Commons
Oral Questions
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
28 October 2025
Topical Questions
T7. On Saturday, I joined CAFOD and my constituents Karl, Harry and Jo on a deadlift challenge. We—and yes, Mr Speaker, that includes me—collectively lifted more than 100 tonnes, the equivalent of five aid planes to Gaza. CAFOD also works in the west bank, where Palestinians are being treated as sec…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 October 2025
Heathrow: National Airports Review
Can the Secretary of State update the House with a bit more detail on the progress of airspace modernisation in relation to noise? Residents in my constituency who are on the flightpath for Bournemouth airport have no night-time restrictions and are seeing massive increases. In places such as Dorset…
Commons
Debate
20 October 2025
Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy
Media reports, but not the statement, talked about the resit regime for English and maths, and I hope that the young people who fail to achieve the grades but who thrive with functional skills were not listening to the shadow Minister dismiss their achievements. Was the Secretary of State aware that…
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
20 October 2025
Childcare: Affordability
My constituent Seb told me how pleased he was when the Government extended the role of free childcare, but his nursery changed the rules so that the free hours can be taken only after 1 o’clock and have to be spread over four days a week. That means that the previously paid-for care is not now free,…
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 October 2025
3 contributions
Educational Assessment System Reform
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for securing the debate.
The current assessment system is failing our children, our teachers and our society. A combination of factors is at play: the focus of school inspectio…
I absolutely agree. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and allowing me to pause in my emotion. My constituent Kacie did not pass her English and maths GCSEs. She got close, but she was forced to resit them at college where she went backwards. Now she is being blocked from progressing on her…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
15 September 2025
Children with SEND: Assessments and Support
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. The SEND crisis is destroying the life chances of children—not only those with additional needs, but their classmates, whose education also suffers as teachers struggle to cope with an unmanageable range of needs. Families are failed and…
Commons
Debate
10 September 2025
Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]
I rise to support amendments that will serve to ensure the most vulnerable and isolated people in our communities are not cut off from employment, health services, education and leisure. I will start with new clause 2, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon),…
Commons
Oral Questions
Science, Innovation and Technology
10 September 2025
Online Safety Act 2023: Effectiveness
I have been contacted by many constituents worried about the implementation of the Act. For example, Emily, who is home-schooled and has ME, struggles to access things that help with her learning and her rural isolation. Alexander says that he has accessed gambling sites, but cannot access suicide p…
Commons
Westminster Hall
9 September 2025
Neurodivergent People: Employment
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) for securing this important debate.
It remains deeply concerning that standard teacher training includes only half a day of autism-specific education. Accord…
Commons
Debate
8 September 2025
2 contributions
Renters’ Rights Bill
Renters have waited long enough: this Bill is overdue, and it is time to deliver. The Conservatives had their chance. They promised reform, then watered it down. The Renters (Reform) Bill gathered dust while tenants were left to suffer, so Liberal Democrats absolutely welcome this Government’s Rente…
I thank the hon. Member for raising that point and saving me the trouble of doing so. Absolutely, landlords give excuses that are perhaps not all they seem to be.
