Luke Evans MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  Will the Minister give way?

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

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  It is a shame that the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) is not still in the Chamber, because he hit the nail on the head. He asked the question that I am keen to get answered and that is the reason why I have come to this debate. It is about the freezing of the thresholds and what the impacts will be on pensioners. I too am worried about pensioners suddenly being brought in to pay tax and having to do a tax return. I am glad that the Minister saw the interview with Martin Lewis, because the Chancellor was very clear, so he has to try to answer the questions. When Martin Lewis put this case to the Chancellor, she said: “If you just have a state pension…we are not going to make you fill in a tax return” at any time. That is great, but how does that work? What does it look like? Where is that written down? The Chancellor went on to say: “In this parliament, they won’t have to pay the tax…we’re looking at a simple workaround at the moment.” That was back in November, so my curiosity was pricked to think, “Maybe it will be in the Finance (No. 2) Bill in Committee.” Yet, as pointed out by the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies), the Bill has 535 pages, and there is no answer. I am pleased to have the opportunity to ask the Minister on behalf of my constituents how he will answer that question. What is the workaround in play? If it is there, we should like to see it. Is there an impact assessment that goes with it to help us to understand whether people will have to do a tax return? How many people will have to do a tax return? If they will not have to do a tax return, how will we know whether they need to pay the tax? Will it simply be part of PAYE? That is a solution; it could be moved, and adjustments are already made. Will we simply say that it is an easement and write it off? We then get to the problem of the Chancellor talking about small tax. We have no definition of what small tax looks like. This Government’s definition of it is as close to a definition as their definition of “working people” is, and we all know what the definition of “working people” is under this Government—well, actually, we do not, and that is the problem. I am here asking the question on behalf of my constituents: what does the workaround look like? How will it take place? How will it affect my constituents? That is why I support new clause 15, which would go at least part of the way to understanding the assessment of this decision taken by the Government, but I appreciate that that is outside of the Bill. If the Government turn around and say that they do not need to do primary legislation—the best protection for my pensioners—the Minister can find another way to do it, but I look forward to hearing what that will look like in statements to the House.

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

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  Will the Minister give way?

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

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  I know that my right hon. Friend has been a stalwart in making that point. That leads on to the wider point of thinking about social care and how we will fund it. These sticky points are really important, so we need to ensure that we have this debate. The fact is that we are dealing with the Finance (No. 2) Bill in Committee. When the Government are making these choices, I am really keen to try to understand the direct impact they will have on my constituents. At the last general election, the last Government—now the Opposition—had a solution in our manifesto to deal with this issue, which was the “triple lock plus”. That would have negated the issue at source. There is a ready-made solution if the Government would like to go for it, but I understand the difficulties of the associated cost, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) has pointed out. That brings us full circle to where the hon. Member for Poole started. How exactly are we going to solve this issue for pensioners? Do the Government just need to be up front with them and say that they will have to do a tax return? Will they be pulled into this tax? If they will not, how?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. The Government insist on forcing through local government reorganisation when there is no agreement in Leicestershire. There are three different plans ahead. One thing that Leicestershire does agree on is no expansion of Leicester city. Will the Minister put that to the test and have a referendum on it, so that the people of Leicestershire can show the Government just how much they do not want the city expansion?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  Will my right hon. Friend give way?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  If the Minister’s argument is about enforcement, and given that is it already illegal to hunt with dogs, is she not arguing for more resources for our rural communities to enforce what is legal or illegal? Let us take the example of Leicestershire. We instituted our rural crime team in 2019 and have seen that type of crime drop by 23%. My worry is that if the Government have their way, that funding will disappear and therefore rural crime and enforcement will get worse. Will she square that circle for me? Also, is she speaking to the Home Office to make sure that rural communities get the policing they need and the funding for that?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  From prepping for this debate, I know that the policy is one that tries to solve an administrative problem by simply changing a principle. The three areas I will try to cover—we will see how I get on—are the principle, the policy process and the practical side. To deal with the principle first, we have heard a number of times that justice delayed is justice denied. Delay does harm trust and it can prolong suffering, but justice done wrongly corrupts the system itself. The Justice Secretary knows that, as in his own Lammy report he said that juries act as “a filter for prejudice” during trials. Moving on to the policy process, on the one hand the Government are saying that the policy is much needed to help with the admin side, but on the other hand they are saying that these are very small changes. We only have to look at the letter written by the Secretary of State to the Justice Committee to pull some of that apart. It states: “Of the c.3% of criminal trial cases that proceed to a jury trial in the Crown Court, over half would still proceed to the Crown Court and get a jury trial post-reform.” However, later it says: “An alternative way of expressing impacts is to account for cases that will be retained in the magistrates’ courts after the reforms. Based on projected case volumes and case mix, of those cases that still proceed to the Crown Court post-reforms, around three-quarters of them are still expected to be allocated a jury trial.” So we already have a discrepancy, in the same paragraph of the letter, in what the numbers are. The question, “Has any modelling been done?”, has been asked multiple times. We again know from the letter addressed to the Committee that modelling has been done, because it says: “The assumptions underpinning the modelling of the reforms I announced last week are subject to the Concordat process that agrees sitting days with the judiciary and it would be improper to pre-empt the conclusion of this process.” In short, modelling has been done, so if Ministers want to strengthen their argument, why would they not produce that modelling? When we have asked the Minister who is at the Dispatch Box—she was asked again by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild), for the seventh time—whether an impact assessment has been done and not released, or is being done and will be brought forward, we have not got an answer. One would have thought that if you had done the work—

