Luke Charters MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Feb 2026 · Young Children’s Screen Time · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he is doing through the Labour group for men and boys. It is refreshing that this Government, and particularly the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, are carefully considering this with a lot of deep thought. The consultation will not look just for one silver bullet; it will look at a variety of options. Children are spending hours a day on platforms designed to maximise engagement and deliver constant dopamine hits through short-form video content and infinite scroll loops. The evidence increasingly shows that that is affecting attention, behaviour in schools, sleep and emotional regulation.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Young Children’s Screen Time · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for sharing his personal experience with us. I completely agree that young people need support in their real life, whether through youth services or physical activity.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Young Children’s Screen Time · Hansard source

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  I wish my hon. Friend’s daughter a happy birthday and thank her for the work she is doing as a paediatric nurse. “Cocomelon” has been described as “visual fentanyl” for young children. What is much more appropriate, particularly at a younger age, is more hand-drawn types of content, like “Peppa Pig”. Perhaps we all ought to go for a bit more Peppa and a bit less JJ. You need not take my word for it, Sir Jeremy: research published by the Department for Education showed that nearly 98% of children under the age of two engage with screens every day. A University College London study in 2026 has found that toddlers now average about two hours of screen time daily—far more than my little lad is allowed. Analysis from the Centre for Social Justice estimates that, very sadly, nearly 800,000 under-fives are now using social media. Ofcom data from 2024 reveals that one third of five to seven-year-olds are using social media without any supervision. That scares the living daylights out of me as a parent. Such data is stark, but it is just part of the story. Somewhat ironically, I turned to social media to ask my constituents about their own experiences with their young children, and they expressed concern about more than the quantity of screen time that children have. Parents responded that they were even more worried about the type of content to which children are exposed. One teacher shared with me feedback from NASUWT’s “Better Deal on Behaviour” report, with a year 1 teacher describing how children were beginning to mimic inappropriate behaviour that they had seen online, despite being far too young to understand it. Another raised the idea of digital diets. They made the point that screen time can range from something as harmless as using Google Maps to find the local library, to accessing inappropriate material. To go back to the words of Mr P, not all screen time is created equal. On this point, it feels timely to mention that I am pleased the Government have this week launched a new campaign, “You Won’t Know until You Ask”, to address harmful content. That follows the finding from YouGov that half of British parents admit to never speaking to their children about toxic content. Encouraging parents to sit down with their children and talk about online harms helps to break down barriers. It is a healthy step in the right direction.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Young Children’s Screen Time · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of screen time on young children. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy; thank you for your time this morning. I have always said that I am a dad first and an MP second. My son Robin is three; he is kind, and he is happiest when he is outside playing. I am proud of him every single day. My youngest, Louis, is seven months old, and he is already curious about the world, watching and taking everything in. When this job takes me away from them, it hurts. One thing is very clear: when I am at home, I need to be a properly present dad. I want to be honest with the House: there were weeks when my phone told me I was spending more than six hours a day on it. Even on weekends, when family time should be protected, it was four or five hours. When kids are young, we never get that time back, and every hour counts. Smartphones, though, are a feat of human engineering and have been deliberately designed to take our attention, quietly and relentlessly. I had to make a deliberate change for my two boys: cutting my screen time down, choosing to be on the floor building Brio—even making a Duplo Parliament—rather than being half present and half scrolling. Present fatherhood starts with all of us putting the phone down.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Standards in Public Life · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for all that he is doing to overhaul standards in public life, following the absolute bin fire that the Conservative party left behind. Peter Mandelson is reportedly in receipt of a severance payment. As a former regulator, I know that clawback is an important tool. If possible, Peter Mandelson should be forced to pay back every single penny to the British people. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q5. An EU agrifood deal would boost exports and cut supermarket prices. The CBI backs it, and according to Best for Britain’s polling, 62% of the public do, but—surprise, surprise!—Reform opposes it. I thought the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) wanted 30p food. Does the Prime Minister agree that while some on the Opposition Benches prefer to have temper tantrums at Brussels, this Labour Government must build closer ties with Europe to cut the price of the weekly shop?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Defence Industry: Environmental, Social and Governance Requirements · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I genuinely thank the hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) for securing this debate and for his kind words. We can work cross-party to change the culture across financial services with our voices from this place. May I also say what a pleasure it is to be here with my hon. Friend the Minister? I thank her for all her work on Op Courage and Op Ascend, and on veterans’ homelessness. I want to be clear: ESG does not need to get in the way of lending to SMEs. It is important to say from the outset that many conflate ESG rules with broader ethical and commercial decisions that firms make; I will perhaps come back to that. I speak from some professional experience: I was acting head of compliance for a fintech where day in, day out, I had to make calls on whether to do business with some of these customers. ESG can, in limited circumstances, be interpreted as blocking lending to SMEs, something that is inconsistent and increasingly at odds with our national security, industrial strategy and economic resilience. I will touch on what I believe is an artificial distinction between so-called dual-use military technology and single-use military equipment. I come across so many main high street lenders that find this difficult. British high street lenders have every right to put up their hands and say, “We do not want to lend to any company that is involved in chemical weapons or cluster munitions.” They have every right to look at some of the United Nations weapons conventions and say, “We do not want anything to do with them.” However, many lenders are not lending to dual-use military equipment makers. I will give some examples. I met a fantastic company, Needles and Pins Aerospace, at Defence and Security Equipment International. The company has found banking, insurance and finance very difficult. It produces the insulation that goes on military helicopters—helicopters, by the way, engaged in humanitarian aid missions around the world. The insulation that goes in those helicopters is not an ordnance or a bomb; it is there to protect our British armed forces. It is worth bearing in mind that these lenders and their compliance departments—and I was from that parish—should really get to know the products and services that their customers want to seek finance for. Another example from my constituency is Edmund Optics, which produces prisms and lenses. There are medical, aerospace, commercial satellite and civilian aircraft applications for those. However, some of those products and services have a dual use—there is also a military use to them. Again, lenders get caught up in a very binary distinction; they should be spending more time understanding the products and services that companies provide. I want to give another shout-out, this time to 4GD, a data-driven defence training SME with which I have worked extensively, along with ADS, the industry trade body. I saw 4GD’s founder Rob yesterday, and he has told me countless stories about being debanked. His business is about training British armed forces to do what they do better, so that they are more equipped against our adversaries, safer and more resilient. There is nothing more ethical than that. The fact that high street lenders have closed their doors to that commercial opportunity shows the inherent laziness among some people in compliance departments, who refuse to understand the products and services for which their prospective customers are seeking finance. