Greg Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  Chiltern Railways was absent from the Secretary of State’s statement, but when it comes to rail performance, for my constituents —both those on the Chiltern main line and those on the Aylesbury branch—daily overcrowding is a reality, with passengers often being left on the platform. Given that the previous Government stepped up, with a commitment to ensuring that Chiltern got more rolling stock to tackle the overcrowding challenges, will the Secretary of State make it a double priority to get Chiltern those extra trains and end this overcrowding?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State mentions rural crime, and I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge. In the last Parliament, with Labour’s support, my private Member’s Bill got Royal Assent. It just needs a statutory instrument to be laid before the House to bring in the definition of “forensic marking”, which the police say will be a big power for them in combating rural crime. Will he talk to the Home Secretary to ensure that my Act starts to help him to deliver his rural crime strategy?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that British farming does not operate on mega margins. Our farmers do not have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds in the bank. They operate on such tight margins that, even if we play devil’s advocate and accept the Government’s argument—which, for the record, I do not—most farmers in this position will struggle to pay a tax bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds over a 10-year period. The margins simply are not there. Of course, there are many things that we can and should do to increase the profitability of farming, but it is fanciful to pretend that a 10-year payback period would be anywhere near enough. It would symbolise the end of British farming. Of course, that was not the only threat to British farming in the Budget. There was the attack on basic equipment such as pick-up trucks, whereby farmers face paying an extra £5,000 simply for having the audacity to want back seats for their children. Then there is the carbon tax, which will see the cost of fertiliser rise by between £50 and £75 a tonne, which will have a detrimental impact on either farmers’ margins or food prices, or potentially both. Across the country, either outcome would be devastating. Other Members have spoken about rural crime, about which I too am incredibly frustrated. I intervened to ask the Secretary of State about this subject. After being lucky enough to come quite high in the 2022 private Member’s Bill ballot, I spent two and a half years promoting my Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, which requires immobilisers on quad bikes and high-standard forensic marking, including GPS units, on agricultural equipment. It requires the passage of a statutory instrument that the then Policing Minister and now shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), said was ready to go when the general election was called, but it was thwarted by the Dissolution of Parliament. The Act was passed with the Labour party’s support. Labour Members did not howl it down or attack it on Second Reading, in Committee or on Third Reading in either House. It is not as if the Act is in any way controversial. We just need the statutory instrument to be passed to give the police the powers they need. Police officers like Superintendent Andy Huddleston, who is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on rural crime, say that these powers will make a huge difference. I have raised this matter with the Home Secretary and the Leader of the House. I doubt that this simple SI would cause any controversy for any party or any Member of this House. Why can the Government not introduce the statutory instrument? I take their desire to tackle rural crime at face value, so why do they not get the ball rolling on passing this legislation? Every time I meet a police officer from Thames Valley Police or anywhere I go in the country, the first thing they ask is, “What is happening with your Act?” I cannot answer that question, because I just do not know the reason for the Government’s delay. I appeal to the Minister to work with his Home Office colleagues to find a way to get the Act functioning. Finally, this Government’s approach to planning and energy is causing devastation across our rural communities. My constituency has been plagued by so many ground-mounted solar applications—the largest one is Rosefield in the Claydons. These projects take away agricultural land, take away the ability to produce food and in many cases displace farmers, including tenant farmers. And what for? It is an inefficient technology that requires thousands of acres of agricultural land, when other technologies, such as small modular reactors, which require the equivalent of just two football pitches, can produce far more energy. I urge the farming Minister or the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to go into battle with the Energy Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister on these planning changes, so that we can have a sensible approach to our countryside and keep it for what it is best at: the production of food.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  There are many issues I could raise in such an important debate on rural affairs, but in their Budget a couple of weeks ago, the Labour Government introduced a new threat on such a scale that it simply must be the topic on which I open my remarks. As I said in last week’s Budget debate, the changes to agricultural property relief are a threat to family farms and rural communities across the country, including in Mid Buckinghamshire. I cannot believe that Mid Buckinghamshire farmers are so different from the farmers found in Labour-held constituencies, but many of the farmers who have contacted me are absolutely petrified about what the change means for the future of their farm. They tell me that they may even have to sell up to a third of their farm to meet their inheritance tax bill. There is no way to sugar-coat this: it will be the end of British family farming if these changes are allowed to go through. When I gave my maiden speech on Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill in the last Parliament, the now Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, who was then a shadow Minister, kindly said in summing up that I was “every Cambridge leftie’s nightmare”, and I agree. I gently suggest that, if he does not talk to farmers, to the NFU and to the people who are petrified about what these changes will mean, he may well become the nightmare of every farmer in this country.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Budget: Implications for Farming Communities · Hansard source

