Commons
Debate
10 March 2026
Courts and Tribunals Bill
Does my hon. Friend agree that the original clause 39 of Magna Carta has guaranteed an individual’s right to due process in the court for 800 years, and that trial by jury is at its heart? This Bill asks the right question but gives a reckless answer. There is no modelling or evidence to show that t…
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 March 2026
Healthcare in Rural Areas
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson), my colleague on the Public Accounts Committee, for securing this debate. Many hon. Members have today outlined problems in their constituencies that, I am afraid, are all too f…
Commons
Debate
3 March 2026
SEND Provision: Local Authorities
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) for his truly emotional and very caring speech. While the Minister is travelling around the country, will she spend some time in west Somerset, where 2,500 children are on the crisis list?
Commons
Oral Questions
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
3 March 2026
2 contributions
Support for Ukraine
14. What diplomatic steps her Department is taking to support Ukraine.
I would like to declare that I returned from Ukraine last week—I was part of a cross-party delegation—and my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests will be updated to reflect that.
The newspapers and the television are this week full of pictures of people hunkering in bunkers in the …
Commons
Westminster Hall
10 February 2026
Independent Water Commission: Final Report
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for securing the debate. I also thank my many constituents who, quite rightly, have grave concerns about this matter and have written to me about it.
My party has made its dissatisfaction with the White Paper clear, and my colleague…
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 February 2026
Postal Services: Rural Areas
I am very proud to represent some fantastic small businesses in my rural constituency. Mr Barclay, the owner of CardByMeLove in Tiverton, has been left to shoulder an administrative burden that is not of his own making, chasing missing parcels and placating disgruntled customers. To make matters wor…
Commons
Westminster Hall
3 February 2026
Educational Outcomes: Disadvantaged Boys and Young Men
The west Somerset side of my constituency bears many of the hallmarks of a forgotten coastal community. In Somerset, 7.5% of young men aged 16 and 17 are not in education, employment or training, which is significantly above the national average in England. Does the hon. Member agree that when young…
Commons
Debate
2 February 2026
US Department of Justice Release of Files
As so many of my colleagues have rightly said, our thoughts today should be first and foremost with the victims. I hope that no political party in this Chamber would use this as an excuse to cover the backs of some of the less fragrant Members of the House of Lords. The fact that Lord Mandelson was,…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
2 February 2026
Topical Questions
T6. Members of the armed forces are the only uniformed service without a professional body to represent and support them. Will the Minister give assurances that the Armed Forces Bill will include provisions to establish such a body, ensuring that serving personnel and veterans have access to legal a…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
29 January 2026
Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report
I have thousands of WASPI women in my constituency, which is already very deprived. I cannot express how angry and disappointed they feel today. I am afraid that I will have to use strong language: this is simply gaslighting by this Labour Government. They know full well that it was not about whethe…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
29 January 2026
Business of the House
The Chapel in Cotford St Luke in my constituency is a fan favourite, but because of the decisions of this Government, it is dying. It has been hit exceptionally hard by VAT and the business rates regime, as is the case for many establishments in our part of the world, many of which rely heavily on t…
Commons
Westminster Hall
29 January 2026
River Habitats: Protection and Restoration
Thank you, Ms Butler. It is a pleasure to serve under you. I thank the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) for his kind words. I should start by declaring a couple of interests: before I came to Parliament I was head of strategy for the Environment Agency, specialising in water flooding and…
Commons
Westminster Hall
28 January 2026
4 contributions
Firearms Licence Holders: Mandatory Medical Markers
Will the hon. Member give way?
