Commons
Westminster Hall
3 March 2026
Small Charity Sector
Thank you for chairing this debate, Sir Roger. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who for 34 years has made such an enormous contribution in this place. When he set up the Centre for Social Justice, he was determined to look at the deepe…
Commons
Oral Questions
10 February 2026
Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts
I am not qualified to make observations about the enduring value for money or effectiveness of Palantir, but I am concerned that Mandelson’s dynamics with every aspect of this Government have toxified the integrity of their processes. Unless the Minister can make absolutely clear what quiet, unspoke…
Commons
Oral Questions
5 February 2026
Business of the House
Several of my constituents in Salisbury have recently retired from the civil service. When they have contacted Capita, they have not been able to obtain their lump sums, so are getting into debt and have lost out on interest. Others have been cut off and ignored. Could we have a statement or a debat…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
29 January 2026
Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report
I welcome the Government’s apology for the maladministration and the Minister’s clarity today, but many Salisbury WASPI women will be very disappointed by the decision. Could the Secretary of State say a little more about what options he looked at to compensate the poorest, most vulnerable of the WA…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
15 January 2026
Business of the House
Duncan Grocock, a frequent commuter from Salisbury to London, came to see me about the short-forming of South Western Railway trains along the line through Andover and Basingstoke. Passengers can be compensated when trains are late, but not when they must stand for commutes of an hour and a half. Wi…
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 January 2026
2 contributions
Food Inflation
May I say what a pleasure it is to serve not only under your chairship, Dame Siobhain, but on the Treasury Committee with you and the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West)?
I first became engaged in this subject during my first Parliament, when I joined the all-party parliament…
I hear what the Minister says, but does she not recognise that if the prevailing increase in the national living wage is 6.7% and inflation is about half that, and given the other costs mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), many employers will not be able to …
Commons
Oral Questions
15 January 2026
Town of Culture and City of Culture Competitions
I congratulate the Secretary of State on getting the town of culture competition to happen. I was briefly Arts Minister nine years ago, and Sir Phil Redmond did an amazing job then of setting out the distinction between city of culture and town of culture. I seek the Secretary of State’s advice abou…
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
12 January 2026
Leasehold Reform
Just before Christmas, Mr Rahman, a leaseholder in a Taylor Wimpey property, came to see me. There are 100 years remaining on his lease and a modest ground rent, but he cannot secure a sale because Taylor Wimpey will not agree to a reasonable deed of variation in relation to the ground rent provisio…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
7 January 2026
Ukraine and Wider Operational Update
I thank the Secretary of State for his update. He is a serious and experienced politician, and I have no doubt that he always acts in the national interest. What concerns me is the gap between the coherence of NATO and its approach—the approach that he has set out that we will take if a peace agreem…
Commons
Debate
5 January 2026
Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief
I welcome the partial U-turn. When I met a number of farmers on Boxing day, all 400 of them were very concerned that the next phase of this Government’s relationship with rural Britain would be a consultation on banning trail hunting. On the basis of this experience, I think that the Minister could …
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
15 December 2025
2 contributions
Defence Investment Plan
10. What discussions he has had with service chiefs on the proposed level of spending in the forthcoming defence investment plan.
I am a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and I have seen reports that service chiefs are drafting letters to the Secretary of State warning of their concerns about whether enough money is going into defence. When the delayed defence investment plan is produced, will it give clarity on when the…
Commons
Proceedings
11 December 2025
Business of the House
May we have a debate on capital expenditure in the NHS? All our constituents will see the tax announcements and then think that that means extra investment. In south Wiltshire, we are still waiting for the elective day surgery announcement to take place. We have been told that it is on hold and that…
Commons
Debate
10 December 2025
Seasonal Work
Governments have to make choices—we all understand that—but the choice that this Government made was not to cut spending on welfare, which has limited their choices elsewhere. There is a real choice. If the Conservatives had been in power, we would not have made those choices over the summer, and th…
Commons
Oral Questions
9 December 2025
Support for Entrepreneurs
I welcome the changes to the listings review, but will the Minister look at what is happening with research and development tax credits and the efficiency of the delivery of those tax credits, because when the system does not work well enough, businesses are struggling before they get to listing?