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  There are already very low margins on every farm, including those in Mid Buckinghamshire. Will the addition of between £50 and £75 a tonne on the price of fertiliser, through the Government’s proposed carbon tax, increase food prices? Who will shoulder that burden? Will it be the farmer, or will it be the consumer?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) on a powerfully delivered maiden speech and wish him well in this House. I thank him for his kind words about his predecessor, Dr Liam Fox, who was a true champion of this House. The Budget of broken promises came as a hammer blow to communities up and down the land, but before I get into the detail of that, and in the interest of balance and fairness, I would like to thank the Chancellor for one of the measures in it. Following FairFuelUK’s campaign, The Sun’s “Keep It Down” campaign, and indeed, the campaign led by my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), the freeze on fuel duty, which the last Conservative Government implemented for so many years, will continue. It is very apparent to me that petrol and diesel are overtaxed as it is, and working people up and down the land absolutely depend on being able to afford a tank of fuel to get the kids to school, go to work and go about their daily lives. As a request ahead of next year’s Budget, I ask the Chancellor to consider fixing a double taxation in the system: the point at which VAT is applied to petrol and diesel. At the moment, it is applied after fuel duty, rather than before; we therefore pay VAT not just on the petrol and diesel itself, but on the fuel duty that has been put on top of it. There is so much to dislike in this Budget of broken promises, beginning with the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, which is a direct tax on jobs. It is a tax on small and large businesses alike, and it is a tax on our general practitioners—I am sure I am not alone in this House in already having correspondence on this issue with many of the GPs in my constituency. There is the perversity of putting bus fares up to £3, scrapping the Conservatives’ £2 bus fare cap. Working people up and down the land rely on buses; it is only in Labour’s world that putting the bus fare up means getting more people to work. The £40 billion tax hike is going to lead to higher inflation, lower wages and increased Government debt. For my constituency of Mid Buckinghamshire, though, the very worst part of this Budget was the full-frontal attack on our farmers and agricultural communities. The changes to agricultural property relief will cause family farms up and down the land to have to sell such a huge proportion of their farm in order to meet that tax bill that those farms themselves may well become unviable.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  As ever, the hon. Gentleman has hit the nail exactly on the head. In its briefing, which I am sure all Members have received, the National Farmers Union points out that the Treasury’s own figures on who will get caught up in the APR changes are fundamentally wrong, because they include a lot of very small-scale areas—perhaps a private residence with one or two fields or a very small number of livestock. That is not what any of us would define as a working farm. In reality, when all those family farms are brought into the numbers, the vast majority of our food producers who contribute to food supply chains will get caught up in those changes. When the Chancellor was on the BBC on Sunday morning, she said that the individual claim for agricultural property relief is now £1 million, but if a farm is owned by two people, that allowance could be transferred to the other person. Some confusion needs to be ironed out here, because unlike the nil-rate band and residential nil-rate band, the policy paper entitled “Summary of reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief” published on 30 October this year states that “any unused allowance will not be transferable between spouses and civil partners.” Perhaps in summing up the Minister can clear up that confusion caused by the Chancellor on the Kuenssberg show. The APR changes are not the only changes that will hammer our farming families and agricultural communities. I am sure there is a joke somewhere along the lines of “When is a pick-up truck not a pick-up truck?”, but it is no laughing matter for farmers. For them, it is just a basic bit of equipment that they need to operate, but this Government are hammering them on the cost of that equipment if it happens to have rear seats. As I raised earlier today in this House during the urgent question, the Government’s carbon tax will put up the price of fertiliser by between £50 and £75 a tonne. Either that is going to have a direct impact on the cost of food, or the Government are asking farmers—already operating on incredibly tight margins, often with