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Windsor for referencing the work I have done alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Alex Baker). Last year, along with 100 Labour parliamentarians, we wrote to fund and bank managers about ESG. I was really pleased that two things came off the back of that. First, some funds marketed as sustainable said they were going to invest in defence companies, because they found nothing in the rules that inherently disbars sustainable funds from investing in defence—there is nothing in the regulator’s rulebook that does that. That is just a fact, and that fact was ultimately confirmed by my old employer, the Financial Conduct Authority. I am immensely grateful to its chief exec, Nikhil, for his speech last year on defence, and for the FCA’s statement. The FCA has been rock solid and clear that there is no tension between ESG regulatory rules and defence financing—none whatsoever. I say to the financial services practitioners who are listening: please take heed of that. As I mentioned, there have been some good shifts, but ESG and broader ethical considerations are only part of the structural barriers facing defence firms. Recent work by colleagues across the House, including a report I co-authored, “Rewiring British Defence Financing”, makes the point clearly. That work shows that ESG considerations sit alongside and are outweighed by deeper, more persistent problems across access to capital, commercial lending risk, cash-flow pressures, contracting structures and compliance complexity. Defence SMEs are not failing to secure finance because they are somehow irresponsible actors, but because they operate in an ecosystem defined by long payment cycles, sometimes single dominant customers like the primes, uncertain procurement pipelines and fragmented support across Government. On that last point, let me turn to the work of my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, who cannot be here today. He has done some phenomenal work setting up the office for small business growth in the Ministry of Defence, which is designed to break down some of the contractual complexities and the fear factor that many defence SMEs face when trying to contract with the MOD. I am happy to confirm to the House that one company in my York Outer constituency, Flyby Technology, will be part of the new OSBG’s shaping cohort, to get into the nitty-gritty of how we can streamline the contracting processes for SMEs, in line with the Government’s mission to increase the direct spend in defence SMEs across the country. I want to touch on the role of primes when it comes to SMEs in particular. Sometimes the cash-flow challenges created by defence primes are not acceptable. The primes are great employers in this country. I have been to Barrow-in-Furness and seen at first hand how BAE Systems is transforming the fortunes of that town. The primes have a great understanding of their tier 2, 3 and 4 suppliers, but they need to make sure that they pay SMEs on time and quickly. This is not a mundane point. Were Members to sit down with the chief financial officers of these SMEs and look at their cash flows, it would be clear: a 90-day payment term with a prime, or even a 120-day payment term, increases working capital requirements. The company then has to go out to lenders to try to get financing to cover the shortfall, because the primes are really slow. In turn, that means that when defence SMEs try to get loans for inventory or asset financing, they are often offered worse terms. Primes have a duty to start paying the wonderful SMEs of Britain quickly, because improving their payment terms will create a cyclical effect. Some great primes are better at it. Overall, the result is a system in which highly capable, export-ready firms struggle with the basics—securing bank accounts, insurance and working capital—not at the margins but as a matter of course. I am worried that some insurers are becoming increasingly hesitant about insuring defence companies because of the risk of political violence. I have worked with Aviva and others on this issue. It is interesting to note that some of the protesters who target the insurers may well themselves have insurance policies with them, or their defined-contribution workplace pensions may well be held in one of these insurer’s accounts. There is a degree of hypocrisy there. Insurers should have every confidence from Members in this place that they are doing right by the defence sector in supporting its growth and development. Why do all these complexities matter? As the hon. Member for Windsor touched on, they create serious consequences, because if challenges mount up, they could undermine our sovereign defence capability. If British firms cannot raise capital here, what will they do? They may choose to scale abroad or sell to overseas buyers rather than to the British base, or fail altogether. We could become more dependent on foreign supply chains for critical technologies. The Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), has done some really strong work on critical minerals and our sovereign capability in that respect. We have to ensure that there is a sovereign financial base to support our sovereign defence industry. The challenges we have talked about in procurement, ESG and access to finance hit SMEs the hardest. They do not have big teams of financial experts, and the larger primes can navigate the challenges more easily as they have access to wider capital pools that the smaller firms do not. There is a risk of strategic contradiction, because on the one hand we are asking defence firms to scale, innovate and deliver at pace, but on the other hand we seem to be tolerating a financial system that treats some firms as a reputational liability. That is not sustainable, to borrow a term. The issue is not necessarily ESG principles themselves, but the absence of clarity in how lenders apply their risk tolerance to defence. ESG concerns are only one part of the financing challenge facing defence firms, alongside credit risk, contracting structures and cash flow, but they are the tip of the iceberg. Because these issues are often poorly defined, they create uncertainty that deters lending. What is missing is a shared understanding across Government, regulators and financial institutions that defence, when conducted lawfully, in line with UN weapons conventions and in support of democratic security, is not a problem but a public good to be enabled. The hon. Member for Windsor touched on the theme of their being nothing more ethical than lending to defence companies that are equipping our Ukrainian friends. Other countries around the world understand that. The US has been much more explicit in aligning its financial system with its national security priorities, particularly in terms of single-use and lethal military equipment. What needs to change? There is an overwhelming case for a multilateral defence bank—such as the proposed defence, security and resilience bank—that would meet some of the financing challenges. We cannot just look at incremental fixes. I do not want to take up too much time on that, but there is a role for multilateral development finance. As the report I wrote sets out, private capital alone is not filling the gap, particularly for SMEs in the dual-use space, and where finance does flow, it can be short term. I do not want to get into the details, but we need to make sure that the institutions of the state, be that the NSSIF—the national security strategic investment fund, an arm’s length body that is part of the British Business Bank—or the National Wealth Fund or UK Defence Innovation, sing together and make sure that their finance comes into innovative technologies. We need to learn the lessons from the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency in the US. I heard that a significant proportion of US GDP growth comes from the DARPA investments of the 1980s—of course, that agency invented the internet, the smartphone and so many other underlying technologies. Let us learn from the leadership role of DARPA.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Defence Industry: Environmental, Social and Governance Requirements · Hansard source

