Sarah Olney MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Jul 2025 · Independent Water Commission · Hansard source

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  From Saturday night to Monday morning, a mains burst on Richmond Hill in my constituency went unattended, resulting in residents being left without gas supply as water leaked into the gas pipeline. Burst-pipe sewage-dumping following storm overflows has now become customary. Last year alone, 119 hours’ worth of sewage was discharged into rivers and waterways in my constituency. Thames Water has been allowed to get away with such negligent and environmentally hazardous practices for far too long while Ofwat has stood by and watched. Earlier this year, a freedom of information request uncovered that Ofwat had not recouped a single penny from the financial sanctions it has placed on Thames Water. Now that the Government have finally realised that Ofwat must be replaced, will the Minister set out a timeline for the implementation of the review’s recommendation of a new regulator?

• 17 Jul 2025 · SME Operating Costs · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrats welcome the plans in the recently announced industrial strategy to reduce some of the world’s highest industrial energy prices. However, businesses across the UK, especially in hospitality and on our high streets, are still struggling with unaffordable energy costs. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that small businesses can benefit from more sustainable pricing? Will he encourage his Cabinet colleagues to consider proposals set out by the Liberal Democrats yesterday to break the link between gas prices and energy costs, which would halve energy bills in a decade, so that people and businesses across the country can enjoy the true benefits of cheap, clean and renewable power?

• 17 Jul 2025 · Strategy for Elections · Hansard source

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  We are very pleased that the Government have published the strategy, many aspects of which have the support of the Liberal Democrats. We have, for many years, championed votes at 16 and we are really glad that the Government have listened to those calls. We also welcome the measures to tackle dark and illicit money in our politics, and the recent plans to introduce supplementary voting for mayoral elections. However, I am concerned that the strategy shows nowhere near the kind of ambition that we need to fix a system of elections that has left large swathes of the public feeling like their vote simply does not count. As Members across the House will know, last year’s general election turned out the most disproportionate result in history, with nearly 60% of people who voted not represented in Parliament by the candidate they voted for. This opportunity cannot be wasted. Will the Government go further? Will they look at scrapping voter ID in its entirety? Will they look at introducing further measures to ensure that foreign oligarchs such as Elon Musk are not able to interfere in British politics, including through party funding? And will they finally scrap first past the post and introduce fair votes via proportional representation?

• 17 Jul 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  The value that hospitality businesses bring to their local communities goes far beyond their economic contributions: they also provide a vital social value and essential entry-level jobs. Flexible hours and conditions in the sector help those with other responsibilities, such as carers and new parents, to access work, while also offering many young people their first jobs. However, retail and hospitality businesses have been hit hard by tax changes in the October Budget, and they are reporting reduced hours, cancelled investment and closures; there have been nearly 70,000 hospitality job losses just since October. As economic strategies are rolled out, what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that Department for Work and Pensions goals to get people back to work are not being undermined by policies that shrink job opportunities in these sectors?