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  When the Courts Minister closed her statement, the principle was not about the backlog: she said that she would have gone ahead with scrapping juries to this extent regardless of the backlog. Will the Minister clarify the Government’s position? Is it a principled position or is it about dealing with the administrative burden?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. That is fundamental. There must be trust in the system and in the decision taken, and I worry that that is being eroded by this proposal. I am going to change my speech. I started on the presumption that the Government are trying to solve an admin problem with a principled change, but I think, after listening to the Government Front Bench, that I am wrong. The Minister was asked, “Sarah, would you still go with this regardless of the backlog?” and the answer was yes. There we have it. It is clearer than ever before. Efficiency is the excuse and ideology is the aim. Regardless of the vote today, the answer is here for all to see that the Government do not believe in maintaining jury trial. For that reason, Members must stay and vote with the Opposition.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  I refer the hon. Lady directly to the opening speech. If she sits and reads Hansard , it was very much different regarding that point. I will move on to the other practical points we need to talk about—some even in the letter—about process. For example, the letter states: “judges will assess the likely sentence in accordance with the Sentencing Guidelines. They will consider the facts of the case to make a determination of likely culpability, harm”— and so on. It then goes on to say: “eligibility is based on likely sentence length, any triable either-way offence could be in scope of the CCBD, if it were likely to receive a sentence of 3 years or less”. What happens if the judge decides that they would not go to a jury trial? Later on, the same letter states: “judges will retain the full sentencing powers available in the Crown Court, meaning there is no restriction on the sentence that can be handed down in the case.” That points out the fact that a judge could make a decision at pre-hearing that the case need not go to trial because the sentence will be less than three years, and after that find out that the sentence will actually be five, six or seven years. There is a real discrepancy. The letter also states: “As you know, we do not have minimum sentences in law.” That is demonstrably not true—think about drug trafficking, firearms or repeat knife offences. We only have to look at section 28 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, which talks about how using a knife for a second time will result in a minimum of six months. That was codified and updated in section 315 of the Sentencing Act 2020. The letter is filled with holes. I thank Joanna Hardy-Susskind, who has pointed out a lot of these issues. She has done a lot of working explaining that the MOJ does not even understand the letters it is putting out in defence of this policy. If the Ministry was to release the modelling and the impact assessment, it could demonstrate to us all why we should make the change. I am running short of time to talk about the practicality, so I will close where I started.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  New year, new David!

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  The letter on criminal court reform written by the Justice Secretary to the Justice Committee states on rape and prioritisation: “We are not introducing a specific target for rape cases, but our overall objective is to drive down these wait times as quickly as possible. Listing is a judicial function and the judiciary already prioritises cases involving vulnerable victims and witnesses, which includes victims of sexual offences, including rape.” The Minister’s example about a bottle of whisky is therefore not appropriate; it is fundamentally wrong, according to the letter written by the Justice Secretary himself.

