Jonathan Brash MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  Some 15% of my constituents live in fuel poverty, and many more go without in order to pay the outrageous energy bills they face. Many vulnerable people, children and elderly people are living in properties that are too cold and too damp. That is not acceptable to me, and I know that it is not acceptable to the Secretary of State. How will we ensure that the welcome measures in this plan reach the most vulnerable people in communities in Hartlepool and beyond?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Water White Paper · Hansard source

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  Hartlepool is a coastal community home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the north-east, but they are too often polluted by water companies to the detriment of my constituents. I absolutely agree with the Secretary of State that this Government have done more in 18 months to fix this mess than any other Government in history, but does she agree that once we have forced these failed water companies to get their house in order and clean up our waters, we should get them out of the ownership of foreign nationals, hedge funds and private equity, and reverse the worst privatisation in British history?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Mobile Phones and Social Media: Use by Children · Hansard source

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  It is clear that social media harms our children. I am firmly of the belief that when a child is being harmed, it is the Government’s duty to act. I support a ban, but even the most cursory engagement with Hartlepool residents shows me very clearly that there is a range of views among parents on this issue. Can the Secretary of State fathom what possibly could be the objection to listening to parents?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Sale of Fireworks · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for the expert way in which he opened the debate. I think the last time I spoke in a petition debate that he led, Members across the Chamber agreed about mandatory digital ID, so I am hoping for a similar outcome today. I thank the petitioners, Helen and Robert, everyone else who is in the Public Gallery here today, and the people across the country who have signed the two petitions. In my constituency alone, 361 people signed the petition calling for firework sales to be limited to council-approved events and 227 signed the petition calling for lower noise levels. I have also received 114 emails from Hartlepool residents, all calling for tighter controls or an outright ban on personal use. That tells us something very clear: this is not a niche concern. It is widespread and persistent across the country, including in Hartlepool. I want to be clear from the outset that I support public firework displays. When they are organised and well managed, they bring communities together. As a child, I loved attending the firework display at Ward Jackson Park in Hartlepool. Hartlepool is fortunate to have a major public display still at Seaton Carew, supported by Hartlepool borough council and sponsored by X-energy, and I am grateful that it continues. What my constituents are experiencing now, though, goes far beyond a few celebratory nights. Fireworks in Hartlepool begin in September, and intensify through October, November, December and into early January. For weeks at a time, there is no predictability and no break—and that has real consequences: children awoken night after night and elderly residents reporting fear and anxiety. In 2024, Hartlepool police was forced to issue a dispersal order on the Bishop Cuthbert estate where fireworks were being used as weapons, seriously injuring at least one young person. Pets suffer distress, and veterans and others living with trauma are affected by the sudden loud explosions. Calling for action is not being anti-fun; it is respecting others. There is nothing nanny state about protecting the most vulnerable in our society. Limiting sales to council-approved events would bring order and safety to communities such as Hartlepool. Reducing the maximum noise level to 90 dB is a simple, common-sense approach. Quieter fireworks already exist; alternatives are available. People in Hartlepool are not asking for celebrations to end. They are asking for balance and fairness. I urge the Minister, who I know has listened intently all afternoon, to listen to the petitions and to the messages from Members across the House and from the people of Hartlepool. The current system is not working and needs to change.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T8. Currently, not a single NHS dentist in Hartlepool is taking on new patients, and many of my constituents are desperate. We have made real progress on urgent care, including a new urgent dental access centre, but it is not enough. What more will be done to fix NHS dentistry in Hartlepool and across the country?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Brain Cancer Treatment: Hartlepool · Hansard source