no profit at all—just to swallow that extra cost. I urge them to reconsider. Other measures in the Budget that are clearly wrong and the Government must U-turn on include VAT on private school fees. The vast majority of parents I talk to in my constituency who choose to send their children to independent schools scrimp and save and make sacrifices in order to give their children that opportunity. An additional 20% in fees makes that unaffordable for those parents, and when I talk to representatives of independent schools in my constituency some are saying that they can see a path to having to close their doors. I know that a lot of Labour Members would probably quite like that outcome, but the reality is that it will be denying children opportunity and denying parents choice, and it will have the knock-on impact of class sizes in my kids’ school—and, I am sure, every other hon. Member’s kids’ school in the state sector—going up. That will cause overcrowding and put pressure on our state schools. This is all before I come on to the other problems in this Budget, not least the cruel attack on our pensioners through the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment. Lastly, just to prove how bizarre and simply unserious the Government are about value for money, they have chosen someone as their new value-for-money tsar who is inextricably linked to one of the most inefficient and wasteful projects ever to come out of the British state: HS2. How on earth can someone so linked to that project be considered an arbiter of value for money?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Further to the questions from my hon. Friends the Members for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), and for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), yesterday’s Budget was a full-frontal financial attack on our farmers. The Leader of the House has declined to ensure a statement on the subject, but we have four more days of debate on the Budget. That means that there are eight opportunities for the Environment Secretary or the Minister with responsibility for farming to open or close debate on one of those days, so that MPs on both sides of the House can fully hold the Government to account on their plans for farming. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Environment Secretary or Minister for farming opens or closes debate on one of those days?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  When it comes to an industrial strategy, in the Labour Government’s first few months they have effectively shut down UK virgin steelmaking capacity, with no commitments to primary steel in yesterday’s Budget of broken promises. Unlike the United States and the European Union, the Government have failed to protect our car manufacturers against Chinese state aid. They have massively increased the costs to the very drivers of industry—real businesses—of employing people. Should the Government not call it their deindustrialisation strategy?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  The Minister mentions the car industry. Yesterday, after the Budget of broken promises, talking about the industrial strategy, Mike Hawes of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said: “Delivering that strategy depends on the UK being globally competitive. Additional National Insurance Contributions will put massive pressure on the automotive supply chain which is predominantly SMEs.” He described the lack of substantive measures to support the new car market as “hugely disappointing”, concluding that, “the cost will soon be felt in reduced UK investment, economic growth and jobs.” With such dire warnings so early on, is this not more evidence that Labour just does not get business and that its industrial strategy is in tatters before it has even begun?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Roadworks: Journey Times · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) on securing this important debate. The consensual nature of the debate shows that if there is one thing on which we on the Opposition Benches and those in His Majesty’s Government can agree, it is that nobody likes road closures and traffic jams and the misery that comes with them. In urban and suburban areas, they often mean unwanted congestion and pollution. As the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) said, they often mean delays not just for private motorists but for buses and hauliers. I gently suggest to him that after this afternoon’s Budget and the Chancellor increasing bus fares from the £2 cap that we brought in, people will be paying more to sit on the bus in a traffic jam under a Labour Government. In rural areas such as my Mid Buckinghamshire constituency, and that of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), a 100-yard road closure can often mean a 5 to 10-mile diversion. That is before I even start talking about Government-sponsored programmes