Commons
Westminster Hall
7 January 2026
2 contributions
Advanced Brain Cancer: Tissue Freezing
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) for securing the debate, and I thank Ellie for all her work, as well as Hugh and the others who are pushing very hard on this issue—many thanks indeed.
I want to try to make this deba…
My hon. Friend speaks to the point. Of course, those people have been dead for many centuries, but we believe it is worth being able to access that information, and at the moment it is not accessible in most cases. That is something we really want to change.
I look to Denmark’s registry-first legal…
Commons
Westminster Hall
6 January 2026
6 contributions
Future of Thames Water
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. West Oxfordshire is very much ground zero for Thames Water. We have the Thames itself, the Evenlode and the Windrush. West Oxfordshire district council has done great work in going after Thames Water. We have WASP—Windrush Against Sewage Po…
I completely agree—well said. What is so depressing is that the Labour Government have embraced the Conservative’s mistakes over Thames Water, and our water sector more broadly, and then doubled down on them. The Government have been and continue to be hoodwinked by a bunch of hedge-funds whispering…
+4 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
6 January 2026
Less Survivable Cancers
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this fantastic debate. I also thank the Members in the room for all the work they have done, and the Minister for her engagement, particularly with the Brain Cancer Justice team. I really appreciate it.
My sister Georgie rec…
Commons
Oral Questions
Cabinet Office
4 December 2025
2 contributions
Free School Meals: Auto-enrolment
19. What assessment the child poverty unit has made of the potential merits of auto-enrolling eligible children for free school meals.
As many as 11% of pupils are missing out on the free school meals to which they are entitled. In many cases, they are not registered for reasons such as a fear of stigma or language barriers. In my Witney constituency, that means that around 230 children from the most disadvantaged homes may be miss…
Commons
Proceedings
3 December 2025
OBR: Resignation of Chair
On behalf of my party, I thank Richard Hughes for his service. We respect his resignation. I also thank Laura Gardiner, Professor Ciaran Martin and Huw Stephens for the very quick turnaround of the investigatory report on the leak. In that report, the point is made that, unlike all other IT systems …
Commons
Westminster Hall
3 December 2025
2 contributions
Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor
Will my hon. Friend give way?
East West Rail is a huge project and will bring a lot of benefits, but my hon. Friend’s constituency of Ely and East Cambridgeshire is at the far end in Cambridgeshire and my constituency of Witney is at the far end in the west. Does she agree that such projects need to be spread county-wide? We des…
Commons
Westminster Hall
2 December 2025
4 contributions
Gambling: Regulatory Reform
I beg to move,
That this House has considered reform of gambling regulation.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. We are here to talk about gambling regulation and to discuss the scale of the problem. There is clear evidence that current regulation of the gambling indust…
I fully agree and will cover that shortly.
The Lancet commission concluded that
“gambling poses a threat to public health, the control of which requires a substantial expansion and tightening of gambling industry regulation”.
So what should we do? First, we should limit the impact of gambling adv…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
1 December 2025
2 contributions
Budget Resolutions
This is a Budget driven far more by political calculation than by the economic realities that the country faces. The Chancellor has an enormous majority—on paper, at least—and the country desperately needs change, but we now have a second Budget in which the Government have failed to demonstrate tha…
Yes, I welcome it.
The OBR has marked down economic growth for each of the next four years, which is bad news. We have a ballooning debt, which now sits at £2.9 trillion. Our debt costs have tripled in the last five years—yes, that is the Conservatives’ fault—and our Government debt is now more exp…
Commons
Debate
20 November 2025
Injury in Service Award
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) for securing this excellent debate.
I want to seek the Minister’s help with the case of my Witney constituent, Bill Maddocks. Bill was an on-call firefighter at Witney for 22 years and contracted covid at work, while seconded on a whole-ti…
Commons
Debate
17 November 2025
Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa
New small modular reactors have real potential to help reduce our reliance on foreign gas and bring down energy bills, as well as bringing a welcome boost to jobs and investment in Anglesey. SMRs should be where the focus is when it comes to nuclear, not big, expensive nuclear power stations that co…
Commons
Debate
12 November 2025
15 contributions
Taxes
There is a real irony in the fact that the Conservative party has tabled a motion calling for the control of public expenditure and for trust to be returned just three years after a notorious mini-Budget that saw the biggest set of unfunded spending commitments in recent memory and that continues to…
I think the hon. Gentleman will find that the moron premium relates to Liz Truss. People are feeling pressures and that has a huge impact on everybody individually. Pay cheques go less far, tax bills are higher and small luxuries such as having a slice of cake or a pint, or taking the family to the …
+13 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
11 November 2025
4 contributions
Alcohol Duty: UK Wine Sector
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for bringing us this very important debate; it is much appreciated.