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  7. What steps he is taking to improve access to tissue freezing for brain cancer patients in Hartlepool.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Brain Cancer Treatment: Hartlepool · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her answer, and for her positive response during a recent Westminster Hall debate on this issue. As she will recall from that debate, my constituent Trevor Jones died in September last year from glioblastoma. His widow, Samantha, learned only later that life-extending treatment options might have been available had his brain biopsy not been stored in paraffin blocks, but instead been flash frozen. Will the Minister recommit to examining how flash freezing can be made standard practice for brain biopsies across the NHS, and will she meet me and Samantha to discuss a way forward?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In purporting to discharge their homelessness duties, some southern local authorities are bundling vulnerable people into taxis in the middle of the night and dumping them in Hartlepool because our housing is cheaper. They are acting in a vile way. I welcome the fact that the Minister has written to me and set out her belief that we need to ban this poor practice. Does she agree that we need to ban it outright?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Advanced Brain Cancer: Tissue Freezing · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I start by saying how honoured I am to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who demonstrates so ably that the high-minded ideals of representation, compassion and decency run right through this place, and perhaps more often than is fully recognised. I thank him for his contribution. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) for securing this important debate, and his constituent Ellie for her campaigning—I can say without hesitation that you have another signed-up supporter of Owain’s law here today in me. As my hon. Friend demonstrated, MPs do not generally come to these debates to have abstract policy discussions, but to do our most important job: to be the voice of our constituents. That is where I want to start. I want to share the experience of my constituent, Samantha Jones, who came to see me alongside her father-in-law, Garry Jones, following the death of her husband, Trevor, from glioblastoma. Trevor was just 41 years old when he suddenly became ill on Christmas Day 2024. Until that moment, there had been no warning signs and no symptoms that anyone could reasonably have recognised. Tests revealed stage 4 glioblastoma, and he was given six months to live. He lived for nine months and died in September 2025. Like so many families confronted with this diagnosis, they were plunged into a world of shock, fear and urgent decision making. A biopsy was taken, which confirmed and sequenced the cancer, and at that point the family believed that everything possible was being done. It was only later, through Samantha’s own research and through conversations with an oncologist experienced in international practice, that they learned something that they found deeply troubling. There were treatments that may have been available to Trevor on the basis of his biopsy, but they could not be used because the tissue sample had not been flash frozen. Instead, the biopsy had been stored in paraffin blocks, which is standard practice in much of the UK, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly. By the time the family discovered the significance of that, it was too late: Trevor was too ill to undergo another biopsy, too unwell to travel and unable to take part in clinical trials. Samantha told me that in Germany brain tumour biopsies are flash frozen as a matter of course. That allows for far more advanced genomic and molecular testing, which can open the door to a wider range of treatments. In the UK, by contrast, flash freezing is done only if it is specifically requested, or if the patient is part of a clinical trial. For families who have just been told that their loved one has an aggressive and terminal brain cancer, that is not a realistic expectation. They are in shock. They are terrified. They are placing their trust in the system to do everything that it can, without knowing that one unmade request could close off future options entirely. That raises a simple but profound question, which I put to the Minister: why does the NHS not routinely flash freeze all brain tumour biopsies as standard practice? What can we do to change that here and now? I am not suggesting false hope. I fully recognise that glioblastoma remains a devastating diagnosis with limited treatment options, but when options are already so few, it cannot be right that patients are denied even the possibility of certain treatments because of how their tissue samples were stored. This is also an issue of fairness and equality. Access to the best possible diagnostics and research pathways should not depend on geography, chance or whether a family happen to know the right question to ask at the worst moment in their lives. Samantha and Garry came to see me not only in grief but with a determination—one reflected by Ellie, in the Public Gallery this morning—that something good might come from their devastating experience. They want other families to be spared the same sense of missed opportunity and unanswered questions. More broadly, brain cancers remain under-recognised and underfunded compared with other forms of cancer, despite their severity and poor outcomes. If we are serious about improving survival, treatment and research, we must be willing to look honestly at current practice and ask whether it is good enough, because I think the consensus is that it is not. I hope that the Minister will engage constructively on this issue and consider making the flash freezing of brain tumour biopsies standard practice across the NHS, because that could improve patient access to treatment, strengthen research and offer families reassurance that everything possible is being done. For Trevor, such a change has come too late, but for future patients it does not have to.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  Over 14 years of the Conservative Government, they cut Hartlepool’s budget in real terms by 40%. That is £50 million missing from that budget every single year. It meant libraries and parks being left behind and child poverty being up by 10% over those 14 years. While some of the Conservatives come here to criticise and others jump ship to Reform, including in Hartlepool, does the Minister agree that they should be ashamed of themselves for their record on local government? This is the start of putting right what they got so wrong.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Income Tax and National Insurance Threshold Freeze · Hansard source

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  Pensioners in my constituency of Hartlepool who rely solely on the state pension have shared with me their concern that freezing the tax threshold will draw them into paying tax. Can the Minister confirm what the Chancellor has already said publicly, which is that pensioners who rely solely on the state pension will not be taxed during this Parliament?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Like many Members, I have been inundated with messages. My Hartlepool constituents are hugely concerned. Does the hon. Member agree that part of the problem is that we got an announcement without the detail? I have written to the Minister with a number of questions that my constituents have put to me. Does the hon. Member think that Government Ministers owe our constituents answers about the detail of what they are proposing?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Unemployment Levels · Hansard source

