Labour Party MP for Chester North and Neston since (elected). An MP continuously since .
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| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | MP | Chester North and Neston | – present | elected | — | Party history |
Parliament's party history for this member: Labour ( – present).
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<Question HRSContentId="{58E61A1B-969A-47EA-BD15-BA4746B2AB46}">13. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{9E7DAEFC-2E5C-42CE-B676-F3D5C6D51DA2}">What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to tackle violence against women and girls.</QuestionText> </Question>
I pay tribute to Chester Women’s Aid, which continues to campaign hard for victims and survivors of domestic abuse in my constituency. Can the Minister update the House on the roll-out of the <span id="16" class="column-number" data-column-number="16"></span>new domestic abuse protection orders, which enable support services to apply for a protective order on behalf of a survivor?
The hon. Gentleman talks eloquently about the effect of the poor service on our working and personal lives, but there is also an effect on our democracy. As next May’s local elections draw closer, voters will be watching their letterboxes for the arrival of their postal votes. In May 2025, some 2.4 million people—nearly one in five voters—registered for a postal vote, so I am seriously concerned about the impact of the service on the delivery of our democracy.
On Tuesday, I was pleased to join more than 150 people to celebrate the Chester One City plan, an ongoing project that has underpinned Chester’s redevelopment since 2012. In this Chamber, we often focus on the decline of our town centres and high streets, while exemplary work by local champions, such as Councillor Richard Beacham and officers at Cheshire West and Chester council, remains unnoticed. Will the Leader of the House advise how we can showcase excellence, like the Chester One City plan, in this place?
It may not be a matter of interest, but for the record and for transparency, my niece works in the aviation industry.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I really appreciate that. This is another very dark day for the families affected by events at the Countess of Chester hospital—those who grieve, who suffer and who continue to live with the terrible fallout. It is crucial for them, as well as every one of my constituents, and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Sir Mark Tami) and others, to have absolute confidence that our local hospital—my local hospital—is a safe place. Lady Justice Thirlwall’s inquiry needs the firmest response possible from Government. She shines a light on a truly appalling state of affairs. Too many times in this place, in response to catastrophic events, we say, “Never again.” I have served previously as Minister for Building Safety, my work guided by the recommendations of the Grenfell tower inquiry. My right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed) and I argued consistently inside Government for the establishment of a national oversight mechanism to capture the recommendations from important public inquiries, such as this one, to ensure that they are carried forward and are never forgotten or overlooked. Given Lady Justice Thirlwall’s evidence that inquiry recommendations are so often overlooked, will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State support the calls to broaden her essential recommendation beyond the NHS to all inquiries and set up a national oversight mechanism so that when we say, “Never again,” we mean it?
The UK’s aviation sector continues to grow, breaking passenger records year after year as people travel in their millions. This growth is undoubtedly good for the economy, for trade and for growth, and also for the everyday British air passenger, giving us more opportunities to travel for work, leisure and beyond. We are well served in Chester North and Neston by Manchester airport, Liverpool John Lennon and, to a lesser extent, Hawarden airport. Additionally, many constituents are employed in the sector, at the airports or at Airbus over the border in north Wales. The company Exolum keeps aviation fuel flowing through my constituency. We must, however, make sure that as the expansion of the sector continues, we keep pace. Over recent days, we have seen what can happen when things go wrong; hundreds of flights have been cancelled or delayed across the country since last night. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for her update earlier this afternoon on the NATS outage. We have a responsibility to improve the protections of air passengers, to give them the confidence that they need to continue supporting British aviation, and I believe that the Bill is the best way to do that. My constituents have previously written to me to express their concerns about delays and disruptions to flights. In particular, one resident from Upton was deeply concerned about the cancellation of many flights worldwide earlier in March, triggered by rising oil prices. In recent years, major disruptions seem to have become more commonplace. From conflicts in Ukraine and the middle east disrupting flight paths and the cost of jet fuel to global pandemics shutting down almost all air traffic globally, these extraordinary events have had huge repercussions for the air passenger and highlighted the need for a more modern system that can adapt to a changing world. On a smaller level, we are all keenly aware of the many ways that the cost of living crisis has had an impact on us all. People up and down the country work hard to save for holidays abroad. The increasingly common choice of short-haul, low-fare flights benefits us all, putting more money into a sector that employs tens of thousands of highly skilled workers, growing our economy up and down the country. But we must make sure that, as we look to modernise and secure the aviation industry, we protect the consumer and ensure that their custom is not taken for granted. It is right that we work to strengthen consumer rights for air passengers, including over flight delays and cancellations, and to ensure price transparency for baggage and other costs that are often hidden through drip pricing. I also welcome the attention to disabled passengers’ <span id="1137" class="column-number" data-column-number="1137"></span>rights, ensuring that future regulation keeps all passengers in mind and keeps access to the skies equitable. In our increasingly global world, securing our aviation sector is a vital aspect of our wider economic growth, but beyond that, the security for air passengers that the Bill proposes will work to ensure that this economic strength is delivered hand in hand with consumers’ confidence that they will be protected when things go wrong.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) on securing this important debate. Among G7 nations, the UK has the lowest remaining levels of biodiversity, which reduces our environment’s ability to support our society. However, it is possible to combat biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. The UK is privileged to be home to many world-leading zoos and conservation organisations—including, in my constituency, the wonderful and world-renowned Chester zoo—which have the expertise and experience in species conservation and habitat restoration to propel large-scale ecological recovery projects. I was pleased to learn of Chester zoo’s programme to reintroduce more than 100,000 critically endangered greater Bermuda land snails to the wild, saving the species from extinction, after a small surviving population was discovered in an air conditioning unit. The efforts of such conservationists are essential to enriching ecosystems across the UK and the world, and we must strive to support them. Does the Minister agree that supporting our world-leading conservation sector is vital to ensure the UK’s long-term security and climate resilience?