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  When it comes to our European friends, we have to have cross-border financing. I have met some of the main German commercial lenders that want to come in; likewise, British financial services are investing in success stories such as Rheinmetall and some of the great European defence brands. We have to come together, not just with our European friends, but with Canada and other allied nations around the world, to approach defence financing on a multilateral basis. That is the real lesson. Let me touch on what our adversaries are doing. They know that they need to innovate quickly when it comes to building up their own financing capabilities. Russia is moving towards more off-balance-sheet lending to a lot of its defence sector. Russian advance manufacturing companies are increasingly gaining access to the Chinese bond market. In general, the Russian war economy is mobilising at pace. Clearly, when it comes to some of our adversaries’ financing mechanisms, they are daring to do things differently—according, of course, to the rule books and ethics of their particular countries. We need to be agile enough to reform our own financing capabilities at pace, too. I am very concerned that we risk forcing British defence SMEs to seek foreign ownership, to offshore their operations or to seek finance overseas simply to survive. That is strategic self-harm when it comes to our sovereign defence capabilities. You will be pleased to hear, Ms McVey, that I am about to close. In an era of renewed geopolitical competition, the question is not whether the state should play a role in defence finance, but whether we are prepared to act now in order to do so with the seriousness that our security environment demands. I believe that a strong defence financing sector acts as a deterrent to some of our adversaries and means that, where we need to scale industrial capability much quicker, we are ready to do so, if we have a defence financing revolution. This is not a choice between values and security; it is about recognising that, in the world we live in, the two are inseparable. I hope the Minister will take this opportunity to set out how the Government can encourage lenders to turn on the taps for some of the innovative defence SMEs, no matter whether they are producing prisms, training our special forces or insulating our helicopters. There is nothing more ethical, in our modern world, than supporting the defence SMEs that are maintaining our collective security.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Business Rates · Hansard source

