Commons
Oral Questions
Culture, Media and Sport
18 June 2026
Ticket Tout Ban
I would also like to start by congratulating the England football team on their win yesterday. While fans are rightly excited to finally see England bring it home this summer, some world cup tickets this year have surged to over £24,000. Fans should not be forced to choose between remortgaging their…
Commons
Oral Questions
16 April 2026
World Cup: Support for Fans
Thousands of people across the country—although possibly not the Arts Minister—are very excited for the world cup this summer, but that excitement is being ruined by the prospect of fans, not football, coming home. Under new US border directives, fans face having their social media history weaponise…
Commons
Oral Questions
26 March 2026
Bus Service Funding: Mayoral Strategic Authorities
Part of my constituency falls in the West of England mayoral combined authority, which oversees some local bus services. Although recent Government funding has been allocated to improve bus transport across the authority, much of it appears to be concentrated on getting people in and out of Bristol,…
Commons
Westminster Hall
25 March 2026
Voluntary Groups and Community Centres
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) for securing this debate on a subject he is very passionate and knowledgeable about. He is a fellow bassoon player—I hope I am right in saying that—and music ensembles are anothe…
Commons
Westminster Hall
24 March 2026
6 contributions
Women’s Safety in Rural Areas
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the impact of planning on women’s safety in rural areas.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I secured this debate because I think the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has made an oversight; I hope it is a genu…
That sounds like an excellent scheme. We have a similar one in Frome that I commend to the House.
In rural areas, most of the questions I just asked do not even apply. There may not be street lighting, there are no taxis and, as in swathes of my constituency, there is no mobile phone signal.
+4 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 March 2026
Rural Roads
As the MP for Frome and East Somerset, I represent a semi-rural constituency and regularly drive around its more remote areas. Rural roads are often deprioritised because they carry less traffic, but, for the people who rely on them, they are absolutely essential. In many of these areas, public tran…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
12 March 2026
Business of the House
For decades, local people in Frome have used Packsaddle fields as a valued space for walking, recreation and nature. Plans to build housing on the site were refused twice last year, because of the harm it would cause to the communities who use the land. Despite that, and the fact that it has no live…
Commons
Debate
24 February 2026
4 contributions
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
A lot has been said on the nature of being a trade envoy and the fact that a special trade envoy role was created for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The Minister quite rightly pointed out that today we would not recognise trade envoys as they were then.
The Minister also mentioned the excellent parlia…
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I will come to another example of the way in which such sexism is embedded.
I recently wrote to both the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls to ask why the recent draft national planning pol…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
12 February 2026
Rural Mobile Connectivity
I very much thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for bringing forward this debate on a subject she knows so much about and on which she is such a passionate campaigner.
Rural areas are too often the last in the queue when it comes to decent mobile internet connectivit…
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 February 2026
Hughes Report: Second Anniversary
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) for securing this important debate.
We have had the findings of the Hughes report for over two years now. It called on the Government to provide financial redress …
Commons
Oral Questions
15 January 2026
Improving Outcomes for Young People
Data suggests around 50,000 children are not getting the music education they deserve and the cuts to music PGCE—postgraduate certificate in education—bursaries will exacerbate the problem. While £25 million of new musical instruments announced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will be …
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
14 January 2026
Engagements
Q14. Some 35,000 children, including my constituent Clover, live with uncontrolled, life-threatening epilepsy. Those who can afford it already benefit from prescribed medical cannabis, but families face endless delays, confused trials and a Home Office process designed for criminal misuse, not for h…
Commons
Westminster Hall
6 January 2026
2 contributions
BBC Charter Renewal
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for bringing forward this debate.
People of an age where their first exposure to television was watching “Play School”, “Danger Mouse” and the often overlooked but still cult…
I could not agree enough. If we speak to other broadcasters and people involved in the industry, we hear that they are just as worried about the future of the BBC—for exactly that reason: if we start to pull that plug out of the ecosystem, it causes problems for everybody else.
