Commons
Westminster Hall
4 February 2026
Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration
Like the hon. Lady, I have a litany of complaints from constituents about the service they have received, and she is doing a brilliant job of highlighting the real-world impact of these delays. I have a constituent who spent 36 years in the police service and is currently unable to pay his mortgage …
Commons
Committee Stage
3 February 2026
10 contributions
Railways Bill (Tenth sitting)
I beg to move amendment 208, in clause 36, page 20, line 2, at end insert—
“(2) The Passengers’ Council must make arrangements for rail passenger groups to be members of a board, committee or panel of the Council.”
This amendment, along with Amendment 209, guarantees representation for passenger g…
I will speak in support of amendments 208 and 209, tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage. Amendment 208 would guarantee representation for rail passenger groups within the passengers’ council. In West Dorset, we are fortunate to have active and committed groups such …
+8 more contributions in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
3 February 2026
3 contributions
Railways Bill (Ninth sitting)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker.
As the shadow Minister outlined, amendment 148 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage is not overly dissimilar to Conservative amendment 45 in what it tries to achieve, but I will come at it from a slightly different ang…
I know it has probably been overused already in the Committee, but I keep returning to the NHS England example. The Government set up arm’s length bodies and Ministers are then invariably unable to resist the urge to tinker. The Government devolve responsibility out and then realise that having some…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
29 January 2026
Railways Bill (Seventh sitting)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I am doing a rapid rewrite as this speech was full of witticisms and pithy things to do with speeches that none of us can remember from earlier this week— or last week; whenever it was. I would like to speak in support of amendme…
Commons
Westminster Hall
29 January 2026
Ukraine: Non-recognition of Russian-occupied Territories
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) on securing this important debate. I will start by echoing the sentiment expressed by so many hon. and right hon. Members in this debat…
Commons
Westminster Hall
28 January 2026
2 contributions
Firearms Licence Holders: Mandatory Medical Markers
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this important debate, on her hard work on the topic and on her very moving speech.
This debate is about lives that should not have been lost. It is abo…
Without wishing to labour the point, and accepting that the data may in fact show that we are getting the level of penetration that we would expect, there is undoubtedly an unquantifiable risk of another tragedy happening. Given the level of uptake in a mandatory system, and given the requests of th…
Commons
Westminster Hall
28 January 2026
2 contributions
Defence Industry: Environmental, Social and Governance Requirements
I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. I want to correct what I hope was a slip of the tongue when he mentioned parties “of both colours”; he means “of all colours” because I believe the Liberal Democrats have come forward with a proposal for £20 billion-worth of defence bonds i…
I thank the hon. Member for humouring me with a second opportunity to intervene. He raised the important point that many defence manufacturers, especially in the South West, provide high-skilled job opportunities for local people. My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) has already mention…
Commons
Westminster Hall
28 January 2026
2 contributions
Local Authority Children’s Services
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western, for what I think is the third time in three days—I feel very blessed. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) on securing this important debate, on his incredibly moving speech and on all his hard work and advocacy …
My hon. Friend is making a wonderful point. It reminds me of a conversation I had recently with my council about a group of 10 to 15 parents with autistic children who definitely did not need to be in specialist schools and needed local provision. Because of the different pots of money, it was easie…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
21 January 2026
Water White Paper
The White Paper says that, along with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, DEFRA will implement a new “plan-making system”—a term I have frankly never heard before. I do not know what it means, but it says that water companies will be designated a consultation body for this new…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
21 January 2026
Warm Homes Plan
As co-chair of the net zero all-party parliamentary group, I welcome the expansion of the funding for solar and heat pumps. Prior to coming to this place, I spent the better part of a decade riding the solarcoaster, so I know for a fact that the biggest drag on solar expansion is the skills shortage…
Commons
Westminster Hall
21 January 2026
Animal Welfare Strategy for England
We have seen reports about the US suspending the technology prosperity deal with the UK in an effort to force the Government to accept lower-standard imports in order to secure a trade deal with the US. Does my hon. Friend agree that these bully-boy tactics by the Trump Administration should not be …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
19 January 2026
Arctic Security
The post-war world order was based on the premise that like-minded western liberal democracies would stand up for each other, expand democracy wherever we saw it and lower the barriers to free trade, and that through NATO we would engage in collective responsibility—an attack against one was an atta…
Commons
Oral Questions
15 January 2026
Topical Questions
Over the last 24 years, 174 grassroots rugby clubs have disappeared. Such clubs are vital and feed our professional teams with talent and fans. While attendance and broadcast figures are improving at the top level, Premiership clubs still owe the Government massive amounts of money in covid loans an…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 January 2026
2 contributions
Offshore Wind
I welcome the results of the AR7 allocation. This is about protecting working families from volatile fossil fuel prices set by foreign powers that have repeatedly used oil and gas as geopolitical weapons. Relying on Trump’s America or Putin’s Russia to keep the lights on puts us all at risk. Renewab…
It is a source none the less.