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  I thank Gary at the Marcia Inn in Bishopthorpe and Adam at the Wenlock Arms in Wheldrake for meeting me to discuss support for pubs. The Tories created a ticking time bomb on business rates, then walked away, like someone who spilled a pint and left us to mop it up. Does the Minister agree that this Government are determined to back legendary landlords in Britain, like Gary and Adam?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. It was great to be at the headquarters of what3words for the speech by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster about moving fast and fixing things. Three words to describe the previous Government are: total utter shambles. Does my right hon. Friend agree that public services must be not only value for money, but delivered quickly, and must have Labour values at their very heart?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Children are entitled to 30 hours of free childcare from the term after they turn nine months old, meaning that in practice some children are actually 13 months old before they get the funding. I thank Mr P and my constituent Joeli Brearley for raising this issue. Will the Minister meet me to see whether we can fix this injustice?

• 15 Jan 2026 · Food Inflation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is spot on. If I can give a shout out to one of my constituents, I love buying from Grey Leys farm. It produces the most beautiful Jersey milk. Would it not be brilliant if schools and hospitals in the York area bought local dairy products? Speaking of milk, we should have an awareness of food inflation’s impact on gluten-free and similar products for allergy sufferers and those with intolerances. Tory Britain was defined by misery. Prices were up, wages squeezed and families left to struggle. Today, we are cutting prescription charges, tackling rail fares and easing the pressure where we can, but we must go further on food inflation to support the hard-working families of Britain.