Commons
Debate
4 December 2025
Dawn Sturgess Inquiry
I thank the Security Minister for early sight of his statement, and I thank him most warmly for the way in which he has presented the Government’s response this afternoon. As someone who spent a previous life in Salisbury and south Wiltshire, he has served the people of my constituency very well. I …
Commons
Proceedings
3 December 2025
OBR: Resignation of Chair
Richard Hughes was a first-rate public servant, but he did the right thing on the narrow matter of the premature upload of the file last week. OBR representatives told us a number of things yesterday in the Treasury Committee. They told us that there was a £16 billion downgrade and £4.2 billion of h…
Commons
Proceedings
1 December 2025
2 contributions
Budget Resolutions
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner), who I know holds his views with great sincerity, although I do not agree with many of them.
Before I get into the substance of the Budget measures, I want to address the process leading up to the Budget. People might say th…
I did not support Brexit. Brexit happened. We made a decision as a country, and I do not want to relitigate that. I commend the hon. Member for what he does to promote the discussion about measures to drive forward productivity. I think the Government could learn from some of his observations this a…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 December 2025
Office for Budget Responsibility Forecasts
On the process failure of the premature publication of the document, I think there is consensus across the House that it is damaging to the reputations of the UK, the OBR and the Treasury. I welcome the fact that the report says there are issues for the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and the OBR in re…
Commons
Proceedings
27 November 2025
Business of the House
The Office for Budget Responsibility suggests that £6 billion of costs associated with special educational needs and disabilities provision has not been catered for in the Budget. Given that, it suggests that there will be an effective 4.9% cut in mainstream school spending per pupil. That is a mass…
Commons
Oral Questions
27 November 2025
2 contributions
Cities and Towns of Culture
I warmly welcome the innovation around the UK town of culture. My 10 seconds of fame as the Under Secretary of State for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport was in December 2017, when I went to Hull, the train broke down and I announced on “The One Show” that Coventry would be the UK city of…
Maybe five seconds?
Commons
Westminster Hall
25 November 2025
5 contributions
Pension Investment in UK Equities
I beg to move,
That this House has considered pension investment in UK equities.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I think all hon. Members would agree that UK pension funds are hugely important, primarily to the millions of future pensioners, but also to the many scale-…
Perhaps unsurprisingly, my right hon. Friend anticipates an argument that I am going to move on to about the wider culture of awareness of where investments are happening in our pensions, how important that is, and how we need to be cognisant of the gap that exists.
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
20 November 2025
Transport System: Economic Growth
Following the decision to cancel the A303 improvements at Stonehenge, the focus in Wiltshire is on what else can be done, particularly around Salisbury, to remove some of the enormous congestion that exists that clearly impacts on economic growth. I was grateful for the engagement with National High…
Commons
Debate
17 November 2025
Budget: Press Briefings
Two weeks ago, the Chancellor held a press conference from which everyone inferred that income tax was going to go up. On Friday, every newspaper said that income tax was not going to go up. It is plainly obvious to the general public and anyone who reads any of the papers that everything is being b…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
13 November 2025
Business of the House
May I thank the Leader of the House for what he said about reforms to the driving test booking system? I add to what my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) said about DEFRA questions. I wanted to raise the case of Susan Robinson and Maria La Femina, who asked me about sludge …
Commons
Oral Questions
11 November 2025
Topical Questions
I recently met the chief executive of an international charity that happens to be based in Wiltshire where there have been serious historical allegations. Unfortunately, the resourcing of such inquiries falls between the Serious Fraud Office, the National Crime Agency, Wiltshire police and the Chari…