Commons
Debate
2 July 2026
National Audit Office
I thank the Prime Minister very much for making this appointment. As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and the appointments panel, I warmly welcome the motion to appoint Michael Jary CBE as the next chair of the National Audit Office.
Michael Jary brings extensive experience in Government, lea…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
30 June 2026
Defence Investment Plan
It would appear that this defence investment plan is unaffordable, but the Public Accounts Committee will be examining that. Deep in the plan is an old accountant’s trick: a vast efficiency savings figure of £10.7 billion. Does the plan rely on that figure? If not, what is the incentive to make effi…
Commons
Debate
29 June 2026
2 contributions
Home Office and Ministry of Justice
I thank the Backbench Business Committee, Mr Speaker, and yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting the debate, and the Minister for being here—I hope she will find it useful.
We often speak in this Chamber about defence spending, and rightly so. Defence keeps our nation safe, but justice is wha…
The hon. Member makes an interesting point, and the Government must consider in the round how they can give people useful training, work and leisure in prison, so that they come out with some skills. Where people go, how they are housed and what employment offers they get are issues that the Governm…
Commons
Proceedings
15 June 2026
Defence Investment Plan
The House will be aware that we spend £333 billion a year on the Department for Work and Pensions. We spend less than a fifth of that on defence, at £62 billion. In his speech this morning, the Prime Minister talked about government being “a choice”. Is this the right choice?
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 April 2026
Pension Schemes
I thank the Minister for his statement, and for meeting me to discuss this issue. As he is aware, the Public Accounts Committee has held multiple sessions with Capita on the broader civil service pension scheme and the problems that scheme members are having accessing their pensions. As numerous col…
Commons
Debate
20 April 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
Lords amendment 11 relates to the police powers to crush vehicles, which are rarely used for fly-tipping. I remind my hon. Friend and the House that similar powers exist for hare coursing. Once one or two high-profile hare coursing cases had been handled that way, it had a dramatic effect on reducin…
Commons
Debate
16 March 2026
Heating Oil Support
Although I thank the Minister for the limited amount of support that he has announced today, may I represent to him two of the most vulnerable groups in this regard: the very old and the very young? I ask him to consider them. I have elderly constituents who hardly dare turn on their heating because…
Commons
Debate
4 March 2026
4 contributions
Ministry of Defence
Madam Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to catch your eye to speak in this very important debate. I congratulate the Chair of the Defence Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), not only on securing this important estimates day debate, but on his excellent speech. We face a common problem, so …
It is shocking, as my hon. Friend says from the Front Bench. As the Chair of the Defence Committee said, not only is it terrible for defence companies wanting to be able to plan their manufacturing programmes, but it is not good for MOD personnel, because they do not know how to plan either.
Curren…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
4 March 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
The Minister may be aware that the Public Accounts Committee held a session on 8 January on the BBC World Service. At that session, we pushed for the BBC to be given a budget for the World Service, but here we are, two months on, and I understand that we have still not had notification of that budge…
Commons
Debate
28 January 2026
2 contributions
Education Funding: Distribution
Is the hon. Lady aware of a device called the statutory override which allows local authorities not to declare a deficit in their accounts although they are still incurring a debt? As for schools funding, Gloucestershire is almost at the bottom of the league. This week we received the terrible news …
We have already heard this evening about the difficulty of parents getting EHCPs. Even when they have got them—90% of parents who apply do eventually get them, despite the struggle—their provision is not guaranteed. The Government are spending record amounts on SEND, yet we are still not really solv…
Commons
Westminster Hall
28 January 2026
11 contributions
Firearms Licence Holders: Mandatory Medical Markers
I should perhaps clarify for the House that I chair the all-party parliamentary group on shooting and conservation. I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Does she agree that one of the critical reasons that medical markers are not yet compulsory—I entirely agree that they ought to be…
The hon. Member has prompted the second point that I want to make. Doctors and other medics are perfectly happy to do medical checks on people in relation to driving licences. That is an issue of public safety. Why is there inconsistency in doing it for firearms?