• 15 Jan 2026 · Food Inflation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) for securing today’s debate. I know that you have both been consistent voices on food insecurity. I start by giving a shout out to a local legend. Adam Raffell of the York Trussell Trust has done amazing work for families in York, for which I thank him today. I also thank the Prime Minister for his relentless focus on the cost of living, on which we have to bear down. The Food and Drink Federation has shown that, since January 2020, food inflation has consistently outstripped non-food inflation. What was the cause? It was when the damaging and disastrous botched Brexit deal came into effect. Over the channel, our European neighbours, to be fair, have also faced rising food costs, but nowhere near as sharply. UK food inflation peaked at nearly 20%, year on year, in 2023 under the Conservative party’s watch, while countries such as Germany and France peaked lower and returned to normal much faster. The UK is worse off, which tells us that we have to work more closely with our European friends. The Prime Minister recently said: “if it’s in our national interest to have…closer alignment with the single market…we should consider that”, and when it comes to food price inflation, I think the answer is a resounding yes. Although Reform and the Tories want to shout at Brussels, that will not pay for people’s weekly food shop. An SPS agreement and closer alignment would strip out so much red tape, checks and delays. Fewer inspections and mutually recognised standards would mean less time stuck at the border, lower costs for hauliers and fewer spoiled loads. All those savings could be passed on to the hard-working families of this country. Like any toddler, my son Robin’s favourite food item is, of course, the Freddo frog. The famous Freddo index shows that since I was born—in 1995, believe it or not —there has been a 260% increase in the cost of the treasured Freddo. However, we also know of the phenomenon called shrinkflation. A few weeks ago, many of us gathered around the Christmas tree with our families, enjoying a tub of choccies. This year’s tubs of Roses were more than 100 grams lighter than they were in 2018, but the cost has increased by 20%. If shrinkflation is so significant, does the Minister agree with the idea that it perhaps needs to be reflected on food packaging? Another iconic British institution is the meal deal. We were all devastated when its price tipped from £3 to £3.50 or more—it was £3 in Tesco for over a decade. Can I make a confession to the House? As a tight Yorkshireman, I am always grabbing the three most expensive products—crisps, drink and sarnie—even if I do not really like them, just to get the biggest discount. I have written to some retailers, saying, “Shouldn’t we have a bit of an arms race? Who can be the first supermarket to get the meal deal back down to £3.50?” What a wonderful cost of living measure that would be for the grafters of Britain. As a northerner, can I turn to another place to get a hearty snack? The Greggs sausage roll is well up there and, yes, I would pick Greggs over Gail’s any day of the week. However, the price of a simple sausage roll has shot up by more than 50% in less than a decade. Something is not quite right there. It has gone up by 53% since 2016—I wonder what happened in that year. If anyone from Greggs is watching, can we have a serious deal on sausage rolls? Perhaps we could have a cost of living week when sausage rolls are just a quid? What can we do? We need supermarkets and big food brands to play their part. They are making record profits, which should come with responsibility. Initiatives such as a cost of living week could be a start. Discounts on essentials, loyalty schemes that really make a difference and fair pricing on some staples should be the norm. We need more transparency, and labels should provide that.

• 14 Jan 2026 · Northern Powerhouse Rail · Hansard source

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  By my reckoning, York is the biggest winner of this new rail revolution. The new Haxby/York North station; the York station masterplan upgrade; the trans-Pennine route upgrade; and the fantastic NPR new connections—which does my right hon. Friend think delivers the most for my constituents?

• 14 Jan 2026 · Ajax Programme · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) on introducing the debate, and thank him for his service in the Royal Yorkshire Regiment. May I take the House back to a visit I made to the NATO Forward Land Forces contribution as part of Operation Cabrit? I spent time in a Challenger 2 tank, and what was most impressive was not the size, the armour or the firepower, but the complete confidence that its crew had in the vehicle. Ajax was meant to deserve and earn the same trust. Before I come on to the failures in the programme, however, I want to say something about the workers in south Wales: they deserve credit for their graft and determination, not blame. The Public Accounts Committee, of which I was previously a member, has made it clear what went wrong. It found that the programme was over-specified from the outset, with about 1,200 individual requirements imposed on what was supposedly an adapted off-the-shelf design. In reality, Ajax was neither off-the-shelf nor fully bespoke, and what was in between was far riskier. Never again must defence procurements over-specify requirements; that should be a red flag right from the start. Computer models were relied upon to assess vibration and noise rather than vigorous early testing. The Public Accounts Committee found that that approach had failed, and that the Department at the time did not fully understand the vehicle’s characteristics before subjecting soldiers to trials. Our armed forces should never have been used as human guinea pigs. The independent Sheldon review is more damning: it found a culture in which bad news was softened as it travelled up the management chain. Senior leaders were left without a clear, honest picture of what was really happening. I thank all the soldiers who stepped forward to raise safety concerns. Despite the warnings that were given, the safety notices that were issued and the whistleblowers who came forward, GD repeatedly underplayed the scale of those issues, so it is reasonable to ask a simple question: if the design ultimately lay with the contractor, would the chief executive officer of GD be happy to have their son or daughter sent on to a battlefield in an Ajax? If those design failures did rest with GD, the taxpayer should not be left carrying the cost of retrofit. I will touch briefly on defence exports. We must learn lessons from those abroad, particularly Leopard, which is a main battle tank. That platform was modular, upgradeable and interoperable, which meant it was a much stronger prospect for our defence export. When it comes to procurement, we should always bear defence exports in mind. There are wider lessons too for the forthcoming defence investment plan, which must make a decisive break. We need a system that is capable of designing and testing earlier on, rather than one that rushes into production in the hopes that problems can be fixed later on. Ajax must be a turning point, not just for this vehicle, but for how we procure defence capability in this country in the future. My hon. Friend the Minister is one of the most impressive forces in British politics; if he can climb Mount Everest in just five days—to raise money for our veterans, no less—I have no doubt about his ability to get to grips with one of the most challenging problems facing defence procurement today.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Call for General Election · Hansard source

