Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 June 2026
East Midland Railway Collision
I join the Secretary of State in offering my deepest condolences to the family and friends of the driver, Shaun Burton. I thank her, the Rail Minister and staff at East Midlands Railway for keeping us updated in what I am sure were very difficult circumstances on Friday evening. As someone who repre…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
3 March 2026
Spring Forecast
Economic policies introduced by the previous Government piled more and more pressure on my generation, adding to intergenerational unfairness, and nowhere is that more clear than with plan 2 student loans; to declare my interest, I still owe more than £40,000. The policy proposed by the Conservative…
Commons
Debate
2 March 2026
Representation of the People Bill
I do not think I will get the time to say this at the end, so I want to put on the record that the Government should set up a national commission to look at our voting system. Whatever our views on it, we no longer live in a two-party electoral system, and if our electoral system does not acknowledg…
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 February 2026
2 contributions
Woodland Creation
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of woodland creation.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I am grateful for the opportunity to open this debate on woodland creation, which my hon. Friend the Minister just described as the most wholesome debate we …
I thank everyone who has contributed, including my hon. Friends the Members for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer), for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), for Thurrock (Jen Craft), for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and for Paisley and Renfrews…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 January 2026
Local Government Reorganisation
I should make it clear that local elections will be going forward in full in Milton Keynes and that I look forward to continuing to work with my brilliant, hard-working Labour councillors locally. One of the reasons for delaying the elections is the time it is taking to go through the local governme…
Commons
Debate
19 January 2026
Local Elections: Cancellation
Local elections will be going forward in full in Milton Keynes this year, and I look forward to continuing to work with my brilliant hard-working Labour councillors. The ongoing process of reorganisation is delaying elections, but it is also delaying the creation of new combined authorities across m…
Commons
Debate
15 January 2026
2 contributions
New Towns
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) not just for securing this debate, but for her passionate and moving speech.
I will start by building on some of the comments made by the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) about his constituents’ …
I thank the Minister for being generous with his time and for reinforcing the Government’s strategic direction, which I think most of us agree with. As we move on to the next stage, many of the local council leaders who he has spoken about feel like there is friction and frustration in the communica…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
16 December 2025
Planning Reform
I thank the Minister for the statement, and for the support for getting our housing market going again, particularly when it comes to brownfield sites; proposals for many of them are still being held up right across the country. He says that he will not at this stage make NDMPs statutory. Many peopl…
Commons
Debate
15 December 2025
NHS: Winter Preparedness
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for his hard work in trying to bring an end to these unacceptable strikes. When such strikes happen, particularly at this time of year, it draws attention away from the hard work that staff across our national health service are constantly putting…
Commons
Westminster Hall
3 December 2025
Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this debate. The limited time means that I will not focus too heavily on the importance of the region, which has been covered by my colleagues, but as t…
Commons
Oral Questions
13 November 2025
2 contributions
Access to Nature
2. What steps she has taken to improve access to nature.
I welcome the comments about Milton Keynes, the largest economy in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, and we are very excited about the upcoming forest. The Wetland Arc, led by the Parks Trust, is another exciting project that spans the Great Ouse valley in my constituency. It will bring significant ben…
Commons
Debate
28 October 2025
7 contributions
Stamp Duty Land Tax
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the importance of creating abundance in the housing market. Does he therefore think it was wrong for his party and the Prime Minister at the time to come to my constituency during the general election and campaign against the new homes being built there, w…
Back to scarcity again.
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
23 October 2025
3 contributions
Building Safety Regulator
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the performance of the Building Safety Regulator.
It is an unrivalled pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate and colleagues from four different parties for adding their n…
I thank my hon. Friend for those comments, which show exactly the kind of consequences we are facing because of what has been happening to the Building Safety Regulator. If we are not building new social homes, we have to ask where they are going to be instead. Quite often, children aged one or two …
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Debate
16 September 2025
Ambassador to the United States
I appreciate some of the points the right hon. Member is making, but I would just note that one of the Conservative candidates running in a Milton Keynes constituency at the last general election worked for Global Counsel. It is interesting that the Conservatives have such complaints about this orga…
Commons
Westminster Hall
8 September 2025
2 contributions
Indefinite Leave to Remain
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I will not speak for too long, given that most of the debate’s key points have already been made, so hopefully that will help with the average speaking time that you are aiming for.
I, too, thank the Petitions Committee for this debate,…
I completely agree. Diversity is at the heart of Milton Keynes. We are a proud city that shows how people from many backgrounds can come together to enrich and strengthen our community. We have seen at first hand how the many people who have come to our city from Hong Kong have added to our local ec…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 July 2025
Music Streaming: Label-led Principles
I start by— [ Interruption. ] Oh, that is a bright tie, Minister. I start by echoing earlier comments thanking the former Member for Cardiff West, the unions and the Ivors Academy for their important campaigning on this issue, and I congratulate the Minister for getting this important deal over the …
Commons
Debate
7 July 2025
Government Performance against Fiscal Rules
The only way out of the economic doom loop that the previous Government got us into is by growing the British economy again. If the British economy had grown over the past 10 years as quickly as the OECD national average, there would be £40 billion more sitting in the Exchequer without having to tou…
Commons
Oral Questions
7 July 2025
2 contributions
British National Overseas Visas: Settlement Rules
11. Whether she plans to extend the qualifying settlement period for people with British national overseas visas.
Many of my constituents came to the UK from Hong Kong under the BNO visa scheme in search of safety, freedom and opportunity. They have shared with me their concerns about how the uncertainty involved in the changes in the visa system might affect their future here. Can the Minister provide reassura…
Commons
Oral Questions
Transport
26 June 2025
2 contributions
Transport: Economic Growth
1. What steps she is taking to help ensure that the transport system supports economic growth.
Every French city with a population of more than 150,000 has a mass rapid transport system, yet over 30 UK cities or towns of that size still lack it. Research from Centre for Cities shows that poor connectivity holds back growth and productivity by limiting mobility. A key reason why we have so few…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
25 June 2025
Engagements
Q14. Milton Keynes has one of the fastest growing tech sectors in the country; one in three people now work in tech jobs at firms such as Red Bull Racing and the AI company Aiimi. Eleanor, a student in my constituency, is in the Gallery today. Can the Deputy Prime Minister let her and this House kno…
Commons
Debate
24 June 2025
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for calling this important debate. Let me start with what I think should be seen as positive news and welcomed across the Chamber: the once-in-a-generation increase in funding for social housing. We in the Select Committee have heard about some of the dire c…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
19 June 2025
UK Infrastructure: 10-year Strategy
Milton Keynes is proud to be a growing city, but too often under the previous Government new homes did not come with the infrastructure required for the new communities. Will the Minister please set out how the new strategy will help to support the infrastructure, in particular GP surgeries and hosp…
Commons
Debate
9 June 2025
8 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
Oh, is it?
May we please start by acknowledging something that still has not been acknowledged enough: the current planning system is broken? Nowhere is that clearer than in our environmental and habitats regulation, which part 3 of the Bill is hoping to fix, and which many amendments—amendment 69 in particula…
+6 more contributions in this session