the former Minister, who has had a distinguished career. I cannot speak about the former funding of the Dartford crossing, but does he not recognise that under this RAB model, which is overseen by the Office of Rail and Road, as are other RAB projects, funding is in effect hypothecated to the scheme? That is clear and transparent, unlike the situation that he mentioned, in which drivers did not know whether the funding that they provided was being merged with general taxation income. On how long this will last, surely that depends on the risk, and the length of time for which investors are prepared to take on the licence, when they bid to Government.
I appreciate the hon. Member’s response, but as this Bill makes clear, the funding through the RAB model of the lower Thames crossing and other schemes is not only for construction, but for ongoing <span id="609" class="column-number" data-column-number="609"></span>maintenance, necessary improvements and so on. It is a long-term scheme, and is not merely for the cost of the construction.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), given his deep experience and interesting perspective on bringing in tolls for all our motorways. That may be what happens in certain countries, but I suspect the whole funding of their road network is somewhat different from ours, so I will go back to focusing on the Bill.
I have driven on roads in other countries, and across the bridge to Wales in the past, and it seems entirely natural to me for us to introduce a toll for the lower Thames crossing. It is parallel to the tolled Dartford crossing, and it is hardly going to be the first toll road in the UK. I welcome the Bill, which will enable the funding of the lower Thames crossing to be delivered and maintained through tunnel users paying to use it. It is the first time that a road project has used the RAB model—a model that is already used for energy, water infrastructure and Heathrow airport.
Delivering improved transport infrastructure is core to this Government’s growth mission, so I am glad that the Government are exploring a range of both tried and tested and new methods of working with private sector investors to deliver projects. Those include using RAB for the roads for the first time—as in the Bill—as well as using the community infrastructure levy and further exploring the capture of land-value uplift on new rail schemes. Some of the early private finance initiative schemes in the mid and late ’90s gave public-private funding partnerships a bad name, but I am confident that the relationship between state commissioners and long-term private capital has matured in a way that can only be mutually beneficial.
On the RAB model, however, I do have some concerns. While it provides confidence for investors and a rock-solid return—as the representative of potential investors in the lower Thames crossing told me—there is also a history of gold-plated, over-engineered schemes. Sometimes, as in the case of Heathrow airport, it can be poor value for money, as airlines and businesses that are captive tenants there tell me. All of Thames Water’s bill payers are funding the Thames Tideway tunnel—a project that provides no benefit to my constituency or the health of the River Thames in my constituency, as we are upstream of the intake of the Tideway tunnel.
While there is a regulator in the Bill—the Office of Rail and Road plays an important role—I wonder, as I do with many regulators, whether it has sufficient teeth and funding. Does it have the right powers and sufficient powers over issues such as sustainability, safety, customer focus and local communities? To look again at the example <span id="612" class="column-number" data-column-number="612"></span>of Heathrow airport, I fear that the Civil Aviation Authority is far too weak in areas other than its core responsibilities of the economy and, of course, air safety.
There is one final issue with the lower Thames crossing that has been exercising both myself and the road haulage industry: the removal of any truck stop or motorway service area from the plans. The Transport Committee produced a report on this matter in 2022, when the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), who is now on the Opposition Front Bench, was on the Committee. Our conclusions showed the critical impact of the shortage of safe, secure driver facilities around the south-east, and particularly on routes to and from Dover.
That message was repeated to the Transport Committee in March this year by the haulage industry and driver union representatives. Drivers are required to rest every 4.5 hours and need somewhere to stop and sleep in a place where they and their load are safe, yet we were told that at Medway and Thurrock services, on either side of the Thames, if a driver is not in the motorway service area by mid-afternoon, they would have to go and find an A road lay-by, meaning no toilets, no food and no safety.
I absolutely believe that it will exacerbate the issue, because the lower Thames crossing will significantly increase vehicle throughput, particularly of trucks and lorries, on what is already a busy part of the network.
The originally proposed MSA or truck stop—I am not sure which—has been removed from the plans, and I am told that there is no plan and no requirement to bring one back. This illustrates a national policy gap. In the French motorway system, there is a full MSA every 50 km and partial ones every 10 km. I am told that it is not too late for proposals, and I really do hope that that is the case, although there would have to be a planning application from a landowner in order to bring one in. I cannot believe that it would not be a profitable opportunity for investors to do that and then in due course to link it into the lower Thames crossing, because of course it is only just along the road from the docks, so there is bound to be demand.