Thank you, darling Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
As vice-chair of the Country Land and Business Association’s rural business and rural powerhouse APPG, I fully support the idea of a centralised licensing system. It is interesting that the chair of the APPG is a Liberal Democrat MP like…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
20 January 2026
Water (Special Measures) Act 2025: Enforcement
I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous. As the Member of Parliament for Tiverton and Minehead, I represent two water companies, Wessex Water—who are no angels—and South West Water—who I have been chasing for several months in order to get a meeting on behalf of a constituent whose bakery was f…
Commons
Debate
12 January 2026
Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes
I cannot pretend to understand the complexities of AI bots or the stuff that we have talked about this afternoon, but I do understand the impact that sexual abuse has on children and girls in my constituency. On Saturday, I was talking to a grandmother, who told me that her granddaughter had been gr…
Commons
Debate
16 December 2025
2 contributions
Finance (No. 2) Bill
The hon. Gentleman is also a near neighbour of mine in Devon. Does he agree that the changes to agricultural property relief feels like a double taxation that burdens farming families in their old age? One can reasonably reach only one conclusion: this Government neither understand nor value this co…
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not a tax on passive wealth, but that it punitively, cynically targets productive enterprise? The Government expect to raise roughly £1.4 billion from the inheritance tax changes, but analysis by Family Business UK suggests that behavioural responses could prod…
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 December 2025
2 contributions
Network Rail Timetable Changes: Rural Communities
Just one Network Rail station, Tiverton Parkway, lies in my very large constituency. Like many other rural parts of the country, we are dogged by totally insufficient transport. Does the hon. Member share my view that if proper, predictable timetabling in rural areas is a lever for social mobility, …
I have three nuclear facilities in my constituency: Hinkley A, B and C. David Peattie, the chief executive officer of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, has referred to the horrible incident at Shap, because the NDA runs nuclear waste on trains on that rail line. Does my hon. Friend agree that i…
Commons
Westminster Hall
8 December 2025
Digital ID
My Tiverton and Minehead constituency in west Somerset has the lowest social mobility in the whole country. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that mandatory digital ID will give a better quality of life to any of my constituents?
Commons
Debate
4 December 2025
2 contributions
War in Ukraine
I was in Ukraine in September with colleagues from the Labour Benches—I was the lone Liberal in a Government delegation. Against what seemed to be mountainous odds, the Ukrainians have defied a superpower that has unleashed a torrent of wanton death and destruction. In war, truth is often the first …
I am going to finish—sorry. We risk returning to a brutish bygone era in which tyrannical thugs take what they want. Who wants to live in such a world? We all want peace, but appeasement of the Kremlin is not the chess move of a pacifist or an anti-imperialist. It is not anti-war; it is the acceptan…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
3 December 2025
Engagements
I have a charming elderly constituent who, after a series of major medical interventions, has been left in excruciating, uncontrolled pain after her opioids were withdrawn, pushing her to suicidal ideations. Can the Prime Minister shed light on what plans His Majesty’s Government have to help people…
Commons
Westminster Hall
2 December 2025
Homelessness: Funding
I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this debate.
We have Shelter’s vicious cycle:
“No home? No address. No address? No bank account. No bank account? No job. No job? No home.”
Rural homelessness is a unique challenge. In a way, it is unlike homelessness in urban ce…
Commons
Debate
25 November 2025
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
I will speak in favour of new clause 38, which I tabled. It seeks to introduce measures to prevent developers from using their own surveyors who have a vested interest in downgrading agricultural land in order to secure planning permission—particularly for solar farms—to build all over our countrysi…
Commons
Westminster Hall
19 November 2025
2 contributions
Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies
Did the hon. Gentleman bring any with him?
I thank the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) for securing the debate, and not least for mentioning one of the many shocking things about Hinkley C in my constituency.
My Tiverton and Minehead constituency is home to some truly remarkable specialist manufacturers whose contributions…
Commons
Proceedings
17 November 2025
Illegal Waste: Organised Crime
It is not just my opinion that Tiverton and Minehead is the most beautiful constituency in the country. It contains Exmoor national park, the Brendon hills, the Blackdown hills and the Quantock hills, all of which are areas of outstanding natural beauty. These are criminals who effectively run corpo…
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 November 2025
2 contributions
Parkinson’s Disease
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Does my hon. Friend agree that the challenges faced by those living with Parkinson’s are far from isolated, and that across neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, ME or chronic fatigue syndrome, there are calls for a joined-up neuro-optimal care pathway? A coherent national…