Peter Swallow MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Nov 2025 · Support for Dyslexic Pupils · Hansard source

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  I used to be a teacher, and I know from my own practice that many of the measures that were originally introduced to support students with special educational needs, including dyslexia, actually support all children to learn better in the classroom. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need much more focus on inclusive teaching practice, because that will support everyone in the classroom, including, most importantly, those with additional needs?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Curriculum and Assessment Review · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome this curriculum and assessment review and in particular what it says about a broad curriculum and the importance of enrichment and essential skills such as digital, financial and media literacy and communication. Will my right hon. Friend go further and look at introducing a skills passport, so that young people can have the skills they are learning in school properly recognised for both themselves and employers?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  indicated assent.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This weekend, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) suggested on a Reform UK broadcast that the country could soon be run by an “appalling Hamas-supporting, LGBT-supporting nationalist party”. As a gay man and an MP, I am proud to say I will always support LGBT rights. To suggest that that support is the same as backing Hamas—a vile terrorist organisation that systematically persecutes LGBT people—is beyond the pale. What can we do across this House to make it clear to him and his party that supporting LGBT rights is fundamental to our British values, and to the values of this Parliament?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Over the summer, I spoke to almost 1,000 Bracknell Forest residents as part of my campaign on road safety. Last week, I published my findings, with recommendations including more action on off-road bikes, uninsured drivers and headlight dazzle. Will the Leader of the House ask the local transport Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood), to meet me to discuss my report further?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. Last Friday, alongside my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I attended the Get Britain Growing: South East conference, which discussed opportunities across advanced manufacturing, life sciences, digital innovation and beyond. Will the Minister set out how the industrial strategy will ensure that Bracknell and the wider south-east reaches its full potential?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. and learned Member give way?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Respect for democracy is fundamental to our British values, and to who we are as a country, but the world is increasingly an unstable place, and we can no longer be complacent about the multiple threats that our democratic norms and values face. Threats are coming from China, as we see from this espionage case, but also from other malign states, such as Russia and Iran. It is the job of all of us in the House to stand up to those threats and work in the interests of national security. When I held a roundtable with my local Hong Kong community earlier this year to discuss proposed changes to immigration, I was saddened, but unfortunately not surprised, to hear that many members of the community chose not to attend a meeting with their local MP because they were worried about the long arm of the Chinese state, and the repercussions of the Hong Kong national security law on them and their family. Transnational repression is being used by hostile states to directly prosecute those whom they see as their enemies overseas, but it also has a wider, chilling effect, leaving whole communities afraid to engage with their basic democratic rights. Meanwhile, I grow increasingly concerned about the influence of foreign actors on misinformation and disinformation online. In recent months, I have seen how anonymous posting on local social media groups in my community can have a pervasive effect on community cohesion and our democracy. Social media companies need to step up and do more on that. I am not suggesting that every anonymous social media post is from a Russian bot, but we all know that Russia and other states are using social media against us. There have been direct attacks on our democracy, too, such as those from these Chinese spies. Last month, Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, pled guilty to eight counts of bribery; he was bribed to make statements in favour of Russia while he was a Member of the European Parliament. I turn to the China spy case. Part of the reason why the case did not proceed to trial and the two gentlemen could not be prosecuted was prevarication over reforming the Official Secrets Act. The Act was introduced in 1911 —it predates the first world war—and despite unanimous recognition for at least eight years that it was completely out of date and not fit for purpose, the previous Government failed to act to fix the holes in our national security laws and left our country ill defended.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  As has already been set out, the threat from China has evolved over time. I would have loved it if the previous Labour Government had amended the Act, but it was the Conservative party that held a consultation, and then sat on the results for eight years and did nothing.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  The Minister quite clearly set out the range of threats posed by China. I am clear that China poses a threat. I also think that we have to be mature enough in this Chamber to accept that the way we deal with the second-largest economy in the world has to be to recognise the threats it poses to our democracy and our national security, but also all the ways in which we have to work with it. I stood for election on a manifesto that committed to our co-operating with China where we can, challenging them where we must, and competing with them where we need to. I genuinely think that is a mature way of dealing with a state that does not share our values, and that poses a great threat to our democracy and to the way that citizens and residents of this country operate within a democracy, but that is also the second-largest economy in the world. As the former director of MI6 said on the “Today” show on the BBC this morning, “we need to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time.” We need a mature acceptance of the risks that China poses, and that means recognising that we cannot just walk off the pitch and not deal with the second-largest economy in the world. It is infantile and not realistic to suggest otherwise. If the new Act had been in place sooner, it is possible that these men could have been prosecuted successfully under it. I therefore have a simple question for Conservative Front Benchers, and they need to be clear on this point: why did they wait so long to replace a vital piece of security legislation, and make sure that we had the appropriate tools to keep this country safe? I am happy to take interventions on that point.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  On that point, it is really important to clarify why such tight definitions were important in the first place. That is because the case was brought under a 1911 Act of Parliament, not a modern, up-to-date Act of Parliament. Is that not why we are in this situation?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and for bringing us back to where he started. He started his speech by suggesting that the Government were intervening unduly in this case. He then went on to suggest that the Government did not intervene unduly enough. Can he be clear on this: is his position and that of the Opposition that the Government should have interfered in an independent prosecution, or not? It is unhelpful to be saying both things at the same time.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  The case collapsed because under that Act neither Government provided enough evidence. The witness statements issued by the previous Government are a matter of record, and they do not state anywhere unequivocally that China is a threat. In fact, multiple Opposition Members have said on multiple occasions that it would not be possible to describe China unilaterally as a threat. That is a matter of record.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s full review of parental leave as part of our promise to make work pay. It will reshape the vital support that new parents are offered in Britain, so that it can effectively and compassionately align with the changing demands of our modern world. It is vital that the review also looks at the support provided to bereaved parents, because it cannot be right that when mothers and fathers face the greatest tragedy that can affect any of us—the loss of a child—there are barriers to basic support. There is more we can do to support families at the point that their child is first diagnosed with a serious condition. I recently met a constituent, Stephen, at a street surgery in Birch Hill, and we spoke about the challenges his family faced when supporting their daughter through her cancer treatment journey. Beyond the unimaginable emotional toll of caring for his daughter Edie, Stephen spoke to me about the often-overlooked practical difficulties that arose for his family. He told me about how the cost of fuel, hospital parking and food quickly pushed his family into debt. That is why Stephen is backing calls for Hugh’s law, which would give the parents of critically ill children who are undergoing treatment job protection and entitlement to statutory paid leave from the first day of their child’s diagnosis. Hugh’s law is, of course, named after Hugh Menai-Davis, the six-year-old son of Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

