Luke Evans MP: speeches

Speeches

• 26 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a surprise to see the Minister so ratty and full of bluster, so I am going to ask him a technical question that I would appreciate his answer to. We have talked about the 1966 UK-US exchange of notes; the question is whether the Government can go ahead with the Chagos deal without the US. Where do the Government stand? Does the deal have to have the US’s blessing, or can the Government do it without that blessing, and with no change or negotiation of the 1966 contract?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. In the Budget, the Chancellor froze thresholds, which brings state pensioners into paying tax. This was raised with the Chancellor, who said that she did not want that to happen and that she would create a workaround. However, only two weeks ago we voted on the Finance Bill, which the Labour party pushed through, and as it stands that means that pensioners will pay tax on their state pension. What is the DWP doing to ensure that they will not pay tax on their state pension or have to submit a tax return?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Since the Budget, the hospitality industry has been very anxious. We have heard from the Treasury and the Chancellor that a package is coming forward. I spoke in the Budget debate asking when it will come forward, we have had urgent questions about it, and we have had an Opposition day debate. Even when debating the Finance (No. 2) Bill, we directly asked the Minister when the package is coming forward. We still need those answers for pubs, restaurants, cafés and hotels; they need to know who is in and who is out. Will the Leader of the House ask the Chancellor to come to the House next week to make a statement on exactly this subject in order to end the anxiety in the hospitality industry?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman be supporting Lords amendment 1, given that he has just specified that the base needs to be used for military purposes? If that use becomes impossible, because the islands go under water, for example—which is a real risk—would he want to carry on paying for the deal?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not sure which amendments are being addressed. There are at least five on the amendment paper to be talked about. I just wondered if Russia is relevant to any of those amendments.

• 20 Jan 2026 · ADHD Diagnosis · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to respond on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition. I thank the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) for getting so many MPs here to talk about such an important topic. His tribute to Matty Lock was truly epic. The only thing I am sad about is that we could easily have filled a 90-minute debate. Perhaps he can take note of that for the next time that he applies for such a debate. Time is short, so I will skip to the most important questions. This debate is about ADHD diagnosis, and there is no disagreement among Members on both sides of the House about the challenges that we face. We have seen the numbers go up, so the question is: what are the Government prepared to do about it, and how can the House work to facilitate them in that? Before the general election, the previous Government worked with NHS England to establish the independent ADHD taskforce, with the aim of developing a data improvement plan. As we have heard, there have been two iterations of that. The Minister confirmed in a written ministerial answer to the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) on 17 November that the Government are considering those recommendations. Will the Government respond to the taskforce’s recommendations today? If not, when will they do so? If so, will they take on all the recommendations, or will they challenge some? I commend the Government on commissioning their own independent review into autism and ADHD. They are often linked and there can be co-morbidities, which are important to consider. As we have heard, there is no distinct timeline for that—summer is a long period of time—so I would be grateful if the Minister can set out exactly how the Government define “summer”. How will that intertwine with the work that the taskforce has already done? Will that work get superseded, or will the two pieces of work dovetail together? Finally, I want to talk about accountability and delivery. I understand that NHS England has identified reducing long waits for ADHD assessments as a priority in the medium-term planning framework. With NHS England set to be abolished, it is unclear how those priorities will be maintained and enforced. Will the Minister confirm that reducing the long waits for ADHD assessment will remain an explicit national priority for the NHS? How will the Government enforce that, given that NHS England is being taken away, and ensure consistency across integrated care boards? I welcome the acknowledgement in a recent written answer that data on ADHD waiting times at ICB level is currently not held centrally, but that there is an intention to publish it in 2026 or 2027. That transparency matters, so will the Minister confirm that the plans to publish ICB-level ADHD waiting time data will continue regardless of the structures of the NHS after the change? Will he provide an indicative timeline for the delivery? Is it 2026 or 2027? Will the Government publish more data about Right to Choose that shows what is and is not successful, and what is good practice and what can be improved? That is one of the ways to deal with the postcode lottery. At the heart of this debate is the fact that behind the numbers is a person, a child or a family seeking answers, support and stability. It is our duty in this House to hold the Government to account for delivering that for all across the nation.

• 20 Jan 2026 · ADHD Diagnosis · Hansard source

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  On that point, the Minister mentioned the taskforce. It did produce its report, with its recommendations, and the Government have not yet responded to those recommendations. Will the Minister give a timescale for when he is looking to do so?

• 20 Jan 2026 · ADHD Diagnosis · Hansard source

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  To clarify, if it is going to dovetail, is he suggesting that the recommendations will come out in the report in the summer, all in one lump, or will we see the recommendations of the taskforce come out before we see the full report of the newly commissioned work?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  I am going to ask again: does this make the British public safer—yes or no?