such as High Speed 2, for which the road closures seem to go on indefinitely and forever. Fixing that is in the Government’s gift. Likewise, we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) about the intolerable problems on the A77 and A75, which the Scottish Government simply must fix. Of course, in some cases road closures are not necessarily a bad thing—they are the result of getting things done—but how we manage them is important. Utility companies must be held to account. Whether action is taken by local government or by national Government through National Highways or another agency, it must be taken responsibly. The relevant authorities must remember that they are causing significant inconvenience to real people, their businesses, their school runs and their trips to the doctor, hospital or other medical appointments. If we can manage the situation, everybody will be much happier. Let us not forget that it is only through economic growth that car ownership, and indeed other forms of transport, became affordable and grew for many. As part of our plan for drivers, the previous Government took action—we can discuss how to go further—on the critical problem of road closures that stick around for longer than necessary. We introduced a performance-based street works regime to ensure that utility companies resurfaced roads to the best possible standard, and a lane rental scheme, through which utility companies can be charged up to £2,500 a day for street works. That programme enabled the delivery of more than 2 million street works between 2022 and 2023. In January, the previous Government launched a street works consultation, the results of which were clear. We therefore doubled fines in some instances from £500 to £1,000 for utility companies found to have breached the conditions of their jobs. We introduced charges of £10,000 a day for companies if their works overrun into weekends and bank holidays, which are the busiest days on the road network. We gave a direction for at least 50% of the money generated by lane rental schemes to be used for the improvement of roads and the repair of potholes. That money is already filtering down to local authorities. In my own constituency, Buckinghamshire council’s “pothole pro” is making light work of what has historically been an incredibly time-consuming and labour-intensive task. The pothole pro effectively recycles and reuses damaged tarmac for resurfacing works, and roads are therefore being fixed more quickly and efficiently. That ultimately saves taxpayer money and reduces the time that people spend stuck in traffic or diverting around road closures. Technology is our friend. It can get repairs done so much quicker. Conservatives are firmly on the side of drivers. What will the Minister and the Government do to improve the experience of Britain’s motorists, those who travel on our buses and that those who require the use of the road network to make deliveries and to get their goods around the country? What will the Minister do to meet the challenges set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne? What reforms will the Government introduce to build on what is already in place to hold those who dig up our roads to account? It would be a good start for the Government to support the ten-minute rule Bill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), which the Opposition already support. That would bring about real action to improve the lot of all motorists. Will the Minister confirm the Government’s stance on that Bill, which we also saw in the previous Parliament? Britain’s motorists deserve to know. The state of our roads is important, as right hon. and hon. Members have said. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government will maintain the £4.7 billion of funding, much of which was to be used to fill potholes across the north and the midlands over the next seven years, that the previous Government put in place in February through the local transport fund? Will it be put to good use in the way that the previous Government intended? Will the Government retain the £8.3 billion of funding for highways maintenance, which was announced in October 2023 in “Network North” and should last until 2033? Will the new Labour Government continue that exact amount of spending? I fear that the Chancellor’s announcement in the Budget today of £500 million for potholes will simply not touch the sides of the problem we face as a country. Looking at my own constituency, where Buckinghamshire council has a £105 million road repair fund for one county alone, I do not think that that £500 million sum of money will go far enough to challenge and fix the problems facing Britain’s motorists. It seems that both sides of the House agree on the problem. Labour is now in government; will the Minister confirm precisely what it will do?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Israel: UNRWA Ban · Hansard source