The Opposition amendment says:
“this House…declines to give a Second Reading to the Highways (Financing) Bill, because it has no confidence in the Government’s ability to deliver the project on time and on budget, given its record of cancelling major road schemes across the country”
and risks costs
“spiralling further out of control”.
That is rich coming from the party that oversaw most of HS2’s lifespan. HS2 is so desperately needed by our rail system and northern cities, yet what did the Conservatives <span id="613" class="column-number" data-column-number="613"></span>do when in government? They started construction before the design was agreed and complete, then halted it and removed about half the length of HS2, thus completely undermining the business case. I could go on.
The lower Thames crossing was commissioned because the Dartford crossing has miles-long queues leading on to it. Extra lanes have been built on the M25, and we have all-lane running on many other motorways, yet on many of them traffic still crawls along at slow speeds due to the sheer level of congestion. While there is no doubt that the lower Thames crossing will relieve pressure on the existing Thames crossings for a few years after it opens, how long will it be until the toll payers are effectively paying to park on the approach road instead to cross to the other side of the Thames?
The DFT forecasts that road traffic will grow by 12% on motorways and 10% on all other roads over the next 10 years. To ensure that our roads do not grind to a halt, I really look forward to a policy that incentivises alternative travel options so that road space is available for those journeys for which there is no choice but to drive. For instance, increasing capacity at the Ely and Haughley junctions, or any number of other rail bottlenecks, would increase rail capacity for freight and passengers at a fraction of the cost of the lower Thames crossing or of opening another lane on a UK motorway.
I do hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and the Secretary of State can provide some assurance to me and this House. Unless there is an overarching transport strategy that supports modal shift, it will not be long before we need an even lower Thames crossing.
I supported this legislation first in 2015 and will do so again as it goes through its processes. I am truly grateful for all the work that so many hon. Members here and in the other House have done on the detail of the Bill. I am confident that it has been improved significantly and that we have learned from the experiences of jurisdictions across the world, many of which have had assisted dying for many years. Let us remember that in most of those jurisdictions only about a third of people who choose the option of assisted dying actually go ahead and need to use it.
My resolve has been strengthened by those I have heard from with direct experience. I will mention just two such experiences, told to me by people I know well. One is a constituent who asked me to support the change in legislation. His brother was diagnosed with cancer, and after an operation that proved unsuccessful, he was admitted to a hospice for end-of-life care. About his brother, he said:
“He was very philosophical about what was going to happen. His one request and hope was that his death was not going to be prolonged and painful. He received excellent care from an amazing team at the hospice. Sadly, when the time came, he suffered in a way no human should have to…We don’t allow our pets to suffer the way he did. His acute suffering and pain lasted 4 days. When he was able he pleaded for help for the pain to stop. The hospice did everything possible to help, but there are legal limits to what they can do. If he could only have received a life-ending intervention 5 days before he died, as he wanted, he would not have had to suffer the indignity and agony of a painful and long, drawn-out, horrific death.”
The second experience is that described on several occasions in the House by Paul Blomfield, the former MP for Sheffield Central, about his father’s death. Paul continues to be a powerful advocate for the right to choose. His full speeches are preserved in <em>Hansard</em>, so I will quote just a small part about his experience.
Paul received a phone call that his father had been found dead in his garage after receiving a terminal diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer. In Paul’s words,
“He had had his share of health problems, but he faced them all positively, until a terminal diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer clearly led to his decision to take his life. He could not talk to me or his partner about it, because he would have made us complicit. The current law forced my father into a lonely decision and a lonely death. And he died prematurely, because I am sure that what drove him to end his life at that point was the fear that if he <span id="1370" class="column-number" data-column-number="1370"></span>did not act when he was still able to do so, he would lose the opportunity to act at all.”<span id="vol717_col231WH" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="231WH" data-volume-number="717" data-external-id="461F853F-5D85-4AF7-BA0A-DDB69933BB00">—[<em>Official Report, </em>4 July 2022; Vol. 717, c. 231WH.]</span>
Those potentially facing unimaginable pain or suffering after their terminal diagnosis, despite the best palliative care, currently have options that are unbearably lonely—like for Paul’s father—or involve an arduous and costly journey by going to Switzerland; or they have no choice, like my constituent’s brother.