Ben Coleman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for stressing that point. She is absolutely right; we have a Government who have replaced chaos and ideology with cool-headed, pragmatic determination. We have a trade deal with India and with the US, and we are going to get a good trade deal with the European Union. That is why it is a day for rejoicing, not for doom and gloom and people rehashing the past. Not a single one of the Conservatives, except the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar on the Front Bench, who accepted that despite Brexit the economy grew a little bit—

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I am trying to understand if, at some point, we will hear anything from the Conservative party about what its Members think could be improved in the Brexit agreement that has been so bad for their party. We are talking about getting a better Brexit agreement than the one they negotiated. Are they saying that what they did was perfect, or can it be improved on? If it can, how? Everything else the hon. Gentleman has said has been negative.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Before we leave young people, Opposition Members have said that we are not doing enough for our young people and that a scheme would cause problems. Does my hon. Friend welcome the fact that yesterday the Prime Minister said that we must put British young people at the front of the queue for skills and training? The Government have already committed £625 million for training up 60,000 young engineers, chippies and brickies—

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  On the subject of lamb, will my hon. Friend reflect on the fact—I asked this of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey)—that the previous Government negotiated a trade deal with Australia that a former Conservative Environment Secretary described as a disaster for our farmers, not least those farming lamb?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Oh, I didn’t realise sarcasm wasn’t allowed. As I was saying, I am very pleased, as many are, with the Government for being cool-headed and having a common-sense approach. We are going to reset our relationship with the European Union and put Britain first. Putting Britain first has to also mean putting our young people first, so I am excited by the opportunity for young people in my constituency and every constituency to take advantage of a time-limited, controlled visa-based youth experience scheme, which we already have with a dozen countries.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I can tell the right hon. Gentleman what people in Chelsea and Fulham really want. They do not want a Prime Minister like the last but one—a “bugger business” Prime Minister—who said that we would level up to help people across the country but then did nothing about it. What they want is a Prime Minister who will invest in increasing skills and apprenticeships right across the country, as ours said yesterday that he will. That is what we need, and that is what we are getting now.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Member. If the Reform party’s entire shtick for getting elected is being anti-EU and thinking that it can defend the interests of the British people better by continuing the chaotic, unfavourable system we have, with that being its entire reason for existence, it is not okay for one of its Members of Parliament to ask a couple of questions and skedaddle. As for the hon. Member for Clacton—and for Florida—I do not know what he is doing today, but he ought to be here. We should be cheered—it is refreshing—so let us be a little more optimistic as we look to next week and not say, “We’re always going to be out-diddled by French and Germans.” That counsel of despair is pathetic. We are perfectly capable of negotiating trade deals, as we have shown with deals with the US and India, to get the best for the British people, and that is what we will do with the European Union. That is what the people of this country voted for at the last election: an end to failed ideology, and the start of applied, cool-headed, determined common sense. As a result, at the end of the meeting next week and in future years, the British people will benefit. We should all be delighted about that.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I trust that I am not. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman appreciated when I said earlier how excited I was for the prospects ahead of us. I want to thank him for identifying me a couple of times and associating me with my constituents, which I am certainly proud of. I also thank the right hon. Gentleman and a number of his colleagues for making me feel like I have been in this place not for 10 months but for 10 years, and for giving me the privilege of seeing the Brexit debate live, writ large again. It is a rare opportunity that I did not know I would get as a Member of this House, and I am most grateful.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I find it very hard to take anything that the Conservatives say with any degree of seriousness. What is their explanation for why, after 14 years, public services are on their knees and we have seen a collapse in the economy? We even heard a Conservative Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), say that there has been growth since leaving the European Union “despite Brexit”—even the Conservatives admit that it was a disaster. Nothing will deliver the growth that this country needs faster than signing a good deal with the European Union, slashing red tape and reducing regulation with the biggest market on our doorstep. Opening up markets, kick-starting growth, boosting exports and investments and reducing prices at home—this prize would be welcomed by anyone who is not a crazy ideologue. We on the Government side are not crazy ideologues or prisoners of our past—or of a television programme from the past. The actions that the Conservatives took while in government have damaged the British people. Businesses across the country, and in Chelsea and Fulham, want us to get a good deal from the European Union. People in my constituency do not want us to rejoin the EU, and I am not talking about rejoining. They would like us still to be in it, and they think it has done them damage. The importer of wine in my constituency who has to pay £160 for every consignment he now brings in would like us still to be in the EU and to not have to face that. But they do not want us to spend the next five years renegotiating the deal.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I have to say, when you ask about Lord Dubs—

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Member give way?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Local Authority Procurement: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  7. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to assist local authorities in using public procurement to help create economic growth.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Local Authority Procurement: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her reply and for the excellent work she has done in putting together the procurement strategy. It has been a passion of mine for many years that we do not use procurement just to get extra social value but extra economic value, which will help local firms and local growth. That is what this statement does, and I hugely welcome it. May I ask the Minister whether she intends to issue guidance to local authorities so that they know how best they can achieve economic value? For example, they could proactively tell small firms what contracts are coming up or train them in how to tender, which is very difficult for them. The Government could also encourage local authorities to break procurement into lots, so that small firms have a better chance of bidding. Finally, local authorities could stop requiring an unreasonable number of years of accounts to be shown before small firms are permitted to bid.