The overall logic of more alcohol resulting in more tax makes sense, and the taxation of wine needs to …
I agree 100%. That is a great illustration of just how painful and unnecessary it is. This is not benefiting anyone, not even His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The Budget is very soon and, bluntly—I do not want to stick the knife too much into my Conservative colleagues—I think the previous Governm…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
5 November 2025
4 contributions
Financial Transparency: Overseas Territories
I thank the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing this debate. I also thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) for all his work on this issue and for his good speech today. Indeed, I have enjoyed the contributions from all hon. Members so far. The com…
I did not know that, so I thank my hon. Friend for informing me.
How can we ask others to get their own house in order when we enable these entities on UK sovereign territory to beggar their neighbour on a global scale? The UK Government bear responsibility for this lack of transparency, as British…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
30 October 2025
Sudan: Protection of Civilians
Given that it has been widely reported in the press that the UAE is arming the RSF, does the Minister have a view on the following two points? First, if any party is exporting weapons to the RSF, we would be in breach of our export licence criteria if we are exporting weapons to that party. Secondly…
Commons
Debate
28 October 2025
3 contributions
Stamp Duty Land Tax
Will the hon. Member give way?
Under the Conservatives’ watch, the national debt grew by nearly £1 trillion. They drove our economy through a hard Brexit into the ground, and yet they masquerade as the party of good sense in the economy. I do not understand how that makes sense. Will the hon. Member explain?
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
28 October 2025
3 contributions
Sudan
1. What recent discussions she has had with her counterpart in the United Arab Emirates on the situation in Sudan.
It has been widely reported in the press that the United Arab Emirates is arming the RSF in Sudan. The RSF is one of the two warring factions in Sudan, and it was found by the UN to be responsible for crimes against humanity including murder, torture, enslavement, rape and sexual violence. As per UK…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 September 2025
Children with SEND: Assessments and Support
On the point about upskilling teachers, the Mulberry Bush school in my constituency does a fantastic job with outreach from specialist schools to regular schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that upskilling teachers and using skills inside the SEND schools to teach teachers in the broader environment …
Commons
Debate
10 September 2025
Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]
There is a lot to welcome in the Bill, and I support the overarching aim. However, there are several important details that very much concern small operators and community transport providers in my Witney constituency, and I shall speak on their behalf. They include West Oxfordshire Community Transp…
Commons
Proceedings
10 September 2025
Russian Drones: Violation of Polish Airspace
Will the Minister outline what the Government are doing to highlight and explain to the citizens of our country what our obligations are to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and all our NATO allies under article 5, and the role played by the joint expeditionary force, with the Baltic three, the Nor…
Commons
Proceedings
10 September 2025
2 contributions
Qatar: Israeli Strike
Given that Israel continues to act with impunity, what new levers will our Government use to take actions that are within its powers, such as restrictions on travel and trade, air and sea delivery of aid—given that land delivery is so appalling—and in relation to the F-35? We are breaching internati…
And sea?
Commons
Oral Questions
Business and Trade
17 July 2025
2 contributions
Arms Exports: Israel
4. If he will suspend the export of UK-produced F-35 components to Israel.
Our strategic export licensing criteria state specifically that licences should not be granted where there is
“a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
Given that the courts have sent this question back to Parliament,…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
30 June 2025
Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery
I appreciate the Minister’s words of support for the workers who are facing such horror and shock, and the Liberal Democrats will work hard to hold him to those words. I have two questions for him. The carbon border adjustment mechanism leaves UK refineries at a disadvantage when it comes to the tra…
Commons
Debate
23 June 2025
UK Military Base Protection
I join with all Members of this House in thanking everyone who works so hard at RAF Brize Norton in my constituency, led very effectively by Group Captain Lou Henton, who is an example to us all. I very much respect and admire how the community in Carterton, right next to RAF Brize Norton, has pulle…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
23 June 2025
UK Modern Industrial Strategy
The Secretary of State said,
“The UK has long been and will remain a champion of free trade”
—if only! It is not on the big stuff or the important stuff. Leaving the EU’s customs union and single market has reduced UK GDP by between 2% and 4%. The deal with India is good news, but according to the…