Commons
Debate
25 November 2025
2 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
I am interested in this proposal, but I wonder whether it will be applicable to council areas that do not yet have a mayor and may not have a mayor for some time. Will they still have the power to impose an overnight visitor levy?
New clause 10, which I tabled, would require the Secretary of State to re-establish the community ownership fund, to which strategic authorities can apply for funding. We have heard from lots of Members in the House today about the value of their local community-owned businesses.
Community-owned sp…
Commons
Westminster Hall
24 November 2025
Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations
We all agree on the need to get aid urgently into Gaza now. Research from famine in world war two shows the lasting impact of famine, even on unborn foetuses; it cannot later be erased or reversed. Famine can also lead to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Does the hon. Member agree that Israel mu…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
19 November 2025
Engagements
Q2. Given the Government’s desire to improve our children’s educational outcomes and wellbeing, they are ignoring the elephant in the room. This morning I hosted a powerful roundtable with three secondary headteachers who spoke about the transformational effect that a complete ban on smartphones i…
Commons
Westminster Hall
12 November 2025
3 contributions
SEND Provision: Kent
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this debate. He outlined some horrific stories of neglect and appalling treatment of children with SEND. I am not from Kent—I am from Devon—but all I …
As far as I am aware, we have done.
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
11 November 2025
Topical Questions
Sexual exploitation is being perpetrated on an industrial scale by pimping websites, which currently enjoy near-total legal impunity, moving sexual exploitation off the street and into locations like flats and hotels, where outreach is harder and the coercion of vulnerable women can thrive. Given th…
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 November 2025
Alcohol Duty: UK Wine Sector
Does my hon. Friend agree that this policy directly hits the small independent wine importers, such as The Wine Loft in Brixham? It sells many different kinds of wine, but it does not have the power of Sainsbury’s or Majestic. It does not have a whole department to manage it and bring in large quant…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
5 November 2025
Curriculum and Assessment Review
We welcome the Government’s ambition to see arts and outdoor enrichment education included at the heart of the school curriculum, and we have some phenomenal outdoor ed going on in South Devon. We have long called for a broadened EBacc including arts subjects, but without clear incentives to encoura…
Commons
Proceedings
5 November 2025
Conflict in Sudan
Given the horrendous, apocalyptic scenes we are seeing in Sudan, and the fact that 25 million people are now estimated to be in acute hunger, does the Minister still think it was right for the Government to cut our overseas development aid budget? Can he commit to the House that the Government will …
Commons
Debate
4 November 2025
2 contributions
Supporting High Streets
Nearly 100,000 jobs have been lost in hospitality since the last Budget. Does the hon. Member agree that if that number of jobs had been lost in the steel industry or a car plant, it would have been front-page news day after day for weeks on end? Yet almost nothing is said about the jobs lost in hos…
This debate has reminded me of the maiden speeches we heard last year. We have had a really good tour of the country, taking in Animal shops, fun palaces and all sorts of stuff.
It has been great to talk about high streets, which are more than just shopping streets. They shape how people feel about…
Commons
Oral Questions
4 November 2025
2 contributions
Banking Services: Rural Areas
2. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of access to banking services in rural areas.
When Labour was in opposition, its shadow Economic Secretary, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq), welcomed measures to protect access to cash, but was concerned about the fact that they did
“nothing to protect essential face-to-face banking services.” —[ Official Report , 26 …
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
29 October 2025
Engagements
I recently met about 20 independent local traders in Totnes who are furious that the last bank in town will close in January and that Link has refused to consider a banking hub. My businesses and constituents—1,100 of them have signed a petition—deserve better. The Prime Minister just told the hon. …
Commons
Westminster Hall
29 October 2025
Independent Lifeboats: Government Support
Hope Cove lifeboat station in my constituency is considering purchasing a new rescue boat, which could cost in excess of £220,000—a vast amount of money for such a small organisation. Does the hon. Member agree that a specific grant scheme should be introduced to help independent lifeboat stations w…
Commons
Westminster Hall
29 October 2025
4 contributions
International Baccalaureate: Funding in State Schools
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) for bringing forward this debate.