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  Since the general election, the number of people claiming universal credit in my constituency has fallen by 7.3%. Does the Minister agree that central to this Government’s mission of getting people back into work is that it must reach every part of the country, including those areas that have been let down for far too long?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Last week was Parliament Week, and like Members across the House I had the chance to visit some of the brilliant schools in my constituency, to hear from Hartlepool children about the things that matter to them at St Teresa’s, St Peter’s Elwick, West View, and Eldon Grove academy, where pupils showed me their brilliant campaign comics on litter, bullying and the environment. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Hartlepool’s extraordinary young people, and the brilliant school staff who support them, for their outstanding contributions to our community?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing this debate and for all his ongoing work leading on this issue. One of the most remarkable features of the human brain is its ability to change. Neuroscience tells us that the brain has what is known as plasticity: the ability to rebuild, adapt and form new connections after injury. But that is not automatic; as with any muscle, recovery happens only when the brain is exercised, challenged and supported. If someone breaks a leg, we do not simply discharge them and hope that they walk again; we provide structured rehabilitation, physiotherapy and ongoing care. Yet for many people with brain injuries, that is exactly what we do not do. Too often, rehabilitation is determined by postcode rather than need. Some parts of our country offer specialist support; others offer little or nothing at all. Patients are discharged from hospital and sent home often not because they are ready, but because the hospital bed is needed. Families suddenly become care co-ordinators. People struggle with memory, fatigue, speech and personality change without professional help. Let us be clear about the scale of the issue. As has already been mentioned by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, acquired brain injury is the leading cause of death and disability among people under 40 years old. Every year, around 900,000 people experience a brain injury and over 160,000 of them are hospitalised. Around 350,000 hospital admissions involve an acquired brain injury. As has already been mentioned, the cost is enormous. Analysis shows the real cost is over £43 billion, with wider wellbeing costs exceeding £91 billion. We also know that every £1 spent on neuro-rehabilitation saves £16 for the state. Yet community services are underfunded and overstretched, and voluntary organisations warn that systems are close to collapse. This is not just moral failure; it is also economic failure. Behind every statistic is a life, and one of those lives belongs to my constituent, Jonathan Purnell. While playing rugby 34 years ago, Jonathan suffered a massive brain haemorrhage—he was 27 years old. He spent three years under neurosurgical care, and when discharge day finally came, he believed he was starting again, but then the reality hit him, as he describes it, “like a steam train.” There were no services, no pathway and no road map to recovery, so he built his own. Out of his experience, determination and quiet defiance, Jonathan created the 1492 Group, not as a charity in theory, but a lifeline in practice—a place for people with brain injuries to come together, share, rebuild and be heard. I am so proud that it operates today in my constituency of Hartlepool. Jonathan did not wait for the system to change; he began the change. Today, he is not only a survivor, but a force—a campaigner, an advocate and a builder of hope for others still trying to understand their new reality. He should not have to do this alone, and no one else should either. The case for reform is overwhelming. The Government have committed to their acquired brain injury action plan—a process, I have to say, that started as a strategy in December 2021. How long does it take to get this done? It started in December 2021, and here we are in December 2025. What matters now is delivery. We need a statutory right to rehabilitation, consistent national provision, proper data collection and sustainable funding for community services. Above all, we must ensure that people with brain injuries are not written off because recovery is complex. Brain injuries change lives, but failure to act destroys them. Jonathan Purnell shows what is possible, and the Government must now do what is responsible. I urge the Minister to set out a clear timescale for that action plan, the necessary funding commitments and the accountability mechanisms. When it comes to acquired brain injury, warm words are no longer enough: people need support, and they need it now.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I welcome so much that is in the Budget: the measures to reduce the cost of living, most notably the £150 off energy bills; the lifting of half a million children out of poverty, including 3,210 in my constituency of Hartlepool, paid for by taxes on online gambling; and the decision to introduce a mansion tax for properties valued over £2 million, in a nod to our broken council tax system. Sadly, however, a nod is all it was and it does nothing to fix the underlying problem. Council tax is the most unfair, most outdated and most indefensible tax in Britain today. The longer the Government refuse to reform it, the clearer it becomes that working-class towns like mine are expected to carry on paying the price for a lack of political courage. Let us be honest about what council tax really is: it is a relic of the 1990s, frozen in time, frozen in injustice and weaponised against the poorest communities in this country. Nowhere is that clearer than in Hartlepool, where a band D property costs £2,500 a year for its occupants and here in Westminster it is just £1,000. That is not just unfair; it is a scandal hiding in plain sight. For many households in Hartlepool, council tax is not just another bill. It is the bill that breaks the family budget, it is the bill that pushes families into arrears and it is the bill that tips people from coping into crisis. What is the answer from successive Governments? We are told that it is too complicated, we are told that it is too politically difficult and we are told that now is not the right time. For the people of Hartlepool and constituencies like it, it has been the right time for decades. The worst accusation is that if we introduce a new system, there will be winners and losers. The current system has winners and losers. The losers live in terraced houses and the winners live in mansions. There is nothing Labour about defending a system that punishes working-class communities and protects high-value wealth. There is nothing Labour about a tax that hits hardest those with the least. There is nothing Labour about lacking the political courage to sweep the system away once and for all. Council tax does not merely fail working-class towns; it targets them. There is a solution: a proportional property tax, as backed by Fairer Share. That is what we have to introduce. I urge Ministers to summon the courage to get rid of this regressive tax that harms the people I represent.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Reading: Pre-school Support · Hansard source