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  Further to the very serious point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) about UNRWA staff’s involvement in the evil attack on 7 October, terror infrastructure has been found in 32 UNRWA facilities in Gaza; we have seen a 3,000-strong Telegram group of UNRWA teachers openly celebrating the 7 October attack; Israeli intelligence shows that up to 10% of UNRWA staff have affiliations to terror organisations; and a Palestinian eyewitness has borne witness to the fact that he saw an UNRWA school director selling food meant for civilians at $100 a carton. It is clear that UNRWA is deeply infiltrated by Hamas. Will the Minister work with Israel and other allies to find another way to work with organisations that can be trusted to deliver aid into the hands of civilians, not terrorists?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Countryside Alliance research shows that rural households spend up to £800 a year more on fuel than urban households, so further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), will the Chancellor protect rural communities in the Budget tomorrow?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Draft Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes (Amendment) Order 2024 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The draft order, as the Minister rightly says, is very technical in nature and will make few changes to the 2023 order. For the most part, it will simply bring the whole of our country under one set of rules by correcting the understandable omission of Northern Ireland from the original order. In the silo in which they are presented, the changes being made are broadly uncontroversial. The official Opposition will therefore not seek to divide the Committee today. What is slightly more controversial, however, is the limit of the order and the wider questions that it poses about the Government’s approach to the ZEV mandate, our domestic automotive sector and the transition to de-fossilised and decarbonised forms of private transport. The Labour party had previously been clear that it wished to reverse the Conservative Government’s practical, pragmatic and sensible delay from 2030 to 2035 of the banning of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, yet the draft order will do no such thing: it leaves the 2035 date intact. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government are leaving the 2035 date in place, which would be sensible, or whether we are set to see more orders coming forward? If so, will they come with a wider debate in the main Chamber? What of hybrids? There is much talk in the media, but little actual legislation or rule making is coming forward. I gently ask the Minister to give the Committee and the wider House clarity in that regard. Certainty is important for consumers and manufacturers alike, but the draft order will give neither any confidence about the detail of the Government’s intended direction of travel. That uncertainty is playing out in the real world: in real sales numbers, in real demand, particularly for battery electric vehicles, and in uncertainty for our great innovators at home and overseas, where they are pioneering technologies around other forms of fuel, hydrogen and synthetics. It is a reality that consumers are turning their backs on battery electric vehicles. Taking fleet sales out of the picture, EVs are just not selling. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says that year-to-date private battery electric vehicle demand remains down 6.3%. Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, has observed that manufacturers are delaying deliveries of cars until next year, fearing that immediate deliveries would cause them to exceed the Government’s set quotas. In July, Stellantis announced that it would review its manufacturing footprint in the United Kingdom. Can the Minister explain why the draft order does so little? It is just tinkering at the edges, with no practical steps to solve the real-world problems that we face. Can he confirm what the Government’s actual plans are to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel internal combustion engine cars? Is there even a plan? What confidence can he give to motorists and car manufacturers alike that the Government value—in a de-fossilised, decarbonised way—the freedom to drive?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Draft Vehicle Drivers (Certificates of Professional Competence) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Although the draft regulations may be touted as innovative legislation, I am sure the Minister will be the first to accept that they were in fact the product of successive Conservative Governments, who, following our exit from the European Union, took the decision to simplify regulations for our hard-working hauliers by asking the industry what it needed to thrive, while of course ensuring the high standards of vehicle and driver safety that have always been upheld and enhanced. The draft regulations are a culmination of that process. Indeed, the previous Minister, Guy Opperman, is listed in the explanatory memorandum as having signed the declaration on the draft regulations. Therefore, as the previous Government would have laid this instrument anyway, the official Opposition will clearly not divide the Committee today. The regulations deliver is the long sought-after flexibility that the industry needs to ensure that safety standards remain among the best in the world—all thanks to the work of the previous Government over the last few years. Hauliers will welcome options made available by the split between UK and international training programmes, and the means through which training is delivered—above all, the option to complete a course over a series of half days rather than full days. Perhaps the Minister will tell us why one critical element—the incentive for hauliers to push the international training programme as a viable option for drivers—has been omitted from the regulations, risking the available pool of drivers for overseas work by essentially making that training an opt-in part of the job. Combined with the rumoured end to the previous Government’s fuel duty freeze, which has been critical to hauliers since its introduction by the Conservatives in 2011—if the rise goes ahead, hauliers estimate it could cost their businesses over £185 million a year—we must ask: who is really standing up for our hauliers and championing the vital role that they play in our economy? I will simply end by saying that it is only because of our exit from the European Union that any of this is possible in the first place. While the Labour party in opposition sat on their hands without making any real contribution to the haulage sector, blaming Brexit for every challenge the sector has faced in recent years, it was Conservatives in government who took steps—including drafting the very regulations before us today—to support hauliers on terms that were right for the United Kingdom, not for the European Union. Although we welcome the regulations, I gently ask the Minister: what are the Government offering the haulage sector that is new?