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  I am genuinely quite baffled that so many Conservative and Reform MPs are here, given that they have missed important debates in this House on things like employment rights. To be fair to the Conservatives, they went to the debates on VE Day and VJ Day; there were no Reform MPs at those debates. What does my hon. Friend make of that?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Call for General Election · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member uses the term “betrayal”. I know he has been a steadfast voice for the defence of the Ukrainian people, so does he agree that the biggest betrayal this country has seen from a politician has been Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform in Wales, taking money from a foreign power?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Student Finance (Review of Payment Schedules) · Hansard source

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  Yes, I know—my grey hair and tired eyes from my two amazing young boys make me look just a little bit older. It is this Labour Government who are giving younger people a better deal: votes at 16; better wages and rights for student workers; and bringing back targeted maintenance grants. Of course, on the latter, we should always be looking to go that bit further. Reform Members just do not care about young people. They want to cut their wages—

• 7 Jan 2026 · Student Finance (Review of Payment Schedules) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to review the scheduling of student finance payments to undergraduates; to require the review to consider advance provision of certain student finance payments in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes. Today, I introduce the Student Finance (Review of Payment Schedules) Bill. A former civil servant—one of the designers of the current student finance system—once told me that the loan system has become a Frankenstein’s monster. Maintenance loan payment dates simply do not line up with the reality of students’ lives. Rent and bills are due monthly but student finance arrives in infrequent, uneven chunks, forcing students to budget against uncertainty or rely on overdrafts simply to get by. The system assumes a level of financial resilience that many students simply do not have—and even once students graduate, the problems just do not stop. Repayment is needlessly complex and riddled with ludicrous features, such as charging higher interest rates to those who go on to earn more. The result is a system that adds stress during study, confusion after graduation and long-term financial insecurity for an entire generation. As one of the youngest MPs, who is still repaying a plan 2 loan, I recognise many of those challenges. I work with the University of York students’ union, whose representatives are sat in the Public Gallery, on cost of living issues such as bus fares for students locally. Today’s Bill, however, seeks to make student finance work better for the over 2 million undergraduate students in this country, and it would build on the work of this Labour Government to reintroduce targeted maintenance grants for students from the lowest income households. We need to change the way maintenance loans are distributed. Scotland’s student finance system administers monthly maintenance payments. Long story short, that is the model that needs to be explored for England and Wales. It comes at no extra cost and is a no-brainer. Many students face financial strain because maintenance loans are paid termly. For a student receiving the maximum £10,200 outside London, that creates three lump-sum payments of approximately £3,400 each. Let us imagine receiving four months of salary all at once; that is the system we expect students to navigate. Many are at the point in their lives when they are still learning those essential budgeting skills. The termly payment schedule fuels cash-flow challenges, leading to students maxing out overdrafts—nearly one in three with an overdraft have maxed out their facilities at some point—and creating problem debt, pushing them to other forms of credit simply to get by. There is also a particularly acute pressure point as students transition between years at university, when rent deposits are due before their student finance payments arrive. Students should not be pushed into financial worry, especially after a stressful period of sitting their exams, simply because of a payment scheduling mismatch. That is why I believe that we should move to monthly payments. Not only would it give students greater financial stability and reduce stress, but it would better reflect the world of work once students leave uni and start getting their first full-time payslips. For second and third-year students, being able to access finance from July, when rent often begins, would be genuinely transformative. At the moment, we force families to step in, or we force students who do not have that safety net into overdrafts. Student finance can also act as a barrier for working-class students from the moment they get their A-level results because of the up-front costs before they even go to university. Pots and pans, rent deposits, books, software, travel passes, course subscriptions—the costs all stack up. The reality is that by the time a student sets foot in their first lecture, they have already navigated a stressful and uneven financial landscape. I heard of a student who could not afford the train ticket to get to university because their student finance had not arrived. Starting uni should be memorable, not miserable. Another student who was a care leaver wrote to me saying that they had experienced the “just about coping” stage at first hand. They recalled the “genuine terror” of not knowing how they would pay their rent because their loan had not landed. Research by Student Minds, covered by the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, showed that nearly half of students felt the rising cost of living was impacting their mental health. The simple but transformative fixes I have outlined today would make a huge difference, and student unions across the country, including the National Union of Students, agree. Just some of the SUs that are backing my Bill include Manchester, University College London, Leeds, Birmingham, Exeter, Sheffield, Liverpool, Greenwich, Newcastle and Bath Spa, and these represent around 350,000 students. When we add in Durham, Derby, Bath, Buckinghamshire, Staffordshire, Lancaster, Essex, Leeds Trinity, Chester, Royal Holloway, Bradford, Roehampton, Worcester, the University of Law, Winchester, University College Birmingham, Liverpool Hope, the Arts University Bournemouth, Buckingham and of course York, we have student unions representing a third of all the students in the country supporting this Bill and these small tweaks today. Thank you! I am still getting letters of support even now. I want to give special thanks to Amira Campbell, the president of the NUS, who is also backing my Bill. She says: “Student finance is in dire need of reform and a review into the payment plan is a great place to start. We’d strongly support this review and a move to monthly payments which would allow students to better budget their income, particularly over the summer where bills come in, but their income does not.” Just briefly on loan repayments, plan 2 borrowers, including me, were never clearly told that higher graduate earnings meant higher loan interest. As a former Financial Conduct Authority regulator, I can tell the House that, although the regulations do not apply to student loans, my honest view is that the communication around student loan repayments, where income is linked to interest rates, feels like a mis-selling scandal waiting to unfold. In summary, the under-30s have been forgotten about in British politics for far too long. You may not believe it, Mr Speaker, but it was only a few months ago that I left that age group—