• 6 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In Hinckley and Burbage, if you look one way, you can see the rooftops of lots of logistics businesses, because we are the heart of the logistics sector; looking the other way, to Barlestone and Nailstone, you see agricultural land that has been turned into solar farms. My constituents rightly ask why we cannot have more solar panels on commercial properties. What conversations is the Department having with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that that is a possibility?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief · Hansard source

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  The Government say they have been listening carefully, but they had 14 months and four votes to listen to the Opposition and the farming community. One question is: what changed the Government’s mind? The second question is: who made the decision—the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary, the Prime Minister or the Chancellor—and how long did they take to persuade the others to make that right decision?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Animal Welfare Strategy · Hansard source

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  I have two questions—one practical and one policy. Let us make no mistake: the Government have been dragged here today to answer an urgent question about their welfare strategy, which they are bringing forward next week but which we cannot scrutinise because Parliament goes into recess today. Why is that the case? On policy, I have written a number of times about animal welfare in the rescue and rehoming sector. I hope that that is included in the strategy. Will the Secretary of State confirm that it is being looked at and whether further regulations are needed?

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

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  This Saturday is the Hopkins Brothers Tractor Run. Dozens of tractors covered in lights will start in Barwell and go through Earl Shilton, Hinckley, Higham, Stoke Golding, Dadlington, Market Bosworth and Desford and past my house in Newbold Verdon. The run was set up by Liam after the tragic loss of his brother Kieran, who committed suicide in September 2022. Since then, it has raised more than £30,000 for Mind, and Liam won the Voluntary Action LeicesterShire fundraiser of the year award in October. Will the Leader of the House thank Liam for what he does, thank the farmers for putting on such a show for our community and encourage all my constituents to come out and see the lights this Saturday when they pass by?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Community Audiology · Hansard source