+9 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
7 January 2026
3 contributions
Rural Communities
I start by declaring an interest as a farmer and as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on shooting and conservation. Rural communities such as those in the Cotswolds feel totally neglected by this Government. We talk about the cost of living, but the cost of rural living is even higher. W…
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. As a chartered surveyor who has studied rural properties and farms, I do not think we should be putting wind farms or photovoltaics on the best farmland in this country.
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
5 January 2026
Venezuela
The Foreign Secretary has repeated time after time today that she believes in the rules-based system. Therefore, will she argue for that vociferously at the United Nations so that the world knows what British values are? Will she also discuss with the American Administration a realistic plan to make…
Commons
Debate
5 January 2026
Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and a happy new year to you and your staff. Farmers in my constituency will welcome this change to the thresholds for APR and BPR. However, it took 14 months to achieve it and rural communities really do feel discriminated against by some of the measures that this Government a…
Commons
Debate
16 December 2025
Finance (No. 2) Bill
Like me, the hon. Gentleman represents a constituency in the south-west where hospitality businesses of all sorts will be very heavily hit by this Budget. They have seen rate increases. They have seen increases in alcohol duty, increases in the minimum wage and national insurance increases. Some of …
Commons
Proceedings
27 November 2025
4 contributions
Budget Resolutions
The sad fact is that youth unemployment—that is, unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds—is at a staggering 15%. Given the national insurance hikes and the rise in the minimum wage, employers are unlikely to consider taking young people on, which could have the disastrous effect that people who gradua…
Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak in this debate. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), and I agree with what she said about farmers. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
This Budget was an omnishambles. …
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Scotland
26 November 2025
2 contributions
New Nuclear Sites
14. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on the potential for new nuclear power sites in Scotland.
Would the Secretary of State not agree that connecting renewables to the grid requires considerable expense, and would not the former nuclear sites of Hunterston, Torness and Dounreay make very suitable sites for new nuclear power stations, from which the Scottish people have benefited hugely in the…
Commons
Debate
28 October 2025
Stamp Duty Land Tax
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Government are not only taxing young people’s jobs but taxing their chances of owning a home through the increase in stamp duty and the rumoured increase on the capital gains on principal private residences?
Commons
Westminster Hall
22 October 2025
4 contributions
Korean War: 75th Commemoration
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. It is worse than he says in North Korea. If someone is caught committing any of these minor crimes, such as listening to a memory stick from the west, it is not only they who are imprisoned; it is their entire family. That is almost invari…
It is a privilege to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing this important debate to mark the 75th anniversary of the Korean war, and on his excellent opening speech.
…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
21 October 2025
2 contributions
Social Housing: South Cotswolds
I am grateful to my friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. She is speaking with a huge amount of common sense. Of course, her problems in the South Cotswolds are replicated in the North Cotswolds. The problem with increasing the housing numbers—doubling them from 500 to 1,000 a year, as s…
In a recent hearing of the Public Accounts Committee on planning improvements, we heard from the Home Builders Federation that 34,000 social houses in England and Wales remain unsold. That seems to be an absolute tragedy when there is such demand for social housing. I ask the Minister to look at tha…
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
9 September 2025
Topical Questions
I have been campaigning for a long time on the reinstatement of tax-free shopping for foreign visitors, particularly those from Europe. Recent evidence from business suggests that we are losing £6 billion of income from this potential change, and £500 million in extra VAT generated from those touris…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 September 2025
Borders and Asylum
I note that the Appeal Court judges in last Thursday’s judgment were using article 8 of the European convention on human rights as a reason for the interim injunction on the Bell hotel to be quashed, yet the Home Secretary has argued in her statement today that she wants to alter the interpretation …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
21 July 2025
Independent Water Commission
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that he is going to merge all four water regulators into one. However, I offer a slight note of caution: it is no good moving the deckchairs around the deck unless the situation has been improved. When will he produce the White Paper and what te…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
15 July 2025
Afghanistan
I commend the Secretary of State for the calm and sensible way in which he has announced the change in Government policy today. I can already announce to the House that, since the briefing earlier today, I have made preliminary arrangements for MOD officials to address the Public Accounts Committee …