• 14 Jan 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q10. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to the violence against women and girls strategy, but I and many others have concerns about stigmatising young boys, men and masculinity as inherently toxic, especially when suicide is the No. 1 killer of young men. Is it about time that we had a Minister for men and boys? This is about women and men, not women or men.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend has served in government, so he understands why it is important to have a fixed point that all of us in this House can reference, as well as—most importantly—his constituents who own a pub, a café or a hotel and are going to be impacted. That is why I want to see new clause 9 passed, because it will go a long way towards helping us understand the impacts those people are facing. If the Government are going to do something for pubs, as is rumoured, I simply pose the question, “Why pubs, and not cafés, restaurants or hotels?” Turning to new clause 26, if my memory serves me right, the biggest cheer that the 2024 Budget got from Labour Members was when the 1p reduction in the pint was announced. What do we see this time around in the Budget? A 2p increase—that did not get cheered. Again, maybe Labour Members did not see it, or maybe it was hidden in the detail, which brings us to where we are today. This seems to be the problem: whether we are debating thresholds, as we did last night, or pubs, rateable values and duty today, either the Government do not know what they are doing, or they are wilfully pulling the wool over our constituents’ eyes. Fortunately, though, the Opposition are here to point out the wrong that is happening—to do our duty as an Opposition and hold the Government to account by tabling amendments such as new clause 26. That is why I will be supporting new clauses 9 and 26. Until we see some support for pubs, this is the only way that we in this House can hold the Government accountable and apply transparency to what is actually going on in the Treasury, in No. 10, and in the country.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member share my concern that often the only way that publicans can get around this issue is to either reduce their hours, reduce their staffing or take on more themselves, when they are already working 24/7 to try to deal with the costs? With this kind of change, the impact will be irreconcilable.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is very charitable, because the Chancellor has said that she does not know. However, we also know that the documentation released in the Budget says that the Treasury did know. What has gone wrong? As we have heard today in Committee, the rateable value of 5,100 pubs will double, but the Lib Dem spokesman missed the other point: one in eight pubs will see an increase of more than 100% in their rateable value. The Government have a question to answer. Did they wilfully ignore that and choose to impact hospitality, or were they mistaken and not competent in seeing that there was a problem?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member rightly points to the cumulative effect, but I am interested to see that her new clause 9 does not mention the Employment Rights Bill or the impact of the national living wage increase. Is it by design that the Liberal Democrats have not put those in, because they do not agree that they will have an impact on hospitality, or was it an oversight, and they are other cumulative effects that need to be considered when holding the Government to account?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have come here to talk about duty, but not duty in the conventional sense. I feel that I owe a duty to the cafés, restaurants and pubs in my constituency to tell the Government just how poor their impact is and to hold them accountable. That is why I support new clauses 9 and 26. Let me start with new clause 9, on the review of the cumulative impact. I agree with the Liberal Democrat spokesperson that there is a cumulative impact, but I would go further, as I have done, and call it a toxic concoction. It is true that the Conservative Government raised taxes, and I can imagine that in the future another Conservative Government may need to do the same, but the toxic concoction that this Government have set out on, with the Employment Rights Bill, raising the minimum wage and the reduction in support on hospitality exemption all at the same time, is compounding the problem. I am here to use my voice and do my duty to ask the Government to be accountable and able to show their workings, and these two new clauses are an attempt to do that. We saw the Government come forward in their first Budget and say that they did not need to raise any further taxes, yet the subsequent Budget in 2025, which we are debating now, brought taxes further forward by £26 billion. The Chancellor said that the slate was wiped clean, by her own admission, but it seems that she has hospitality in her sights, and it is not clear why. What does she have against cafés, hotels and restaurants? She seems to be softening, because she has heard from her Back Benchers about the impact that all this is having on pubs.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  This new clause is even more important given the fact that the Government, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister understand the impact that the Bill will have on pubs. They have said that they will bring forward measures to help and support pubs, yet we have not seen those measures, because they are not in this Bill. We therefore need to have some form of accountability to be able to understand the impact of not only the measures before us, which we can vote on, but the proposed ones that will come in to support the measures that the Government are already looking to put in this Bill, which will have an impact. Does that make sense? Does my hon. Friend agree?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Primary Care in Epping Forest: House Building Targets · Hansard source

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  Community pharmacies are a vital part of the primary care infrastructure, including in Epping Forest. Using NHS Organisation Data Service data, can the Minister tell the House how many pharmacy contracts ceased in England last year?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Primary Care in Epping Forest: House Building Targets · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the Minister’s answer. However, the answer to my question is: 650 contracts across England and Wales. He only had to look at the newspaper headlines from yesterday to see that—this is his Department and his portfolio. The chair of the Independent Pharmacies Association, Leyla Hannbeck, has specifically warned that higher business rates and increases in national insurance contributions, which are both set by the Government, are to blame and are driving up costs, while pharmacy income—which, again, is set by the Government—remains fixed. Does the Minister accept that those tax decisions taken by his Government directly increase the costs and contribute to the loss of pharmacy contracts, and will he therefore raise this matter with the Chancellor immediately?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  When the Chancellor looked at these measures for her first Budget, she said that they would breach her manifesto commitments. Does the Minister believe that they breach the manifesto commitments?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  Is the hon. Lady as concerned as I am about the fact that plan 2 student loans seem to be particularly impacted by the thresholds? I am concerned about the impact that that will have on the way in which people will have to make their repayments.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I think the Chancellor knows that, given her statement at the first Budget that changing the thresholds would be a tax on working people.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  The other point is: what is a small tax? What is the definition? Are we talking about £100, or £1,000? The Government have not even set that out. The Chancellor has just come up with a term that we have no reference for, no use for, and no understanding of when setting tax policy for this country.