Commons
Oral Questions
16 October 2025
2 contributions
Grassroots Music Venues
3. What steps she is taking to support grassroots music venues.
Grassroots music venues across the country, particularly across London, are finding it increasingly difficult to survive as customers are spending less when they come to gigs because of the cost of living crisis. Will the Minister explain the progress on the levy? Will he consider the Lib Dem calls …
Commons
Debate
15 October 2025
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill
I chair the all-party parliamentary group for the future of aviation, travel and aerospace, and the debate on SAF has been a focus of many of our meetings. As a cover-all, I should declare my interests, having met with AirportsUK, Airlines UK, ADS Group, LanzaJet, Back British SAF, Valero, alfanar a…
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 October 2025
2 contributions
Knife Crime
This is my first opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I welcome the chance to talk again about knife crime in this place and I will outline the ways in which this heinous crime is marring communities and claiming too many lives. Although I wholeheartedly disagree with the hon. Mem…
I agree that ensuring protection online is important, but as we have already heard, the loss of officers who most closely support children outside the home, such as those in schools, is equally important. The loss of those in London will be devastating to our communities.
Tackling knife crime canno…
Commons
Debate
16 September 2025
Ambassador to the United States
My right hon. Friend has turned down the opportunity to dine with Donald Trump in the next couple of days, and he has been roundly criticised for that by some people who may well still attend. Does he agree that it is an ample opportunity for those people to ask President Trump about his entry in th…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
16 September 2025
Topical Questions
T4. One of my constituents has been told that their Crown court case will not be heard until 2028, six years after the alleged offence occurred. The delay was due to court closures and a lack of capacity locally. The Government should not need a report to tell them that they need to make more courts…
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 September 2025
Children with SEND: Assessments and Support
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. When it comes to the welfare of our children, the details should never be drip-fed to parents and carers. They do not deserve worrying speculation about potential changes to their children’s futures. Teachers should not be kept out of th…
Commons
Westminster Hall
8 September 2025
2 contributions
Indefinite Leave to Remain
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for his excellent speech in opening the debate, and hon. Members around the Chamber for their contributions. We have all made very clear our similar feelings on this, and I hope the …
I am not rising to defend the Opposition in any way, but can we just remember why we are here? We are talking about a Government who are planning to move the goalposts for people who are halfway through an application for ILR. We can point at who is at fault around the room, but let us not forget th…
Commons
Westminster Hall
2 September 2025
Defibrillators
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer.
We have heard the terrifying statistics on the number of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occur each year, and about the terrifying survival rates. The outcomes for cardiac arrests remain stubbornly poor in London—which should be one …
Commons
Debate
11 July 2025
Rare Cancers Bill
I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for his work on the Bill, and all those who have supported its progress.
I rise briefly for two reasons. First, to speak for a constituent, Kate, who is only 40 years old and has an inoperable brain cancer. Kate contacted me this week to …
Commons
Westminster Hall
10 July 2025
2 contributions
London’s National Economic Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for securing this debate.
London is not where I was born, but for so many of us who come to our great city, it is where our life begins. As a wide-eyed, bushy-tailed teenage…
The hon. Lady gives a stirring defence of the Mayor of London. We are trying to make the point that there is no cross-Government holistic view of London’s priorities. Londoners need a voice inside the Government: our interests ought to be not divided out across Departments and responsibilities, but …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
2 July 2025
Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review
This report is an utterly damning assessment of our national resilience, this time through decay but also through a lack of readiness as the climate crisis changes the dynamics, with old equipment operating at higher temperatures just as the loads for climate control and air conditioning are at thei…
Commons
Oral Questions
Transport
26 June 2025
2 contributions
Train Frequency: Sutton and Cheam
10. How much funding she plans to provide to increase the frequency of trains from stations in Sutton and Cheam constituency.
Earlier this week I was contacted by a long-suffering commuter using Worcester Park station. She wrote:
“As a teacher my days are already demanding, often filled with pressure, high energy, and very little downtime. Sadly, commuting to and from work now feels just as stressful. Trains during peak h…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
24 June 2025
China Audit
It is four years today since the Apple Daily ceased publication, and Jimmy Lai still languishes in Hong Kong’s Stanley Prison. It is worth noting his name and encouraging the Foreign Secretary to raise his case as often as he can. It is welcome to see in the statement that we are
“strengthening our…
Commons
Debate
20 June 2025
7 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
It is an honour to speak in this important debate on an issue that exemplifies why I chose to get into politics and come to this place: to be part of big decisions, taken in tune with public opinion, listening to evidence, and with the goal of making our residents better off. I have no doubt that al…
I will make some progress, thank you. I start by making the somewhat unusual case that this issue, for which we are gathered here on a Friday, giving up bake sales and constituency surgeries, is not quite the big deal it has been whipped up to be by both proponents and opponents. I do not believe th…
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
19 June 2025
2 contributions
Topical Questions
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Beddington energy recovery facility has an outstanding request to increase its annual permit tonnage to 382,000 tonnes from the originally approved 300,000 tonnes when planning was approved. I know the Secretary of State is familiar with this, as the facility is a mere 100 metres from his consti…
Commons
Debate
18 June 2025
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
Let me start by highlighting my support for new clauses 85 and 86, which deal with neighbourhood policing. They would ensure that police forces are required to practise community policing
“at a level necessary to ensure effective community engagement and crime prevention”.
It is a shame that the h…
The hon. Member provides a clear and visible example of how the legislation is not working, if somebody with such a high profile and with additional security protection cannot be protected from stalkers. I thank him for his apt intervention.
The burden of proof means that many victims withdraw from…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
18 June 2025
HS2 Reset
The disastrous decision by the last Conservative Government to stop the works at Euston station dented investor and commuter confidence in our railways and in major infrastructure delivery. Their failure to keep costs under control and to manage the basics of the project—simple things such as turnin…
Commons
Debate
17 June 2025
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
I was incredibly fortunate to sit on the Bill Committee considering this legislation. It is clear that, although opinions differ on details, we all share a common goal of tackling crime in a meaningful way, so that we can make people feel safe in our communities again.
As a community-focused libera…
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the advice from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and the British Medical Association…
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 June 2025
Hydrogen-powered Aviation
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) for securing this debate and for continuing the conversation that we have been having over the last couple of weeks about the future of aviation—something it is always a pleasure…
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
16 June 2025
Topical Questions
In April, I wrote to the Minister for School Standards about the Angel Hill free school, which will provide 96 desperately needed places for children with SEND in my constituency. I thank her for her response in which she said that we would get an update shortly. I ask again: when does she expect co…
Commons
Westminster Hall
12 June 2025
2 contributions
Humanist Marriage
Not any more!
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. The Liberal Democrats are proud of our clear and consistent commitment to legal recognition for humanist marriages, which has been official party policy since 2010. It is a position anchored by a strong tenet of our liberalism…
Commons
Debate
11 June 2025
2 contributions
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the future of aviation, travel and aerospace, I very much welcome this step to push the aviation industry into a sustainable future. I encourage Members to join the APPG and come along to our meetings if they want to find out more about sustainabilit…
I would challenge the hon. Member’s commitment to aviation spotting if, during university, he did not take a date to the final approach at Heathrow airport and have her observing the flights coming in for a good two hours. He may be a geek, but he is not quite there yet.
Commons
Proceedings
9 June 2025
Chinese Embassy Development
I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for submitting this urgent question.
The potential approval of the Chinese super-embassy sends precisely the wrong signal at a moment when we should be pushing the Chinese Government hard on human rights abuses a…