• 24 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Yesterday I was pleased to welcome the wonderful Dawn Dines and the Stamp Out Spiking charity to Parliament to showcase their awareness campaign that launches next Monday. Spiking is one of the most evil crimes. Can the Leader of the House arrange for the Home Secretary to make a statement to update the House on the progress being made to implement the previous Government’s anti-spiking strategy? What further steps will this new Government take to stamp out this heinous crime?

• 24 Oct 2024 · Special Educational Needs and Disabilities · Hansard source

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  With more and more children requiring SEND provision, the scale of the challenge is undoubtedly large. The previous Conservative Government did offer a beacon of hope for children in Buckinghamshire, with the previous Secretary of State confirming funding for a new SEND school in the county. Can the Minister confirm whether those funds are still secure and whether Buckinghamshire will still get that new SEND school?

• 22 Oct 2024 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  Further to the answer the Minister gave a few moments ago, UNRWA supplies were found in the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s underground hideout. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said, Hamas terrorists are struggling to find warehouse space to store all the misappropriated aid. When will the Government review their commitment to funding UNRWA and actually take action to stop the misappropriation of that aid?

• 22 Oct 2024 · Large-scale Energy Projects and Food Security · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention and congratulate her on squeezing her speech into it. I would argue that, yes, a balanced approach is right and important, but this goes to the nub of the argument that ground-mounted solar is actually incredibly inefficient. When we have something in scarce supply—land, in this country—we need to go for the technologies that are going to deliver. I have used these important statistics in Westminster Hall before and I will make my penultimate point with them today. We need 2,000 acres of solar panels to produce enough power for 50,000 homes on current usage; for a small modular reactor, we need the space of two football pitches and it will produce enough power for a million homes. A single wind turbine will produce enough power for 16,000 homes and probably needs only half the size of the room we are in right now. This debate is about efficiency and proper land use. It is about getting to renewable energy production, but it is also about using technology that does not destroy our countryside and that does not fundamentally take away our other core source of national security, which is food production.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Large-scale Energy Projects and Food Security · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. In following the hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters), I will start by putting the other side of the argument that he was trying to develop about compatibility or incompatibility with solar installations. I use the word “installations” deliberately, because the word “farms” conjures up images of warm, cuddly, nice things that we all like to see in our countryside, rather than these brutalist fields of glass, metal and plastic that take away the natural landscape as well as food production. I have no issue with farmers who wish, on a very modest scale, to take 10, 20 or perhaps even 50 acres of totally unproductive land in order to diversify into an energy project, be that ground-mounted solar or a wind turbine, or whatever it might be, but the clue is in the debate title: this is about the large-scale solar installations that are being proposed. Rosefield in my constituency started off as a 2,100-acre proposal; the developers are trying to trim the edges a bit, but there is still a reality that it will take away food-producing land. The National Farmers Union’s own statistics show that we are losing land from cultivation at a rate of 100,000 acres per year. I understand that the proponents of ground-mounted solar want to talk about very low fractions of a percentage today, but if we look at the number of applications coming through in my constituency and, I dare say, in many other hon. Members’ constituencies, the cumulative impact will be considerable. Take Rosefield alone: we have already seen two battery storage proposals on prime agricultural land right next door, as well as National Grid having to come along and say, “Ah! If all these proposals go ahead, we are going to have to rebuild East Claydon substation to take in the power that these facilities are allegedly going to be generating.” And guess what, Sir Mark? That is on yet another farm in that neighbourhood, taking away more food-producing land.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Large-scale Energy Projects and Food Security · Hansard source

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  Mid Buckinghamshire.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Government’s Childcare Expansion · Hansard source

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  I am incredibly proud of the previous Government’s massive expansion of the childcare offer, and I am genuinely pleased that the new Government are carrying on with it. When it comes to the expansion of in-school nurseries, what mechanism will be put in place to ensure that rural communities, like mine in Mid Buckinghamshire, get a locked in, fair share of those new facilities?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Recognition of Positive Impact · Hansard source

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  5. What steps the Church is taking to recognise the positive impact of individual members of the clergy in the communities they serve.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Recognition of Positive Impact · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that answer. I am full of praise for the hard work and dedication of all our clergy, but sometimes an individual goes above and beyond. That is true of Reverend Canon David Williams, who on Christmas day will lead his last service at St Mary’s, Princes Risborough, after 15 years’ service to that town and the surrounding villages. His work includes having supported thousands of children through Lighthouse Princes Risborough, and his role as a trustee of the Princes Centre and other charities, including those supporting the homeless. Will the hon. Lady join me in thanking David and his wife Jo for their 15 years’ service to Princes Risborough? What more can the Church do to recognise his and others’ hard work?

• 16 Oct 2024 · Driving Test Availability · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As I stressed, the pandemic blew a hole—it did so in virtually every walk of life—in the availability of driving tests. We got a million extra tests in place. Did every single test centre have exactly the resource it needed? The answer is clearly no. In the spirit of the debate, I am perfectly happily to accept that. I was on the Transport Committee for four and a half years, serving for some of that time alongside the now Minister, and we saw these problems emerging. Governments are not able to solve every problem. The Minister will be happy to admit that she will not be able to solve every problem that comes across her desk but to solve the backlog that still persists from the pandemic as well as the growing demand for driving tests—that is not just my analysis; the DVSA acknowledges that there is a growing demand—greater resource is required and the whole system must be scaled up. Where does this issue sit on the Minister’s priority list? Is it a matter of urgency for the new Government? Motorists up and down the country want to get their driving licences so that they can get on in life, access opportunities, achieve freedom and get the pleasure of driving in the United Kingdom. Or will this issue fall down the priority list and not get the action that thousands of people up and down this land want and deserve?