Commons
Oral Questions
Work and Pensions
9 March 2026
Topical Questions
T9. British pensioners living in the European Economic Area, the United States and up to 20 other countries get their pensions uprated, but those living in Canada, Australia and New Zealand do not. Campaigners know that the Government will not uprate frozen pensions retrospectively, but will they co…
Commons
Debate
4 March 2026
Department for Business and Trade
Britain is in the middle of a cost-of-doing-business crisis. I see it on my high street and I hear about it from local employers, and colleagues from across the House will hear exactly the same in their constituencies. From the Government’s national insurance hikes to sky-high energy bills and uncer…
Commons
Debate
23 February 2026
2 contributions
Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill
The Liberal Democrats support this Bill, and we support the amendments that are before the Committee today. The Bill does something that is straightforward and necessary: it raises the Industrial Development Act cap from £12 billion to £20 billion, reflecting inflation since the alignment was last s…
Britain is a trading nation. When our businesses win contracts abroad, they create jobs, raise wages and generate the tax revenues that are needed to fund our public services. Expanding UK Export Finance’s capacity to £160 billion, and raising the limit for industry development to £20 billion, sends…
Commons
Committee Stage
3 February 2026
7 contributions
Finance (No. 2) Bill (Sixth sitting)
This group of clauses establishes new criminal prohibitions on promoting tax avoidance arrangements. Clause 161 creates personal criminal liability for company directors, limited liability partnership members and shadow members. We of course support the Government in preventing tax avoidance measure…
As we have heard, many of the promoters operate offshore. How will the Government take action against those offshore promoters? Could a UK-based promoter move offshore to continue to do business as a way to get around the Bill? If it could not, will the Minister point me to which part of the Bill st…
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
3 February 2026
4 contributions
Finance (No. 2) Bill (Fifth sitting)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I welcome the Economic Secretary to the Treasury back from her visit to China, which I am sure was slightly more exciting than the Thursday we had in Committee in her absence—although obviously we will never be short on excitement.
Duty sta…
I have few points to make about clause 122, which refers to a
“person who sells…unstamped vaping products”.
I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether that person is the shop owner, the shop manager or the shop worker who is physically behind the till on that day. Could an 18-year-o…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
29 January 2026
12 contributions
Finance (No. 2) Bill (Fourth sitting)
In November, the Chancellor told the House that what we are now seeing in clause 79 would protect about £700 million of tax revenue, ensuring that VAT is paid on fares. Yet, according to The Guardian on 2 January, Uber
“has swerved paying millions of pounds”
by simply rewriting its contracts with …
Will the Minister give way?
+10 more contributions in this session
Commons
Committee Stage
29 January 2026
5 contributions
Finance (No. 2) Bill (Third sitting)
I rise to speak to clause 55 and new clause 27, but I can tell the hon. Member for North West Norfolk that if he does press amendment 41, he will have the support of the Liberal Democrats.
Countless pensioners were forced to choose between heating and eating last year while the Government buried th…
I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 74, page 91, line 20, leave out from “(1)” to the end of line 25 and insert-
“may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, the House of Commons.”
This amendment would require that all regulations made un…
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
13 January 2026
2 contributions
Finance (No. 2) Bill
The Minister just said that the Government are pro-pubs, but any pub she speaks to in my constituency will tell her that this Government are not pro-pubs. The amount of profit left at the end of a pint for a pub is minuscule, and it is so far from reality to say that the Government are pro-pubs. How…
Does the shadow Minister agree that if this Labour climbdown is happening, it is not enough for there to be a smaller increase than the one that was planned? There needs to be no increase in business rates.
Commons
Proceedings
13 January 2026
Chinese Embassy
I have raised multiple times with the Government the harassment of a constituent of mine, Carmen Lau, by the Chinese authorities. This has included bounty letters, deepfake pornography and her family being interrogated by national security agents in Hong Kong. Every time I am told that the safety of…
Commons
Debate
12 January 2026
3 contributions
Finance (No. 2) Bill
Has the Treasury done any analysis of the amount of that tax increase that will be passed on to renters, and if it has, what has it come out with?