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  I am grateful that a comprehensive plan is coming forward. One problem we have is joining the leadership up. The Kingdon review, which was launched in May and finished in November, made 12 recommendations that will help align with all the missions the Minister is bringing forward. Can he tell us when the Kingdon review will be accepted and analysed by the Government, and their position on the recommendations, because it is a key thread to delivering all the ambition that he has rightly put forward?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Community Audiology · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, and I wish you and your team a merry Christmas. I thank the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) for inadvertently creating what seems like a medical symposium; I feel as if I am back at one of my Christmas grand rounds—they often used to pick something a little bit strange and wacky to debate. I did not quite expect to be talking about spaniels’ ear canals, but I enjoyed the flashback none the less. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) rightly talked about couples. When I was a GP, I saw couples become yin and yang, supporting each other on the basis of who had the hearing loss, who had the brains and who had the dexterity. If one of those problems is not sorted, there can be real impacts for the others. We should consider that when we deal with patients. The hon. Gentleman’s point about drawers of waste was a personal hobby horse of mine too—though it was not hearing aids, but often medication brought back to me, or seeing thousands of bandages or eye drops left over when I went on home visits, for example. That is a really important point and the NHS is not very good at picking up on it. I thank the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for raising the issue of stigma. My grandfather was particularly bad and stubbornly did not want to get a hearing aid, and even when he did get it, he would not wear it. My right hon. Friend also joked about his wife not hearing him, which reminded me of “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”; at the start of the film, the pea is taken out of the ear, but at the end, because of all the nagging, he is desperate to get the pea reinserted. My right hon. Friend also raised the issue of workforce, which is incredibly important when it comes to trying to solve some of these problems. The hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip set out clearly and coherently both the landscape and where we find ourselves. That is really important because, when people think about care delivered close to home, hearing loss services are among some of the most visible examples on the high street and in our community settings across the country. I visited the Specsavers on Hinckley’s high street, as well as the pharmacy in Newbold Verdon, only a couple of months ago to see what they provide. There is a real opportunity to bring care towards people, which makes high streets a good bellwether for this Government’s ambition on prevention and community care and how that is being translated into practice. There are three issues I would like to press the Minister on. The first is the funding pressures on the ICBs, the second is access and self-referral, and the third is national oversight and data. On access and self-referral, under previous NHS operational planning guidance, ICBs were asked to increase direct access and self-referrals into audiology services. That was a good move; it meant that people concerned about their hearing could go straight to specialist care without needing to see a GP first. In many areas, that has been a success. However, as we heard during the debate, 12 ICBs that commission hearing loss services still require a GP referral. That adds delays for patients and places unnecessary pressure on general practice, not necessarily for any clinical benefit. Against that backdrop, it is a little disappointing to see that self-referral was not included in the most recent operational planning guidance for 2025-26, nor in the medium-term planning framework. The question is why. Would the Minister explain why self-referrals seem to have been deprioritised, and what concrete steps the Government are taking to ensure that access to audiology does not depend simply on where someone lives? On funding pressures and core services, Members have rightly highlighted the significant variation in access to routine audiology services, particularly earwax removal. In too many parts of the country, people are either being pushed back to the ENT departments or told to pay privately. I am glad that we have an eminent surgeon in the Chamber, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket; from a GP’s perspective, I understand why some were reluctant to go back to having their ears syringed and I often dealt with complaints about why it was not suitable, as suction is the gold standard. The question is how we provide that in a way that is deliverable to the community and provides to the patients, but is also at least cost-neutral for primary or secondary care. There is a conundrum there. That situation will be made worse, as the Father of the House pointed out, by our ageing population. When ICBs are under pressure and their budgets are changing—they are being cut by 50%—how do we ensure that that it is deliverable? That poses the question of how sustainable it is to place the responsibility of the full range of audiology services on ICBs, considering they are under constraints, and how will the Government square that circle. There is also the opportunity of public-private partnerships and neighbourhood centres to help to deliver audiology services. That could come as sites or services. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out what his vision is in this space, considering we are trying to take a leftwards shift. There are also opportunities for new thinking. As I mentioned, I went to see a pharmacist. What supports have been put in place for new providers to come in? Pharmacists seem keen to be able to take on more services, and they often have sites directly in the heart of our communities—the closest place to our residents. Is there some consideration of what can be done to innovate in that space? On data, oversight and accountability, one of the most striking features of audiology is how difficult it is to assess the performance nationally. The Government were right to set out their ambition to meet the NHS standard that 92% of people should wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment, and in most specialties we can clearly see how the system is performing against that ambition. However, in audiology it is harder, especially as the referral-to-treatment waiting time data, which was paused during the pandemic for understandable reasons, has since been retired by NHS England. Looking ahead, given that the Government have confirmed their intention to bring forward legislation to abolish NHS England, with the statutory functions being taken into the system, will the Minister consider looking again at reinstating the referral-to-treatment waiting time data for direct audiology as a way to monitor the leftward shift that the Government are pushing for? If so, will that be done at ICB level or under the Department of Health and Social Care? I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify two points. First, when does the Government expect to introduce the legislation in 2026? Secondly, it would be helpful to understand when we can expect the workforce plan: we were told that it was coming in the summer, then the autumn and, now that we are on the last day of business before Christmas, I expect it is coming in the new year. Knowing when that plan is coming, and how audiology will play a part in that, is really important. Given the Kingdon review only came forward in November, it is unfair of me to ask whether the Government have fully assessed it yet. The review had 12 recommendations and also pointed out the oversight, and there is a question about how that will be resolved. With all the changes to ICBs, NHS England and the Kingdon review, I would be grateful to know when we will likely hear whether all recommendations have been accepted and will be resolved. Audiology may not always attract attention in this House, but it is a vital part of our community healthcare and a real test of the Government’s commitment to prevention and access. I hope the Minister can provide clarity on the questions I have asked today. I wish you, Mr Vickers, your team, your colleagues, everyone in this House and my constituents a very merry Christmas.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  I have long argued in this House that when it comes to mental or physical health, it is about women and men, not women or men, and that is important. I welcome the strategy coming forward, but can I also bring a sense of caution, because terms like “toxic masculinity” and labelling young men and boys are potentially a real problem, because they see themselves as destined to cause some problem? Already some of the reporting today enhances that. What are the Government doing to ensure that we are not already socially criminalising young men and boys for having feelings about good masculinity? That is an important definition that the Government need to get right, and I would appreciate her answer on that topic.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Planning Reform · Hansard source

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  My constituents would have much more sympathy with the Minister if he could explain why, when it comes to house building, Leicester city’s target will go down by 31%, whereas Hinckley and Bosworth’s and north-west Leicestershire’s targets will go up by 59% and 74% respectively. It means that we have 10,000 houses proposed near Twycross, and thousands near Burbage and Barwell. What would he say to my constituents about the unfairness of the discrepancies between targets for city and brownfield sites, and targets for green-belt sites and agricultural land?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I was listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but he tailed off when he was talking about a problem, and it did not quite go through. I think that he was talking about the fact that there would be a delay because of the consultation. In 1999 and 2015 there were consultations on the very issue of a cap. Why have the Government not done that?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Has the Minister conducted an impact assessment? If so, how much does she think this change will cost? How many uncapped awards will be made? These are the kinds of big, important decisions that the other place has concerns about, as do Conservative Members. If she has that evidence, she could put this to bed tonight by simply providing it to us so that we can make an informed decision.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I am conscious that we are debating a particular point. Is the hon. Member voting for or against the cap? That is the essence of what we are looking at today.