Ian Roome MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  Surfers Against Sewage’s submission to the independent water commission looked at five different public interest models for the water industry, each with its own strengths. Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be a culture of accountability to the wider public, not just to shareholders?

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  My local maternity unit in North Devon is closed, causing heartache for many mothers living in a rural area. Some have to turn around midway to hospital to get to the accident and emergency department at North Devon district hospital. The shortage of obstetrics and gynaecology consultants is a national problem. We are okay for midwives, but not for obs and gynae. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that creates inequality between urban and rural areas, and does he think the Government need to address that?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for saying that closure orders will be extended to combat dodgy shops on our high streets. In my constituency, the police have fought a running battle against shops with secret compartments selling counterfeit cigarettes. However, having talked to my local trading standards office in Devon, it is clear to me that those offices do not have nearly enough personnel to investigate suspicious businesses. Will the Secretary of State’s Department make sure that the funding given to local councils to do this is ringfenced for the purpose of recruiting more trading standards officers?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Global Biodiversity and Ecosystems: National Security · Hansard source

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  A record hot summer has spread bluetongue disease among animals across my constituency at record rates, doing enormous damage to farming across the west country. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most alarming findings in the report is just how exposed the UK is to food insecurity?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Draft Armed Forces (Service Complaints Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I would just like to ratify and concur with what has been said. The explanatory notes say: “A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.” I agree with the wording and the amendments to the wording, so I am happy to support the instrument.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this important debate. I want to speak up for Ilfracombe in particular, and the challenges that will be familiar to coastal communities everywhere. Devon county council has identified Ilfracombe as one of the most vulnerable towns in Devon. Its remote location leaves it badly cut off from wider public services, economic opportunities and emergency intervention. That pattern will be all too familiar for those in this room. What I can never accept are shameless articles, such as the one recently published in a national tabloid newspaper that I will not name, punching down at Ilfracombe. Trashing a small town’s reputation for clicks is not journalism; it is monetising misery and it is not fit for tomorrow’s fish and chip paper. I have spoken with local business owners who pour their hearts and souls out into Ilfracombe trying to make things better, and the very last thing that they need is a hatchet job in the national press. Just yesterday, it was reported that a local teenager, Bradley Blackmore, bravely rescued another boy from drowning. Well done, Bradley. Ilfracombe can boast award-winning manufacturing businesses and several promising new housing schemes supported by North Devon council and the Ilfracombe Community Land Trust, delivering safer social housing for local people. Every year, crowds flock to Ilfracombe for the maritime festival. This August, a daring soapbox derby will again raise thousands for charity, and I am proud to say that Ilfracombe has just been shortlisted for the first ever UK town of culture awards, one of only 15 towns in the country on the list. I ask the Minister whether the Government will consider re-inventing the coastal communities fund or coastal revival fund for the new generation. How should we talk about challenges without damaging the reputation of coastal towns that deserve our help? How do we deliver what the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) called “good growth in every postcode”?

• 8 Jul 2026 · Maritime and Coastguard Agency · Hansard source

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  The MCA has told MPs that it has data to back its claim that CROs would rather be volunteers than employees. Can the Minister confirm that those findings can be shared? This has a massive bearing on the MCA’s decision, and may greatly undermine the essential lifeline that CROs provide to coastal communities like mine in North Devon.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness · Hansard source

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  I certainly do, and I will come that later in my speech. There are areas where the Government seem to have cut corners: munitions reserves, medical support, industrial resilience—all essential for enduring a longer crisis. Professionals talk logistics. In 1940, Sir Winston Churchill appointed Lord Beaverbrook to rapidly streamline aircraft production. Lord Beaverbrook responded by throwing out all the old rules and doubling production output inside 12 months. His sayings have become famous, describing the factories as the frontlines of the war. He said: “Organisation is the enemy of improvisation”, “Committees take the punch out of war,” and “The need is great, the time is short, urgency must be the watchword.” He sounds like a nightmare to work for, but he helped rescue this country in an hour of great crisis.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and I thank him for his distinguished service too. We are seeing that in how we are learning lessons from Ukraine. I have been out there and seen the systems, so I totally agree. Defence reform is a very important element that the MOD should look at, and I am sure the Minister will have something to say about that. I cannot find that spirit of urgency that Lord Beaverbrook showed in 1940 in the defence investment plan. The purpose of rearmament is not to prepare for war; it is to prevent that disaster, to deter aggression and to bolster our allies. As Liberal Democrats, and I am sure across the House, we believe Britain’s security depends on our alliances. A stronger Britain means a stronger NATO. A safer Europe means a safer United Kingdom. We must preserve the peace previous generations sacrificed so much to secure. Let this House be remembered not as the House that scrambled in an emergency, but that saw the danger coming and acted.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) for securing this debate. There are moments in politics when delay is not just a mistake, but a danger. This is one of those moments. The truth is that the world has become more dangerous much faster than Britain has become ready. The strategic defence review mattered because it stripped away comforting illusions. From the end of the cold war, we enjoyed a peace dividend that offered more security and more money for public services, but war has returned to Europe. Hostile states challenge us daily with cyber-attacks and sabotage, flouting international law and the liberal rules-based order. The absolute supremacy of the western alliance is no longer absolute. The SDR set out the right ambition: a more integrated force, a more digital force and a more resilient Britain, ready to learn lessons from Ukraine and the middle east. The defence investment plan accepts that analysis, but next comes the hard part: not only recognising the problem but solving it. Does the plan move quickly enough to make Britain safer? I fear it does not. We lost nearly a year waiting for the defence investment plan to be published. Months of hesitation when industry held its breath, investments stalled, contracts went unsigned and momentum was lost. The SDR talks of mobilising “rapidly in the event of a crisis”. If only that sense of urgency were reflected in government. Capability delayed is capability denied. The pace matters as much as the decision. The review rightly placed at the heart of Britain’s future military capability the digital targeting web—the system that links sensors, commanders and weapons into one integrated force that can identify a threat and destroy it. The defence investment plan commits money for our armed forces to do more, but too much of that funding is still on the other side of 2030. The Prime Minister has said that NATO could face an attack from Russia before 2030. Yesterday, Lord Robertson and General Sir Richard Barrons pointed out to the Defence Committee that many of the capabilities deemed urgently needed in the SDR are only due to arrive at the end of a nine-year investment cycle. An example is air and missile defence, where the scale of the £790 million investment falls short of what was planned and arrives years down the line.