rose—
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Energy Security and Net Zero
6 January 2026
Warm Home Discount
Citizens Advice notes that the warm home discount has not kept pace with rising energy bills and will struggle to touch the sides for families in energy debt. Will the Minister therefore commit to a Government review of whether the £150 discount provides sufficient support for the families who reall…
Commons
Debate
16 December 2025
Finance (No. 2) Bill
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is about choices, but will he accept one of the choices that the Chancellor has made? Even though hospitality employs less than 7% of people in the UK, since she has come into office, the number of jobs lost in that sector is almost 100,000—50% of total j…
Commons
Debate
15 December 2025
2 contributions
Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill
Let me be clear at the outset that the Liberal Democrats support the Bill. We do so because we recognise that British businesses need backing to compete globally, and both the industrial support package and the export finance package have vital roles to play in that. The increases proposed in the Bi…
In reality, we need to look at the positions that were on the table at the time. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do the positions that both our parties took when the votes were happening. Obviously I was not in the House at the time, but I recall watching and listening to colleagues on the Lab…
Commons
Debate
15 December 2025
Employment Rights Bill
Does the hon. Gentleman understand that his Government are yet to abolish the hereditary peers—
Commons
Debate
15 December 2025
Jimmy Lai Conviction
Carmen Lau is a Hong Kong democracy campaigner, and a constituent of mine. Earlier this year, her neighbours received letters asking them to take her to the Chinese embassy in exchange for £100,000. Last month her neighbours also received fake sexually explicit photographs of her, with a Macao posta…
Commons
Debate
15 December 2025
NHS: Winter Preparedness
Vaccination rates among the over-65s are not where we would like them to be, so will the Secretary of State adopt an emergency vaccination scheme in village halls, supermarkets and—if needed—jab vans to get to the people who have been missed?
Commons
Ministerial Statement
9 December 2025
Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry
What steps will be taken across Government while this inquiry is ongoing to ensure that the victims of these horrible crimes are given proper support during the process?
Commons
Oral Questions
Work and Pensions
8 December 2025
Child Poverty
It took the Government a year and a half to confirm that they were going to scrap the two-child benefit cap. What estimate has the Minister made of the number of children who, during that time, were unnecessarily kept in poverty because of it?
Commons
Proceedings
3 December 2025
OBR: Resignation of Chair
The Chancellor announced in the Budget that she would legislate for only one assessment of the fiscal rules every year, instead of two, which is the case at the moment. In the light of the change in the OBR’s leadership, will the Minister commit today to seeking the views of the incoming chair of th…
Commons
Westminster Hall
19 November 2025
2 contributions
Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) on securing the debate. When I woke up on this cold Wednesday morning, I did not think I would learn so much about the manufacturing in all our regions—and when there a…
The Minister talks about SME exporting. Is he aware that, although UK Export Finance has unveiled what it believes is a fantastic and ambitious plan to support 1,000 SME exporters a year by 2029, there are 314,000 SME exporters in the UK at the moment? I would not have thought that 1,000 a year out …
Commons
Debate
17 November 2025
Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa
The Minister is right to say that we want as many individual components of these SMRs as possible to be built in the UK, as well as the final SMRs themselves, but what work is he doing across Government to ensure not just these SMRs, but the world’s SMRs are built in the UK?
Commons
Debate
17 November 2025
Budget: Press Briefings
Businesses in Maidenhead tell me that what they want to see in the Budget—the one bit of speculation that they want to hear at the moment—is for the Chancellor to just leave them alone. That is an outrageous thing for them to have to think, and it is because of what they think the Chancellor will do…
Commons
Oral Questions
Home Department
17 November 2025
Topical Questions
Shopkeepers in Maidenhead town centre tell me how pleased they are to see neighbourhood police officers doing their regular patrols, but those outside the town centre do not see those patrols as regularly and struggle more with shoplifting as a result. What is the Minister doing to tackle that, so t…
Commons
Debate
27 October 2025
Victims and Courts Bill
I wish to speak to my new clause 12. Each year hundreds of families get a knock on the door from the police who must deliver the worst news that a family can ever hear: the news that one of their closest relatives has been murdered. However, about 80 families each year receive the news that a family…
Commons
Oral Questions
21 October 2025
Maternity and Neonatal Care
Safe maternity care depends on adequate staffing, and we on these Benches have been calling for better recruitment and retention of staff in women’s health services for a long time now. Can the Secretary of State outline what specific measures the Government are taking to address the shortage of mid…