Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 October 2025
Middle East
I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to flood Gaza with aid. The UN estimates that $4 billion is needed this year to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, of which just 28% has been pledged. The UK’s contribution to humanitarian relief this year will total only $116 million, so with the enti…
Commons
Oral Questions
14 October 2025
Great British Energy: Public Sector Renewable Energy Use
My constituency of Esher and Walton is home to the UK’s largest floating installation of solar panels; there are 23,000 on the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir, helping to support public services by powering a Thames Water treatment plant. It is a fantastically innovative renewables project, but very fe…
Commons
Westminster Hall
14 October 2025
2 contributions
COP30: Food System Transformation
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) for bringing this critical debate to the House. Next month, the eyes of the world will turn to the Amazon and Brazil for the COP30 climate conference. The choices ma…
The hon. Member is absolutely right, and I ask the Minister to guarantee that that is ringfenced. What we do in Britain sends signals to the world about whether we are serious or simply posturing. Renewables are the greatest economic growth opportunity of our time, bringing jobs, investment and lowe…
Commons
Debate
13 October 2025
Baby Loss
I thank the hon. and right hon. Members for bringing this debate to the Chamber today. I thank other speakers for their moving remarks, and it is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson). I thank her for sharing her story, on behalf of all those untold s…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
13 October 2025
Manchester Terrorism Attack
I associate myself with the tributes paid to those who were killed in Manchester and to the invaluable work of the Community Security Trust, whose headquarters I have visited. I pay tribute to my constituents, who have sent a wall of love and support in messages to our local synagogue, showing how t…
Commons
Oral Questions
13 October 2025
Topical Questions
The Government have now delayed their decision on local government reorganisation in Surrey. Can the Minister assure me that the Government are using this delay to protect my constituents in Esher and Walton from the Tory debt of neighbouring councils with which they might be grouped? Will the plann…
Commons
Debate
16 September 2025
2 contributions
Ambassador to the United States
Will the hon. Member give way?
This really is not hard. Is it not enough to know that Lord Mandelson enjoyed the patronage of a convicted child sex offender by staying in his houses? Was that not enough to prevent his appointment as our most senior ambassador?
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 September 2025
Children with SEND: Assessments and Support
I am sorry to stop the hon. Lady’s very well delivered speech mid-stream. Does she agree that we need to hear from not only families but educators? Teachers in schools are up against the system, and families come into our surgeries in tears because they cannot get provision. Some 1,800 children in S…
Commons
Westminster Hall
4 September 2025
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) for securing this important debate. I am pleased that each time Liberal Democrat MPs raise this issue, the Government back the fund.
I want the Government to hear what the ASGSF means for one family in my Esher and Walton constituenc…
Commons
Debate
3 September 2025
Hospitality Sector
The Minister has talked about social mobility. Does my hon. Friend agree that when a company cuts hours, it is those who work part time—some of the most disadvantaged members of society—who lose out, and lose their jobs?
Commons
Westminster Hall
3 September 2025
Pavement Parking
I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire), for securing this debate. I recently met the Walton-on-Thames macular degeneration support group in Esher and Walton to discuss some of the challenges faced by my constituents with sight loss, including…
Commons
Westminster Hall
22 July 2025
Humanitarian Situation in Sudan
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Harpreet Uppal) on securing this important debate and on putting Sudan in the spotlight, where it needs to be. This war is the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since the advent of the modern age…
Commons
Proceedings
16 July 2025
Sudan
The ongoing war in Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe and the biggest since aid began. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, but I regret that in the past seven months there has been only one statement on Sudan from the Government.
Local and community-led em…
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 July 2025
4 contributions
SEND Provision: South-east England
Does my hon. Friend agree that we do not fix a financial problem by giving away a right? For many parents and families battling the system, an EHCP is the only protection that a child gets to a right to education.