• 15 Jul 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  Let me be clear: the legacy left behind by the last Conservative Government is one to be ashamed of. Their incompetence in governing left schools and hospitals crumbling, social care cripplingly underfunded, and record levels of sewage in our lakes and rivers. Their record is a dispiriting picture of low growth, high interest rates and record levels of inequality. We know that this Government inherited a mess, and we know that the cause of that mess was years of reckless economic mismanagement, but that cannot be allowed to serve as cover for measures that damage business or cause suffering for the vulnerable in our society. The decisions taken by this Government at the autumn Budget have not worked. The national insurance jobs tax will damage small businesses, lower people’s living standards and undermine the Government’s own ambitions for growth. People endured years of Conservative mismanagement, which is why this new Government should be doing far more to grow our economy, create new jobs and improve living standards. The Liberal Democrats acknowledge that the Government had tough decisions to make. However, instead of raising national insurance, cutting disability benefits and cutting departmental budgets even further, they should be taking bold and ambitious steps to grow our economy, which is the best way to raise tax revenue and boost living standards. That is why we have been calling on the Government to ignore the scaremongering from those on the Conservative Benches, and urgently negotiate a new, bespoke UK-EU customs union. On taxation, as set out in amendment (b), tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), we all know that the Government are desperately looking for ways to raise revenue. I encourage Treasury Ministers to take a look at the measures set out in last year’s Liberal Democrat manifesto, which would ensure that revenue is raised in a fair way, taking into account the huge amount of economic inequality that, sadly, we see across the United Kingdom. This huge inequality in our country threatens to rip our social fabric apart, which is why the Liberal Democrats have proposed a better way: raising revenue fairly, doing so practically and tackling inequality; increasing taxes on some of the biggest and wealthiest corporations, including the big banks, by reversing the Conservatives’ tax cuts for banks; ensuring that the wealthiest people in the world who are doing business here are taxed effectively, by raising the digital services tax from 2% to 10%; fairly reforming capital gains tax in a way that cuts tax, or keeps it the same for the vast majority, while ensuring that the wealthiest 0.1% cannot avoid paying their fair share; and doubling remote gaming duty to ensure that gambling companies pay their fair share. Those steps could happen immediately, so I hope Ministers, who are keen to fill a fiscal hole, might follow our advice. The previous Government did so much damage to our high street businesses, but the Labour Government’s national insurance jobs tax has only made things even harder for them and their workers. High street businesses are the beating heart of our economy at the centre of our local communities, and they create the jobs that our communities rely on. The changes to employer national insurance contributions announced in the autumn Budget are an unfair jobs tax which will have highly damaging impacts across many sectors: on social care providers; on GPs; and on the hospitality sector, which has been hit by an extra £3.4 billion in annual costs through the cumulative impact of the changes announced in the autumn Budget. The Liberal Democrats voted against the changes to employers NICs at every opportunity. I once again urge the Government to scrap those measures. As the motion looks to examine the causes of the economic challenges faced by people and businesses across the country, a perhaps surprising omission is the ongoing disastrous damage caused by the Conservatives’ pitiful Brexit deal. The appalling agreement negotiated by the last Conservative Government has been a complete disaster for our country, particularly for high street businesses, who are held back by reams of red tape and new barriers to trade, costing our economy billions in lost exports. The dismal picture of the financial impact of their terrible Brexit trade deal is becoming increasingly clear. A recent survey of 10,000 UK businesses found that 33% of currently trading enterprises experienced “extra costs directly related to changes in export regulations due to the end of the EU transition period”. Small businesses have been particularly badly affected, with 20,000 small firms stopping all exports to the EU. And a recent study has found that goods exports have fallen by 6.4% since the trade deal came into force in 2021. The Liberal Democrats welcome the steps this Government are taking to rebuild our relationship with the EU, but I urge them to recognise that this should only be a first step towards negotiating a bespoke UK-EU customs union. Independent analysis has shown that a closer trading relationship with the EU could boost GDP by 2.2%. That would bring in roughly £25 billion of extra tax revenue every year, which would be crucial for fixing the public services which the Conservative party left broken. More broadly, as we look at measures which would ease the pressure felt by so many businesses and boost the economy as a whole, we continue to call on the Government to introduce vital reform to the business rates system. In 2019, the previous Conservative Government promised a fundamental review of the business rates system, but they failed to deliver it. Meanwhile, the current Government pledged to replace the system in their manifesto, but still no action has been taken. The current system penalises manufacturers when they invest to become more productive, leaves pubs and restaurants with disproportionately high tax bills, and puts local businesses at a disadvantage to online retail giants. The Liberal Democrats have called for a complete overhaul of the unfair business rates system and its replacement with a commercial landowner levy that would shift the burden of taxation from tenants to landowners. Our proposals for fair reform would cut tax bills, breathe new life into local economies and spur growth. Equally important, it would provide long-term certainty for businesses, which is what everybody across the UK wants. On the Liberal Democrat Benches, we know the extent of the challenges the Government faced when they came into office. We acknowledge that they inherited a dire economic landscape—challenges now exacerbated by an unreliable actor in the White House and an aggressive Russia—but that cannot be an excuse for the mistakes the Government are making. They must take bold action to boost our economy. As such, we support the calls in today’s motion to scrap the national insurance jobs tax and reverse the changes to agricultural property relief. People across the country are still struggling with the cost of living crisis, just as small businesses remain burdened with sky high energy prices, now compounded with an unfair jobs tax and an unfair business rate system. The Liberal Democrats will continue to urge Ministers to go further and act with more urgency, investing in skills by reforming the apprenticeship levy, properly funding social care and boosting growth through negotiating a bespoke UK-EU customs union to give our economy the boost it so desperately needs.

• 14 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues welcome the provisions in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which recognise that first past the post is an unrepresentative electoral system. That is a welcome first step—although we would prefer alternative voting for mayoral elections—but if the Government admit that first past the post is not suitable for mayoral elections, why do they maintain that it is suitable for general elections?