As we sit here today…
Commons
Debate
5 January 2026
Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief
In my constituency, we have not just a lot of farmers but a huge number of other businesses and livelihoods that rely on those farmers, and the whole of that rural economy has been negatively impacted over the last 14 months. Will the Minister undertake not just to apologise to communities like mine…
Commons
Westminster Hall
3 December 2025
2 contributions
Local Media
I thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) for securing this important debate. I want to start by paying tribute to the brilliant work being done in my constituency by news outlets such as the Frome Times , The Midsomer Norton, Radstock & District Journal and The Somerse…
I do agree, and I will come on to talk about the community impact of how we support local news.
The Frome Times —which, the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill might like to know, does slide through letterboxes for free every fortnight and employs a band of teenagers to do newspaper rounds—is a…
Commons
Westminster Hall
2 December 2025
Gambling: Regulatory Reform
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for bringing forward this incredibly important debate. We have heard some sad and powerful stories.
Reforms to address the risks and harms associated with gambling are long overdue. Many families and communities across the country conti…
Commons
Oral Questions
27 November 2025
BBC Charter Renewal
The BBC removed a part of Rutger Bregman’s Reith lecture in which he alleged that Donald Trump was the most openly corrupt President in US history, doing so only after legal advice prompted by Mr Trump’s lawsuit against it. The threat of legal action is creating a dangerous precedent for media censu…
Commons
Westminster Hall
26 November 2025
Driving Test Availability: South-east
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for bringing forward this important topic. The severe lack of driving tests has a profound impact on people’s ability to work, study and participate fully in everyday life…
Commons
Proceedings
12 November 2025
Independent Football Regulator
The Lib Dems have welcomed the introduction of the new Independent Football Regulator. Our football clubs are huge, historic institutions that unite generations, bring local economies to life and inspire millions, both at home and abroad. As such, the Secretary of State carries a significant respons…
Commons
Proceedings
11 November 2025
Points of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek clarification. It is possible that, during the course of the statement, the Secretary of State gave the impression that she does not have the power to remove BBC board members. In fact, the BBC charter empowers her to remove anyone who is
“unable, u…
Commons
Debate
11 November 2025
BBC Leadership
The Liberal Democrats have always pushed the BBC to be better, delivering genuinely balanced reporting, rigorous investigation and the best journalism in the world. We believe in a strong, independent, publicly funded BBC that values factuality, scrutiny and accountability in our democracy. The BBC …
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 November 2025
2 contributions
Support for Dyslexic Pupils
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) for securing this important debate. He has raised the topic consistently and I know it is personally very important to him, as well as to the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campb…
As a parent of children who are not dyslexic but had other ways of learning, which were well supported in schools, and as someone who recognised later in life that I had different ways of learning and would have benefited from different and inclusive practices, I totally agree. It would have helped …
Commons
Westminster Hall
30 October 2025
2 contributions
Children’s Social Care
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq— I hope my voice is going to survive this. I thank the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for everything that she and the Committee have done on this fantastic report. It is a really important piece of work, and it has bee…
Is there any chance that when the Minister is looking at the point about children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, he could look at the fact that certain groups of children, with certain conditions, may require much higher levels of financial support than others to get the diagnoses they need?
Commons
Debate
20 October 2025
Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban
The decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending their team’s Europa league match because West Midlands police could not keep the fans safe is a serious mistake, and sets a dangerous precedent. We appreciate the difficulty in ensuring the safety of fans and local communities, but the Liberal…
Commons
Oral Questions
16 October 2025
Grassroots Music Venues
I welcome the Minister to his place and I look forward to working with him—I am delighted to hear that he is a keen musician. Since Brexit, British musicians’ European tours have dropped by around 9% year on year, as a mountain of bureaucracy blocks those hoping to cut their teeth on the European ci…