I thank my fellow Surrey MP for his thoughts. Last year, nearly half of Surrey’s high needs block of £122 million was spent supporting SEND places at non-maintained independent schools. Placing those children in state-maintained school is often half the cost. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that w…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
11 July 2025
2 contributions
Rare Cancers Bill
I once more thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for all he has done to bring the Bill forward. We, along with thousands of families throughout the UK, all owe him a huge debt. I am proud to have supported the Bill from the very beginning. I also pay tribute to the ongoing work…
I thank the hon. Member for all her advocacy on the issue. She makes an important point, which was made previously: rare cancers are not rare for the victims and their families. That is why we need to bring such treatments into the NHS so that they are available for all, not just for those who set u…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
7 July 2025
Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life
May I invite the Secretary of State to congratulate Burhill primary school in Hersham, which I visited this morning? It has been re-awarded for excellence in wellbeing for the second year in a row for providing great mental health provision. My constituency is a large contributor to the Exchequer, b…
Commons
Proceedings
7 July 2025
Actions of Iranian Regime: UK Response
The Iranian regime is utterly committed to destabilising the middle east and exporting terrorism globally, and under the auspices of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is focused on threatening our own citizens in the UK. The Minister mentioned the introduction of the new power of proscription to…
Commons
Westminster Hall
2 July 2025
2 contributions
West Bank: Forced Displacement
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) for securing this important debate.
For the almost six decades that the west bank has been occupied by Israel, the UN Security Council has been calling for Israel to withdraw, but in…
Palestinian children have a right to education and to the chance of a decent future, as all children do. A total of 84 west bank schools are under threat from pending demolition orders. Will the Minister update us on steps being taken to support UNRWA and ensure education provision in the west bank?…
Commons
Debate
19 June 2025
2 contributions
Water Safety Education
I thank the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for securing this important debate today. As we have heard, every year in the UK, more than 200 lives are lost to accidental drowning. In fact, it claims more lives each year in the UK than house fires or cycling accidents. That must be …
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing attention to vehicles going into the water. In my constituency, the Thames provides our border with London, so it stretches along the entire constituency, and of course cars could go into the river.
In areas like ours where rivers and open water are a daily part …
Commons
Debate
18 June 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
I had meant to speak to my amendment 120 today, but that intention was superseded by the Government’s movement on this, which I really welcome. It will close a loophole so that it will now be an offence to abuse an emergency worker on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation in somebody’s…
Commons
Debate
11 June 2025
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill
The mandate, which we welcome, calls for only 22% sustainable jet fuel usage by 2040, while the Chancellor has said that she wants a third runway in use at Heathrow by 2035. That would mean more aviation-related health hazards to my constituents. Does the Minister agree that we should not pursue Hea…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
10 June 2025
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross has said that in Gaza, “humanity is failing”. What is happening in Gaza surpasses any acceptable legal, moral or humane standard. Palestinians are being stripped of their dignity. When will the Minister pronounce that they have a state, a…
Commons
Westminster Hall
10 June 2025
3 contributions
USAID Funding Pause
It is indeed an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) for securing this important debate.
Since the new US Administration took office in January, President Trump and Elon Musk have gutted USAID—the world’s f…
The right hon. Member makes an excellent point, which I will come to later.
USAID modelling suggests that the actions of Trump and Musk could result in 28,000 new cases of infectious diseases, such as Ebola, each year. When Ebola ripped through west Africa a decade ago, it had a case fatality of ar…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
9 June 2025
Winter Fuel Payment
In my constituency, over 15,500 pensioners lost the winter fuel allowance, of whom 5,000 were over 80. Would the Minister like to apologise to the gentleman who wrote to me who had cancer and could not keep his heating on for the winter of worry he was put through?
Commons
Ministerial Statement
4 June 2025
2 contributions
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
As the Minister has acknowledged, Israel’s alternative aid scheme is dangerous, unworkable and profoundly insufficient. There is aid waiting on the border—UK aid that my constituents have paid for. You know the Palestinian people’s desperation. You have heard the desperation—
The Minister has heard the Palestinian people’s desperation. He has heard the desperation in this Chamber. What new pressure will he bring to bear on Israel to open the aid routes? What is the alternative plan? The Minister has asked for an independent inquiry into what went on in Rafah. Will he ins…