That places even greater importance on AR8. I hope that the Government will commit to their timetable to open AR8 by the summer and to announce the results by the end of the year. Meanwhile, there is still work to be done to bring down bills for working families and bu…
Commons
Westminster Hall
14 January 2026
Horse and Rider Road Safety
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon) on securing this debate.
Per mile travelled, rural roads account for over 60% of all UK road deaths. Last year, I met a group of constituents who keep their horses in stables in the Forston area. They are experienced riders, and they …
Commons
Oral Questions
13 January 2026
2 contributions
NHS Dental Services: West Dorset
4. What steps his Department is taking to ensure the accessibility of regular NHS dental check-up appointments in West Dorset constituency.
NHS dentistry in West Dorset is in crisis. We have just 15 practices offering any kind of NHS care, and only half of young people have seen a dentist in the last two years. Residents are writing to me about elderly people removing their own teeth and children in A&E with preventable tooth decay.…
Commons
Westminster Hall
13 January 2026
Arctic and High North
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate, and I commend him on his speech. He has listed a large number of instances across Europe of hybrid warfare and, in many cases, physical attacks by Russia. In the UK, we have also seen Russian-sponsored attacks on Ukrainian drone supplier…
Commons
Westminster Hall
13 January 2026
2 contributions
Airport Drop-off Charges
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing this important debate.
What should be a simple act of kindness—giving someone a lift to an airport, as we have all done—is increasingly being met with exto…
I thank the hon. Member for the opportunity to clarify my point. It is not about whether the consumer pays; it is about whether the airports are using the revenue they claim they are generating to support climate policies for that purpose, or whether it is simply another revenue stream for them. Air…
Commons
Proceedings
12 January 2026
New Medium Helicopter Contract
I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), on securing this important urgent question. Leonardo may be based in Yeovil, but many of its 3,000 employees live in my West Dorset constituency, which is why, when I was elected, one of the first meetings I…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
5 January 2026
Venezuela
I will not mourn the passing of the Maduro regime, but I will mourn the passing of the rules-based international order. If we accept the premise that a big-power country can do what it wants without any ramifications, anywhere in the world, then we accept the behaviour of Putin over the past two dec…
Commons
Debate
5 January 2026
Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief
Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to the farmers of West Dorset who have never stopped campaigning against the family farm tax, and especially those hardy ones who have repeatedly driven their tractors up to London to let their views be known. This is just the latest in numerous as…
Commons
Debate
17 December 2025
National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill
To the hon. Gentleman’s point about changing behaviour, we have already seen reports that two out of five people are less likely to save if the salary sacrifice scheme goes. We have already seen a reduction in contributions because of the cost of living crisis. Are we not just moving the pain somewh…
Commons
Oral Questions
17 December 2025
Online Harassment
Online harm and harassment amplifies real-world violence. In West Dorset, 14-year-old Isabella was brutally attacked, but the lasting trauma came from the assault being deliberately filmed and circulated online and in group chats in schools across the local area. It was designed deliberately to humi…
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 December 2025
Membership-based Charity Organisations
The hon. Member mentioned the National Trust and preserving our national heritage. West Dorset’s most famous feature is the Cerne Abbas giant. The National Trust, which looks after it, has just launched a fundraiser to raise £330,000 to buy the land around the Cerne Abbas giant to improve access. Do…
Commons
Westminster Hall
17 December 2025
Housing Development: Cumulative Impacts
On affordability, I was at an open event for a development plan—a large development, as it happens—north of Dorchester, which will fundamentally change the natural characteristics of the town. On the display presented by the developers, the phrase “affordable housing” was actually in quotation marks…