Commons
Debate
14 July 2026
Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill
I am grateful to their lordships for their work on the Bill. We support the amendments before the House.
Let me be plain from the outset: our objection has never been to steelmaking, or to the men and women who make steel; it is to a Government who have crashed around and used blunt instruments wit…
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
2 July 2026
Advanced Manufacturing
This week, our hard-pressed automotive industry has sounded the alarm: under the zero emission vehicle rules, British car makers are being fined for making precisely the type of cars people want to buy. That is costing them £5 billion a year, denying consumer choice, damaging British jobs and puttin…
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
2 July 2026
Employment Rights Act 2025
Today, we Conservatives have launched a campaign to save the summer job. Employment rights do not help young people if they cannot get a first experience of work, and they are trapped in a Catch-22 situation of needing experience to get work but not being able to get any during their education years…
Commons
Petition
24 June 2026
Support for rural areas, farming, country sports and the equestrian sector
I rise to present a petition from residents in my constituency of Arundel and South Downs in West Sussex. Hundreds of signatures have been gathered from local residents who see at first hand what feels like a constant attack on our countryside and country pursuits by this Government. For example, ju…
Commons
Petition
24 June 2026
Support for rural areas, farming, country sports and the equestrian sector
I rise to present a petition from residents in my constituency of Arundel and South Downs in West Sussex. Hundreds of signatures have been gathered from local residents who see at first hand what feels like a constant attack on our countryside and country pursuits by this Government. For example, ju…
Commons
Proceedings
17 June 2026
2 contributions
Steel Tariffs
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade if he will make a statement on steel tariffs.
I thank the Minister for that statement.
Aerospace, the automotive sector, Formula 1, the construction sector, and manufacturing businesses that use steel, which employ 300,000 people, are all being impacted by Labour’s botched tariffs. Many specialist steels—the Minister may have heard this from m…
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
21 May 2026
2 contributions
Topical Questions
First, I congratulate the Government on securing the Gulf Co-operation Council deal. Success has many authors, and Members on both sides of the House have been part of these negotiations as Ministers, but a win is a win. These are—[Interruption.] These are our historical friends and allies, and this…
I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. I hope he would agree, cross-party, with the Tony Blair Institute, which has said that the UK must restore “dynamism” to its labour market, rather than imposing restrictions such as the Employment Rights Act 2025. Could the Secretary of State, who is a …
Commons
Debate
21 May 2026
5 contributions
Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill because it believes that politicians should not be running businesses; because expropriating businesses sets a preceden…
That was a waste of an intervention. If the hon. Member lets me continue, I will explain exactly what the Conservative plan is for British Steel, and it is a better plan and a more sustainable plan than we have heard from the Secretary of State today. This Government did not inherit—
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 April 2026
Single Status of Worker
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) on securing this important debate. I regret that he himself was a victim of unemployment, cut down in his prime by a capricious boss, although I have great…
Commons
Debate
26 March 2026
Local Government Reorganisation
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your dispensation to speak on behalf of my constituents.