I have heard from tenants who are terrified of being evicted under section 21, with landlords rushing to act before the law changes and …
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
8 September 2025
Defence Industrial Base
Shortly before recess, I visited a small precision engineering firm that is involved in tooling in the defence industry. It shared the challenges it faces in looking at defence contracts and explained that there seems to be no priority for UK businesses, unlike in France where French businesses are …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
4 September 2025
Early Education and Childcare
I know that Ministers are probably sick of hearing about national insurance increases and my repeated calls for business rates exemptions, as they have in Scotland. However, the strain of costs is leading to practices that are affecting families—for example, a nursery chain in my constituency that h…
Commons
Proceedings
4 September 2025
Business of the House
Yet again this summer the stunning Dorset heathlands in my constituency were devastated by a fire at Holt Heath. The National Fire Chiefs Council said that before this and the devastating North York moors fire, this year’s numbers were 668% higher than last year, and 33% higher than the highest year…
Commons
Oral Questions
Solicitor General
4 September 2025
Support for Victims of Crime
Close followers of Parliament will know that I have raised on more than one occasion a case of stalking in my constituency. Despite being reported, arrested and charged continually by the police, he keeps getting released on bail. The police are frustrated, and my resident is being let down. What as…
Commons
Oral Questions
4 September 2025
Sustainable Farming Incentive
Given the Secretary of State’s love of Dorset, I would love to invite him to Mid Dorset, where Goodens farm is doing some really innovative things on very small family farms, especially with manure. Mr Randall, who runs that farm, joined the sustainable farming incentive last year, which enabled him…
Commons
Debate
3 September 2025
Hospitality Sector
Hospitality is more than an industry; it is a way of life. My first jobs were in hospitality—potato rumbling in the basement of the Crown in Cowden, with my brother Spencer potwashing, and learning the bar at the King Henry VIII in Hever, where my sister Chloe worked—and for 14 years I ran a hospita…
Commons
Debate
2 September 2025
8 contributions
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
May I start by welcoming the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), to his place on the Front Bench. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am a councillor at Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council and a …
A similar thing happened in Dorset. In fact, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) voted against a merger in our area but failed, even under his own Government. I will come to the issue of proportional representation.
Strategic mayors have the potential to be our regional champio…
+6 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 September 2025
Middle East
Back in May, I raised concerns about exemptions for licences for components that were going out to Israel. I wrote to the Foreign Secretary and it was passed on to the Department for Business and Trade. To date I have had no reply, so I have absolutely no idea whether those licences have been suspen…
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
14 July 2025
Topical Questions
I refer the House to my entry in the register of interests. This weekend was a fantastic economic boost for many seaside towns, but along with the visitors, towns such as Poole and Bournemouth are blighted with illegal parking on roundabouts and across driveways and pavements. The Minister knows exa…
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
14 July 2025
Housing Delivery
The Competition and Markets Authority recently found that major house builders were preventing and distorting competition, including by matching prices and incentives to buyers. That further damages public confidence in house buying, and will have pushed home ownership out of the reach of many peopl…
Commons
Proceedings
10 July 2025
4 contributions
Disabled Bus Passes
Young people in post-16 education or apprenticeships, including my son George at Linwood’s post-16 provision, are unable to learn to drive as easily because of their complex needs, yet while their parents currently have to pay to get them to college in the morning, they can use their free bus passes…
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate, which is a real opportunity to discuss BSIPs. One problem with BSIPs is that they run for a short period. Individuals struggle to make decisions about where to live, whether to purchase a car, or about investing in an alternative for mobility over a l…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
8 July 2025
Crown Court Backlog
Hannah contacted me for the first time in August last year after numerous stalking incidents, online abuse and violent threats from a member of her family. He is still at large almost a year on, despite four arrests. The court date keeps being put back due to the backlogs. There have been further br…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
7 July 2025
Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life
Jill, a speech and language therapist from my constituency, told me that in the last five years the decline in children’s ability to be understood and to socialise has been stark, leading to their own isolation. I also heard from William’s mum yesterday about the isolation of mums and dads who nobod…
Commons
Oral Questions
7 July 2025
Domestic Abuse: Joint Tenancies
While I have every sympathy with Molly and the millions of women who experience domestic abuse, according to the ManKind Initiative, one in five men are also victims of domestic abuse. My constituents Mark and Adam are victims of serial female abusers who engage in not only psychological, physical a…
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
1 July 2025
Topical Questions
T5. Representatives of a not-for-profit care company in my constituency feel that the Government are waging war on the care sector. I met residents and staff at a Sunday lunch at Magna care home, and the managers told me that they cannot recruit locally at all and that, because of the changes to soc…