• 24 Apr 2025 · EU Trading Relationship · Hansard source

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  I am most grateful to you, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on calling this important debate, which I am pleased about; as Members of Parliament, it is not often that we get a chance to speak so clearly about what we do to represent our constituents’ interests and the British interest. Our job as Members of Parliament is to keep our country strong and secure, with a strong economy and strong defence, and to provide opportunity to everyone, not least our young people. That is what this debate is about: promoting the British interest. That lies at the heart of why we need to get a better deal from the European Union that gets growth for our country in the swiftest way possible, at a time when this Government are so committed to growth, by lowering the barriers and removing the red tape that have come out of the hopeless deal patched together so feebly by the last Government. As has been said, we especially need to lower the barriers for small and medium-sized firms, which have been hit the hardest. I think of the specialist wine importer in my constituency that has to pay an extra £160 for every shipment.

• 24 Apr 2025 · EU Trading Relationship · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. We need a veterinary agreement to improve the situation in our country. I agree with the proposal to allow British bands and creatives to tour more easily and that we should have more mutual recognition of professional qualifications to support our service industries. We should be as ambitious as we can. We should therefore start talking about a deal to end regulatory divergence, so that companies do not have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on two sets of standards and two sets of testing regimes. The situation we face as a result of the deal that the Conservative Government negotiated is not patriotism: it is self-sabotage, and we need to do something about it. Part of that is about us needing to do more to give opportunity to our young people, which is why I support having a controlled youth visa scheme that provides just that opportunity. Finally, I turn to defence, which some of my colleagues have mentioned. The UK has a huge role to play in the defence of our continent; I do not think any European countries doubt that. It is clearly in all our interests across Europe for the UK and the European Union to sign a new security agreement. We need stronger defence and new jobs in the UK and right across the continent, and that is why our Government must be absolutely clear with some other countries in the European Union. Defence and security co-operation are too fundamental to dealing with the challenges that our countries face, and they must be decoupled from other political negotiations. They are too important to be tied to debates about fishing rights or quotas. We need cool-headed, determined and ambitious negotiations with the European Union that back Britain. In that way, we can get the better deal that my constituents in Chelsea and Fulham and the British people deserve.

• 24 Apr 2025 · EU Trading Relationship · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for her delayed response. I am struck by her lack of response to two of my colleagues. She did not acknowledge to my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) that in my constituency of Chelsea and Fulham, the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is getting money from the Government as a precursor to rebuilding the hospitals promised to it. More importantly, she did not address the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) that we are all reaping the whirlwind of the decisions taken by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government. The Liberal Democrats made a choice to go into that Government, to take on roles including as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and as Health Ministers, and to make those cuts and destroy the NHS. We are now reaping the whirlwind of the decisions that she and her colleagues made. Is it not a little bit cheeky of her to make some of the points and claims she is making today?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the hon. Lady give way?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  It may be helpful I correct a couple of “facts” that the hon. Lady has given. In his election literature, my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Chelsea and Fulham made the clear statement that he had secured the funds for the rebuilding and refurbishment of Charing Cross hospital. When I spoke to the chief executive of the hospital, he said that he had received no such reassurance from the Government, and on coming to power we found that no money had been set aside for the guaranteed refurbishment. Moreover, this did not just apply to Charing Cross hospital. Across the country, the last Government’s claims to have found the funding were discovered not to be true when we came to power. The right hon. Member for Melton and Syston (Edward Argar), who is talking to the hon. Lady at the moment, lives in my constituency, so he is well aware of the accuracy of what I am saying. [Laughter.] I know; I will get complaints about the bins again now. Would the hon. Lady like to reflect on the accuracy of what she is saying, in the light of the facts as I have set them out?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Horizon Redress and Post Office Update · Hansard source

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  It is just Ben Coleman, Madam Deputy Speaker, but thank you for the honorific. I am very grateful to the Minister for his statement, and for the further measures he is taking to support the shamefully treated victims of the Horizon scandal. I also thank him for saving our beloved post office on the King’s Road in Chelsea, after meeting me to discuss it. The news will be warmly welcomed by residents in Chelsea, 1,000 of whom signed the petition to save that post office. Can I ask him to ensure that the King’s Road branch, when it is franchised, provides no less a service than it does now? Ideally, it would provide an even fuller service, if possible. That is what happened to the franchise branch on the North End Road in Fulham, which I campaigned with residents to save, and which is now open seven days a week, from 7 in the morning till 9 in the evening.