I am beyond pleased that Chester North and Neston will be hosting this year’s world town crier tournament at the end of this month. I am sure that with the talent, showmanship and sheer vocal power of this year’s contestants, who hail from 15 UK towns and eight nations, audiences will be able to hear their cries of “Oyez!” from our city’s Roman walls and beyond. Will the Leader of the House join me in raising his voice to wish all 25 contestants the best of luck?
I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) to her place. She has taken on an immensely challenging role, but one that I am sure will bring her great joy. It is often said that a week is a long time in politics, and a year has been an extremely long time for this Bill. The evidence of that is the hefty number of amendments that have been tabled; as each political event moves on and people fall on their swords, more amendments come forward. I know that it has been of real interest to Members across the House, as well as many civil society organisations, that the Bill should be crafted to respond to events as they happen. I pay tribute to the Bill team, who have responded incredibly well to the number of amendments that have been tabled and the legislative challenge that the Bill represents. The Bill removes barriers to voting that were put in the way of electors. It protects our democracy, as my hon. Friend the Minister described, and there are extremely important measures on votes at 16, as well as on automatic voter registration and the powers that will be taken to pilot it, so that we can find those lost voters who fall out of our electoral system and bring them back into democratic engagement. Committee stage was lively, and I certainly enjoyed it. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes)—I think we struck something of an accord. I have to refer him back to one particular point in Committee when he said, “We have a groundbreaking piece of legislation—I am sure when we get to Report stage, the Minister will now say in the Chamber, ‘the shadow Minister said this is groundbreaking legislation’. It has its bad points and very good points, but I accept that it is groundbreaking”.<span id="vol_col393" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="393" data-volume-number="" data-external-id="EF4C9E23-AB45-4E06-8249-152906103CC6"><em>––</em>[<em>Official Report, Representation of the People Public Bill Committee, </em>16 April 2026; c. 393.]</span> Now, neither he nor I are the Minister or the shadow Minister, but I think we agreed on that point, and I thank him for the spirit in which he and other members of the Committee conducted themselves. What we have to remember is that any political party, candidate or elected representative who abides by the rules that this legislation sets will be able to flourish in our political system, and those who do not can expect to be held very firmly to account. The only point on which I agree with the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam)—who I welcome to her place—is in urging my Labour colleagues to continue working constructively with other political parties. It is not the case that we as a Government have not engaged on this legislation. We have been at great pains to do so, and I urge her to continue to engage not only as the Bill progresses through this House and the other place, but as we go through the secondary legislation that falls from it. My final point is about the Rycroft review. The final recommendation from Philip Rycroft’s review concerned the organisation of the civil service in response to democracy and elections. He suggested that a permanent secretary be appointed to look after democracy and <span id="276" class="column-number" data-column-number="276"></span>elections. We have just had the statement from the First Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), about rewiring public services and government. It often felt to me that many of the areas that this legislation covers do not fall just within the remit of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; they fall within the remit of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Cabinet Office and even the Home Office. I urge the Secretary of State to consider all these things in the round and whether a more strategic Government position could be found in taking this legislation forward. There is sometimes a tension between the powers of the MHCLG and the powers of other Departments. I am sure that that will be debated this afternoon. It was an enormous privilege to take this Bill through Second Reading and Committee, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for bringing the Bill back in such a timely way on Report.
Held . Recorded result: Lab Hold. Majority 11,870. 44,694 votes cast from an electorate of 70,215. Parties are as each candidate stood at the time.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samantha Dixon | Labour | 22,258 | 49.8% |
| Simon Eardley | Conservative | 10,388 | 23.2% |
| Nicholas Goulding | Reform UK | 5,870 | 13.1% |
| Nick Brown | Green Party | 4,102 | 9.2% |
| Steve Gribbon | Liberal Democrat | 2,076 | 4.6% |
| Seat | Dates |
|---|---|
| Chester North and NestonElected 1 time | – present |
| City of ChesterElected 1 time | – |
| Post | Dates |
|---|---|
| Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government | – |
| Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)HM Household | – |
| Post | Dates |
|---|---|
| Opposition Whip (Commons)Whips Office (Commons) | – |
| Committee | Dates |
|---|---|
| Transport Committee | – present |
| Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill | – present |
| Representation of the People Bill | – |
| Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission | – |
| Victims and Courts Bill | – |
| Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art | – present |
| Speaker's Conference (2024) | – present |
| Committee of Selection | – |
| Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Bill (Formerly known as Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill) | – |
| Treasury Committee | – |
| Treasury Sub-Committee on Financial Services Regulations | – |
| Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL] | – |
| Procedure Committee | – |
| Finance (No. 2) Bill | – |
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