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  When I met Stephen at my street surgery, I also got the chance to meet Edie, an energetic, enthusiastic young girl running around with her sister, recovering well from her terrible ordeal. She has been so brave, and I am so proud to stand here as her MP, sharing her and her family’s story.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Heathrow: National Airports Review · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend knows how ambitious I am for improving connectivity from Bracknell to Heathrow airport. Heathrow’s proposals say that it is exploring the option of promoting a new rail scheme that combines the objectives of a western rail link to Heathrow and southern rail access to Heathrow, and there are similar commitments in the Aurora Group’s plans. Will she ensure that the review of the ANPS helps us to hold it to account for those promises so that we can deliver the better surface access that my constituents so badly need?

• 22 Oct 2025 · Financial Inclusion · Hansard source

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  A key part of financial inclusion is supporting young people to be included and ensuring that they have essential skills, including financial literacy. Has the Minister spoken with any colleagues in the Department for Education about how we can make sure that young people have the right essential skills, including financial literacy, as part of the strategy?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Mandatory Digital ID · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises the Online Safety Act. Some of my constituents have raised concerns about identity checks to access material online. Would it not have been far easier to prove one’s age online safely and securely if we already had a digital ID, and would that not have helped us to introduce safer checks online?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. Let me first declare that I chair the all-party parliamentary group for schools, learning and assessment and the APPG on social mobility. Businesses, schools and young people in Bracknell Forest all tell me that essential skills such as financial, digital and media literacy, creative problem-solving, communication and collaboration are more important than ever, but are not formally recognised or measured. How can we help young people to succeed by developing and recognising those essential skills?

• 16 Oct 2025 · Ada Lovelace Day · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) and many others have so expertly touched on Ada Lovelace’s story, I thought I might—with your indulgence, Ms Furniss—touch on another champion of 19th-century science who has always inspired me: Mary Anning, a pioneering palaeontologist renowned for her significant geological discoveries on the Dorset coast. Mary’s findings heavily influence how scientists now understand prehistoric life. She discovered the first complete plesiosaur skeleton—she could say it better than I could—and the ichthyosaurus, but she was held back from the proper recognition she so badly deserved because she was working class, because she was uneducated and because she was a woman. I have always been inspired by her story, and I know that many girls and women across the country have too, including Bracknell’s all-girls robotics team, the RealTech Bots, who were crowned world champions at the FIRST Lego League international open earlier this year. The team, made up of school pupils aged between nine and 15, beat 96 teams and 11 countries, flying the STEM flag for Bracknell and the UK, and we are all extremely proud of them. According to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, if we continue at our current rate, it will take women 283 years to make up an equal share of the tech workforce. Given the rapid development of AI and the fact that it is ultimately shaped by its designers, this lack of diversity should worry us all. That is why it is so important that the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has set up a new women’s tech taskforce to, in her words—because the words of a woman here are more important than mine— “finally smash those glass ceilings. Because Britain’s future shouldn’t just be shaped by the Tech Bros in Silicon Valley but our Tech Sisters—right here, in the UK.” While other parties are arguing against diversity initiatives, it is important that this Government are recognising that economic growth must be underpinned by shared economic benefits to everyone. Finally, I turn to the remarks made by the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and others about the important intersection between Ada’s mathematical legacy and the arts that so influenced her. She often blended mathematics with art, predicting the use of computers in music and visual art, as well as other things. She wrote: “We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.”

• 16 Oct 2025 · Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements · Hansard source

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  As the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) emphasises so emphatically, across the whole House we are appalled by the actions of the Chinese state. I want to go back to the precise law under which the charges were brought. The Act was first introduced in 1911 and the Conservatives set out to review it when they were in Government in 2015, but they did not successfully replace with a law that was fit for purpose until 2023, eight years later. Had the Conservatives got on with the job and replaced the law more quickly, would we be in a different position now?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s statement, particularly his commitment to seeking a lasting, long-term peace in the region, because Israel will not be secure and the Palestinian people will not be free until we break this endless cycle of violence. Turning to the immediate situation on the ground, the Gazans still face a man-made famine, so I really welcome the flooding-in of aid that the Prime Minister talked about in his statement. However, could he say a little more about the timescale for that, and how soon we can start to see that aid getting in and having an effect on the ground?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles · Hansard source

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  As the Secretary of State knows, I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and we have been very engaged in this issue, not least because of the ruling of our courts that the previous Government’s attempt to legislate on this issue was unlawful because it would potentially grant immunity to, among others, terrorists. That is no way to serve justice to families and victims, and it is no way to serve justice to our veterans. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the legislation we are bringing forward will not grant immunity to terrorists? That is a simple request and it is remarkable that I have to make it, but given the legislation that the previous Government attempted to pass, it is important to have it on the record.