Not once in six years in this House have my constituents written to me saying that we need to cleave West Sussex in two, with two educational catchment areas, two different highways authorities, two social care serv…
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
12 March 2026
2 contributions
Topical Questions
The Government do not create jobs; business does. With unemployment rising, this is the last chance to ask the Secretary of State a question ahead of the start of April when a tsunami of business rate rises will hit. Shops and restaurants will see a 50% increase on average and the business rates of …
The Secretary of State forgets that I have not even been here for 14 years. Some days it feels like that, but I can assure him that it is not the case. There was no answer to that question, so let me try another. Does he agree that there is something pretty badly wrong with employment law in this co…
Commons
Statutory Instrument
2 March 2026
Draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2026
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
I wish the Minister all the very best; she has already demonstrated that she is an effective performer on behalf of her constituents. In your time, Mr Stringer, you will have seen many Ministers pushed out to defend the indefensible, b…
Commons
Proceedings
12 February 2026
Point of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wrote to the Chancellor on behalf of a constituent on 10 December last year; I followed that up on 6 January and 20 January, but on each occasion I received no substantive reply. It was only when I tabled a written question that Ministers finally informed…
Commons
Debate
9 February 2026
17 contributions
UK-India Free Trade Agreement
I am delighted to see not just the excellent Minister for Trade, but the Secretary of State. [ Interruption. ] I did; just bank the win. I read that the Secretary of State is being earmarked as a caretaker Prime Minister, so we are pleased that he has the time to spend with us—I think we have 10 min…
Well, I was going to be generous to the Government and say something slightly positive. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that Governments of all flavours could do an infinitely better job of listening to businesses. They are the people at the frontline in the real world. His constituents have very…
+15 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
29 January 2026
Workers’ Rights: Bracknell Forest
Of course, it is not just Bracknell, and one day those on the Labour Benches will understand that there are no workers’ rights if people have no work. Youth unemployment is up significantly. That is a tragedy that everybody should be ashamed of, and it is going up on Labour’s watch. Small businesses…
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
29 January 2026
Hospitality Sector
The Minister has just heard from across the House continuing pleas to support the hospitality industry. It is always a good day when the Government U-turn and provide more support for pubs, so we welcome that. However, unless the Minister can explain to us when a pub becomes a gastropub, when a gast…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
28 January 2026
6 contributions
Engagements
May I start by echoing the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments about Holocaust Memorial Day? We must never forget. May I also associate the Opposition with the condolences expressed by the Deputy Prime Minister to the family of Captain Philip Gilbert Muldowney. I also offer the condolences of the House…
The Deputy Prime Minister wants to talk about experience. I spent 25 years building businesses and creating jobs; he spent 25 years manufacturing grievance. If the Labour party knew anything about business, it would know that this is too little, too late. Our high streets—their high streets—are blee…
+4 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 January 2026
Offshore Wind
A very independent source!
Commons
Debate
15 December 2025
10 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
The concerns that we Conservatives have with the Bill have long been known, and I accept that we have debated them at length. I will not repeat them all today, because we are not here to debate the whole Bill, just the message sent to us from the other place.
There was a time when the Labour party …
The hon. Lady would have been wise to contain her excitement, because I agree with all of those groups in their letter today, which the Minister selectively quoted; she did not quote them saying that they are not in favour of removing the cap. I have spoken to each and every organisation that was in…
+8 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
11 December 2025
Topical Questions
Labour’s steel strategy was originally promised in spring 2025, but yesterday we learned from a written ministerial statement, snuck out without Ministers coming to the House, that the strategy will now not be published in 2025 at all—it is more likely to be spring 2026. We have no steel strategy af…
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
11 December 2025
2 contributions
Economic Growth
Five Lib Dem Lords a-leaping. That is all it took for the Liberal Democrat party to throw every British business under the bus and expose them to the unimaginable liability of infinite tribunal payouts. It is hard to think of a more anti-growth, anti-job measure. On Monday, the Liberal Democrat spok…
Lyndon B Johnson said the first rule of politics is to learn how to count. The Government lost the vote in the House of Lords last night on the unemployment Bill because 144 of their own peers did not want anything to do with that Bill. One Labour peer has already resigned to join the exodus to Duba…
Commons
Debate
10 December 2025
4 contributions
Seasonal Work
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair.
We have heard from Members from across the House who understand a fundamental truth: that the hospitality sector is the cornerstone not only of our economy but of our society. It is a great strength of our parliamenta…
My right hon. Friend is exactly right. I would not want to incur wrath by accusing anybody of misleading the House, but that is exactly the same story that I have heard from the Bridge Inn in Amberley, the Star and Garter in East Dean, the Bricklayers Arms in Midhurst and the Black Horse Inn in Bywo…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
8 December 2025
5 contributions
Employment Rights Bill
Two weeks ago, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box and delivered a Budget that contained not a single measure to support growth. Today, in moving the motion to disagree, the Minister has signed the warrant for a war on jobs. She is at the Dispatch Box representing the Government, but everyone k…
I will happily give way if the hon. Member wants to talk about the jobs lost in his own constituency.
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Petition
2 December 2025
Proposed Solar Development in Wisborough Green
No place is more inappropriate for a 25-hectare solar farm than the nature-rich farmland in Loxwood and Wisborough Green. One hundred and seventy-four residents and four separate parish councils have objected to the proposal. Solar on this scale is better off on supermarket roofs above car parks and…