The international baccalaureate sets a global benchmark for education. It is trusted by universities, employers and educators worldw…
The hon. Member talks about redeploying funding so that it can be spread across the landscape to improve 16-to-19 education, but we are talking about 0.004% of the education budget. Does she think that the tiny amount of funding that goes into the IB would make any difference at all if it were sprea…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
28 October 2025
2 contributions
Gaza: Humanitarian Situation
16. What diplomatic steps she is taking to help ensure that humanitarian aid can reach people in Gaza.
The Norwegian Refugee Council says that, between 10 and 21 October, 99 requests by international NGOs to deliver aid to Gaza were rejected by Israel on the grounds that the organisations were “not authorised” to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, yet these trusted agencies have operated there for dec…
Commons
Westminster Hall
27 October 2025
Holidays During School Term Time
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for introducing this debate and setting out the issues, and I thank the more than 181,000 members of the public who signed the petition, 243 of whom are from my constituency.
We…
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 October 2025
Educational Assessment System Reform
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) on securing this important debate. He spoke passionately about the subject. Although I have no doubt that his personal recollections of education are more recent than m…
Commons
Proceedings
13 October 2025
Education Committee
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her statement. As part of the evidence we gathered, we went to Ontario to see its inclusive education system, and I am sure I was not alone in finding that one of the bits of evidence that made the most impression. A couple of things stood out. Ontario f…
Commons
Westminster Hall
13 October 2025
Bovine Tuberculosis Control and Badger Culling
A farmer in my constituency has engaged in some of the methods suggested by Dick Sibley at Gatcombe and has made practical changes to prevent TB from spreading in her herd. After years of positive tests and the brutal effect on her and her family’s mental health of losing much-loved pedigree animals…
Commons
Debate
16 September 2025
Ambassador to the United States
We know that the trauma of sexual violence and sexual abuse can last a lifetime and, for many people, it can be too much to bear, as we have seen with Virginia Giuffre. Victims of sexual violence are often silenced, often ignored and always let down by a system that sometimes—often—sees powerful men…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
16 September 2025
2 contributions
Support for Witnesses
16. What steps he is taking to support witnesses through the criminal justice system.
I recently met a constituent who had served as a juror in a very distressing child sexual abuse case. She highlighted the profound impact that such trials can have not just on the witnesses themselves, but on the jurors, who may experience trauma and even post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the…
Commons
Debate
10 September 2025
Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]
Over the summer recess, I held surgeries in 52 towns and villages across my constituency and an issue that came up again and again and again was buses, or rather the lack of them. Many communities in my rural constituency are now effectively cut off. Some have just one or two buses a day, but others…
Commons
Debate
8 September 2025
Renters’ Rights Bill
I welcome the Government’s move to empower tenants. For too long in this country, owning property has been seen as a way to create additional wealth, rather than the intention being to provide a safe, secure and warm home for tenants. Not all landlords are bad, but there are some bad apples out ther…
Commons
Proceedings
8 September 2025
Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests
Many members of my community were arrested in London on Saturday, including a senior priest, an elderly Jewish man, and a teacher who has spent years with Gazan children and has witnessed the horror of seeing them killed by Israeli troops over the last couple of years. These people are not terrorist…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
4 September 2025
Early Education and Childcare
I welcome the Government’s commitment to and recognition of the importance of early years provision, and the support for school-based nurseries, like the new Little Thinkers at Kings Ash academy and the nursery at Furzeham primary school. However, like others, I am deeply concerned about recruitment…
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 September 2025
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) on securing this important debate.
We know that children who experience early trauma face profound challenges that can reverberate throughout their lives. Early years often marked by instability, neglect or harm can leave invi…