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  My constituent Lyndsay Hogg has successfully brought a Penguin little library to her community in Hartlepool. It is designed to celebrate Penguin’s 90th anniversary, and the aim is to promote the joy of reading. Hartlepool borough council’s leader, Labour’s Pamela Hargreaves, inspired by Lyndsay’s brilliant work, has promised to expand this excellent idea right across the town. Does the Minister agree that this fantastic initiative will help families with access to books and inspire a love of reading, and will she commit to visiting Hartlepool to see these little libraries for herself?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Reading: Pre-school Support · Hansard source

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  19. What steps her Department is taking to help support families to read with their child before they start nursery and school.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Young People not in Education, Employment or Training · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on further education and lifelong learning. This debate matters deeply to my constituency. Hartlepool has one of the highest levels of young people not in education, employment or training in the country, and behind every single number is a young person with untapped potential. Hartlepool is also paying the price for that unrealised talent. It is a town that used to build things—shipyards, factories and docks. Our people were makers: they built the ships that sailed the world, the machinery that powered the country and the homes and streets that held our communities together. For too long, however, our view of education has not meant education in all its forms; it has meant academic education. That is wrong. Right now, Britain needs welders, bricklayers, engineers and electricians—workers who can build the houses, roads, factories and energy systems that we need to get our country moving again. I therefore welcome the Government’s decision to scrap the target for half of young people to go to university. That was the right decision, and it starts to change the legacy of the previous Government. The Hartlepool college of further education, for example, had its budget cut by 10% in real terms at the same time as the previous Government put those essential skills on the points-based immigration system—importing talent from abroad instead of training it here at home. That is a salient lesson in how not to deal with skills in our country. I say to the Minister: let us give vocational routes the respect they deserve by funding them properly, champion technical education, and rebuild further education as the backbone of towns such as Hartlepool. We should remove those key roles from our immigration shortage lists, recognising that the real shortage comes from years of neglect, and instead invest in our young people to give them the skills that they need to rebuild this country.

• 25 Nov 2025 · G20 and Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister rightly said in his statement that Putin continues to seek to undermine our security. Those efforts were aided and abetted by Reform’s Nathan Gill when he took Russian bribes. He is a traitor to this country. How plausible does the Prime Minister think it is for that just to have been an isolated incident? Does he think that Reform’s refusal to investigate its own party and find out how many more Putin puppets and traitors lurk there tells its own story?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Critical Minerals Strategy · Hansard source

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  I welcome the statement from the Minister, who is of course my constituency neighbour. He knows full well that we represent areas that built this country and were far too often left behind by the last Government, by globalisation and by deindustrialisation. Can he assure me that this strategy and our wider industrial strategy will benefit those areas, like Teesside and Hartlepool, that did so much to build this country?

• 18 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Hartlepool has one of the largest clean energy economies in the north of England with thousands of local jobs—jobs that Reform would destroy. At the same time, we have one of the largest nuclear industries. We have signed the biggest deal in our history—jobs that the Greens would destroy. Does the Minister agree that when it comes to energy policy, we’ve got clowns to the left of us and jokers to the right?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Asylum Policy · Hansard source

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  I welcome this statement and can say clearly to the Home Secretary that she will have my complete support in implementing the measures within it and in doing whatever it takes to fix our broken asylum system and secure our borders. One of the consequences of the broken system is what can only be described as the targeting of deprived communities like Hartlepool by private companies charged with providing asylum accommodation. We have started to bring the numbers down. Does the Home Secretary agree that that process must continue to put fairness back into our system?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Hartlepool police do a magnificent job, but like police in the rest of the Cleveland force area, they are hamstrung by a funding formula that is broken. The victims core grant works out at £7 a crime in my constituency. Down the road in North Yorkshire, the figure is £19 a crime. That is unfair and unjust. Can the Minister please commit to fixing this fundamental unfairness?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa · Hansard source

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  I welcome this announcement about small modular reactors. Thanks to the landmark deal done back in September, Hartlepool will now lead the world in advanced modular reactors, which will bring £12 billion of economic input and 2,500 jobs, and power 1.5 million homes. The pace in getting that project started is critical, so what will this Government do to ensure that regulatory alignment is in place so that spades are in the ground as soon as humanly possible?