• 7 Jan 2026 · Student Finance (Review of Payment Schedules) · Hansard source

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  Well, they want to cut the national minimum wage for young people. What a scandal! The Greens are peddling false hope to students and have no realistic plan to help with the cost of living. Their Members are not even here today. And this entire mess is totally of the Tory-led coalition Government’s making—the one I went to university under, by the way. We must help students with the cost of living so that they can live up to their full potential, rather than having a terrible experience at uni because they are struggling to make ends meet. So let us make a simple fix to the timings of maintenance loans to support millions of students up and down the country. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Mr Luke Charters, Adam Jogee, Abtisam Mohamed, Tom Hayes, Pam Cox, Luke Myer, Mike Reader, Sarah Russell, Gareth Snell, Afzal Khan, Sam Carling and Dr Jeevun Sandher present the Bill. Mr Luke Charters accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 16 January, and to be printed (Bill 357).

• 6 Jan 2026 · Energy Jobs: Yorkshire and the Humber · Hansard source

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  Happy new year, Mr Speaker. I am proud of York College in my constituency, where talented students are mastering apprenticeships that will power our clean energy future. York College is considering becoming a clean energy technical excellence college under the outstanding leadership of Ken Merry. Will the Secretary of State welcome that and visit the college to see how it leads the way in further education in preparing for the clean energy jobs of the future?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Energy Jobs: Yorkshire and the Humber · Hansard source

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  12. What steps he is taking to create jobs in the energy sector in Yorkshire and the Humber.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Small-scale Fracking Ban · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Like her, I have fought against fracking for years, but Reform UK wants to drill into our beautiful countryside in York Outer, destroying towns and villages and allowing house prices to plummet in the process. They want to drill into and vandalise our beautiful York and North Yorkshire countryside. Does my hon. Friend agree that Reform poses a danger, that it would totally ruin York Outer and Scarborough and Whitby, and that it must be stopped?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Small-scale Fracking Ban · Hansard source

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  In that evidence, will the Minister include water scarcity? In York and across the region, people have not been able to fill up a paddling pool, so why should water be used in low-volume fracking?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Small-scale Fracking Ban · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. On these planning applications, we must incorporate the fact that fracking leads to water scarcity—and our region has had a hosepipe ban that has only recently been lifted. Would my hon. Friend agree that, when it comes to these planning applications, we must understand the impacts on water scarcity?