Commons
Ministerial Statement
5 February 2026
Sudan
The Foreign Secretary rightly spoke of the need to halt arms flows, and I listened very carefully to her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). May I focus on one specific country? There is significant evidence of the use of Chinese-manufactured arms, such as the FH-95 s…
Commons
Debate
3 February 2026
Iran
In answer to questions from Members on both sides of the House in relation to the proscription of the IRGC, the Minister has rightly said that he wants to see that legislation come forward, but we still do not have a fixed timetable. Given that the EU, the United States, Canada and Australia have pr…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
3 February 2026
Topical Questions
Will the Secretary of State instruct his officials who are putting together construction plans for a new mega-prison adjacent to HMP Grendon to actually listen to local voices, rather than insisting from a distance on traffic management plans that will put thousands of heavy goods vehicles down tota…
Commons
Debate
2 February 2026
China and Japan
In the Prime Minister’s discussions on what he somewhat mildly describes as “areas of difference”, did he raise the discovery of kill switches and hidden comms devices in Chinese-manufactured solar panels? If he did, can he assure us that, rather than politely asking for this practice to stop, he de…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
2 February 2026
Topical Questions
T10. Instead of constantly pushing back the closure date for RAF Halton in an era where we need to increase defence capability, will the Minister commit to keeping it open for the long term?
Commons
Ministerial Statement
26 January 2026
Police Reform White Paper
Thames Valley is already a large police force, where our superb police officers and staff struggle to balance resources effectively, even with local command units now across rural areas like my own and the bigger cities, such as Oxford and Milton Keynes. Given that it is such a large force—and that …
Commons
Oral Questions
Work and Pensions
26 January 2026
Topical Questions
T5. On Friday, I met a constituent who has been told that she is losing all her child maintenance payments because her ex-husband simply told the Child Maintenance Service that he had moved abroad, which my constituent knows is entirely false. What steps will the Government take to verify claims fro…
Commons
Westminster Hall
22 January 2026
Transport Connectivity: Midlands and North Wales
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing this important debate. It is not the first time that I have heard her make the case for Aldridge station, which she does with considerable …
Commons
Proceedings
19 January 2026
Business Rates: Retail, Hospitality and Leisure
This morning I met Roly May, the landlord of the Russell Arms pub in Butlers Cross. Government Members might recognise it: it is the closest pub to Chequers, where they can drown their sorrows after an audience with the Prime Minister. The pub has seen as £17,500 business rate increase. I have heard…
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
19 January 2026
SEND: High-quality School Places
Does the Secretary of State accept that cancelling an £18-million, purpose-built, 152-place SEND school in Buckinghamshire, due to open in 2028, and replacing it with just £8 million over three years will inevitably increase reliance on high-cost independent placements, worsen outcomes for children …
Commons
Proceedings
15 January 2026
Digital ID
The Minister has been consistent this morning both in his defence of the indefensible and in avoiding putting a price on this scheme. He did not answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson), who asked whether the Government dispute the £1.8 billion figur…
Commons
Westminster Hall
14 January 2026
2 contributions
Horse and Rider Road Safety
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Too often when we talk about rural activities, too many dismiss them as relics of a bygone age. Those of us who represent rural constituencies know that nothing could be further from the truth. Horse riding remains a vital living part of ru…
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. She is absolutely right and I wish her a speedy recovery from her own horse-related incident. What might seem a minor lapse in judgment from behind the wheel has serious and sometimes devastating consequences for riders and horses, given that t…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
17 December 2025
Local Government Finance
The Minister said in her statement that she did not want to look the other way, but in reality this Government are looking the other way when it comes to rural communities. I listened carefully to the answers she gave to my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), but the fact is that,…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
16 December 2025
Planning Reform
If the Minister is serious about, in his words, “doubling down” on brownfield first, will he look again at the Campaign to Protect Rural England report, which was put together with academic rigour, which identified enough land in England alone for 1.4 million homes on brownfield sites? If he looks a…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
15 December 2025
Topical Questions
T5. Given that Germany has lifted its partial arms embargo on Israel, why do the UK Government persist with restrictions on defence export licences to our ally?
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
15 December 2025
2 contributions
NATO Defence Expenditure Target
2. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of Exchequer on meeting the NATO target of 5% of GDP on defence expenditure.
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, but it is curious to see what is and is not in the Red Book from the Budget we just had. Page 88 shows in intricate detail just how big the welfare budget will get as a result of the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap, but there is no such…
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 December 2025
2 contributions
Network Rail Timetable Changes: Rural Communities
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for securing this debate on an issue that matters greatly: ensuring that transport, in this case on the railways, effectively serves rural com…
Chiltern Railways serves my constituency and Buckinghamshire more widely, on both the Chiltern main line and the Aylesbury branch. The Aylesbury branch in particular is a very rural service; it stops at a number of very small stations, often village stations, between Aylesbury and Marylebone. For a …
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 December 2025
2 contributions
Net Zero Transition: Consumer-led Flexibility
As ever, Mr Vickers, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. The Opposition have a deep and growing concern about the direction in which Ministers of this Government are taking our energy system. It is a direction that depends increasingly on the weather, and I do not believe that anyone …
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but the trains will continue to run 24/7, whereas we are talking about a system in which if renewable sources drop and the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine, the electricity is not there. I am not sure that his analogy is necessarily a …
Commons
Westminster Hall
8 December 2025
Digital ID
We have a Government who could not even keep their own Budget under wraps. What hope do they have with our personal data?
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 December 2025
3 contributions
Seafarers’ Welfare
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. As an island nation, Britain has always been reliant on our sailors, as other Members have said. For centuries, we have depended on them to protect our nation, to transport goods around the world and to deliver the products o…
The point of my comments on the actions of the previous Government is not to say that they were wholly conclusive and the end of the matter. But I believe the steps that were taken by the previous Government did demonstrate a step forward, as I think the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged in the deba…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
2 December 2025
Topical Questions
T3. Australia has listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a state sponsor of terrorism. What discussions have Ministers had with their Australian counterparts about matching that important action against terror at home and abroad?
Commons
Proceedings
27 November 2025
5 contributions
Budget Resolutions
I entirely endorse the argument that my hon. Friend is making. The big punishment in yesterday’s Budget was the increase in taxation on dividends. That says to our wealth creators and entrepreneurs—the people who create jobs—“Don’t bother.”
In reflecting on the title that the Government have offered up for today’s Budget resolutions debate, “Economic Sustainability and Fair Choices”, I have found myself wondering on what planet anyone could possibly call yesterday’s Budget sustainable or fair. The forecasts show that GDP growth will be…
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
27 November 2025
Topical Questions
T2. Much of Buckinghamshire’s tourist economy is under- pinned by walkers coming to enjoy our countryside and the beautiful Chilterns, but on top of the tourism tax, the industry is threatened by the Secretary of State’s Government threatening to plaster Buckinghamshire with solar panels, which will…
Commons
Oral Questions
27 November 2025
2 contributions
Music Recording Studios
5. What steps she is taking to help support small and medium-sized music recording studios.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and apologies for making it just in time. Chiltern Railways are entirely to blame.
I thank the Minister for that answer, however a couple of weeks ago I met my constituent Dom, who runs a small music studio. The cost pressures on the music industry coming from this Government…
Commons
Westminster Hall
26 November 2025
Driving Test Availability: South-east
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) on securing this debate on an issue affecting families, young people and local businesses across the south-east, including in my constituency of Mid Buckinghamshire, and ind…