• 14 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

• 14 Jul 2025 · Future of the Post Office · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The Liberal Democrats welcome today’s announcement about putting local post offices on a more sustainable footing. Post offices are an important part of our communities, providing a number of critical services on our local high streets, from community banking and foreign exchange to the provision of Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency services. Often their services act as a lifeline, especially for the elderly, those with limited transport options and those in areas without reliable access to online services. Currently 99.7% of the population live within three miles of a post office, and 4,000 branches are open seven days a week. In the past three years, nearly 2,000 high street bank branches have closed across the UK, resulting in local post offices being the only place where local communities can access banking services. As the Government bring forward their necessary reforms, it is vital that essential local services and post office jobs are protected. Will the Minister assure me that under this proposal no post office will be closed until a consultation with each local community has been undertaken? Although we welcome the increased digitisation of services, which will boost accessibility for those who cannot use face-to-face services, as well as productivity across the public sector, how will the Government ensure that post offices remain financially viable?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Civil Service Relocation · Hansard source

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  The Government recently announced a number of measures to reform the civil service, including cutting up to 10,000 jobs and relocating thousands of roles across the country. These reforms are vast in scope and could have a significant impact on public services, but the Government do not seem particularly interested in setting out to Parliament the details of the changes. This House has not been given any clarity to enable proper scrutiny of which roles will be moved, cut or otherwise changed. When will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster present his full plans on civil service reform to Parliament?

• 10 Jul 2025 · London’s National Economic Contribution · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. She is exactly right. Housing costs in London are far above the average for the UK as a whole. The average Londoner has to pay these costs out of an income level that is on average higher than across the country as a whole, but not to the same magnitude. Measuring deprivation based only on income before housing costs is a key unfairness for Londoners, because their housing costs are so much greater. She is absolutely right that if we underfund London, as will happen if the measure of deprivation after housing costs is not used, London will be underfunded and that will threaten the economic development and growth of the UK as a whole, because London is so essential to what happens across the UK. The number of visitors that an area receives is also being used as a factor in the funding formula, but the review is using figures from the 2021 census. We were still coming out of the pandemic when those figures were collected, so London had significantly fewer visitors than in an average year. As somebody who has regularly travelled from outer London to inner London over the last few years, from 2021 to 2025, I can assure the Minister that the number of people on our tubes and trains has grown significantly. My data is anecdotal, but I am sure my impression is shared by many Londoners who made similar journeys in that period. If visitor numbers are to be used as a measure to feed into the fair funding formula, it is vital that up-to-date figures are used. I urge the Government to review the formula with updated figures to ensure that it does not produce inaccurate results, which will again result in unfair distribution of Government grants. I and Liberal Democrats in general very much welcome the Government’s announcement of a 10-year infrastructure plan—a clear vision for housing, the economy and social infrastructure, which is required to drive growth and investment—but I am disappointed that the Government have yet to announce whether the £1 billion provision from the structure fund will be allocated towards the repair of Hammersmith bridge in my constituency, which, as I am sure the Minister knows, has been closed to motor traffic for six years. We remain uncertain about whether the Government intend the bridge to be repaired and whether they will commit to providing the funding for those repairs. Any indication of their position from the Minister will be welcomed by my constituents. The closure of the bridge has affected local residents and commuters, particularly disabled and elderly residents, who have been cut off from the other side of the river, and emergency services remain unable to cross. It has also had a massive impact on businesses just south of Hammersmith bridge that relied on the passing trade. We look forward to the announcement of what the structures fund pot will be used for, and hope very much that some funding towards Hammersmith bridge will be included. I urge the Government not to miss that opportunity. The bridge itself is a tourist attraction in my constituency. It is one of London’s oldest bridges—there has been a bridge on the site since the 1820s, and the current structure dates from the 1870s—and I dare say the fact that it is a museum piece is one of the many issues that has prevented funding from being allocated for its repair until now. It is one of many wonderful tourist attractions in my constituency. Kew Gardens was the second most visited paid-for attraction in the country last year. We also have the wonderful wetland centre just south of Hammersmith bridge and many other wonderful tourist sites, not least the park after which my constituency is named. London as a whole is visited by more than 20 million tourists every year, who bring with them significant contributions to our economy. A key factor for tourists is to feel safe when choosing London as a destination, but the capital’s reputation as a safe city to visit is on the decline. It is vital that London has visible and sufficient policing to tackle crime and keep visitors and residents safe, but the Chancellor’s spending review did not include additional funding for the Metropolitan police, despite their commissioner warning that “eye-watering cuts” would have to be made if funding were not provided. The cuts will be felt in my constituency. The disbandment of the dedicated royal parks police unit is of great concern to my constituents. The parks police serve Richmond park diligently, ensuring that crime and antisocial behaviour are kept to a minimum. Their removal will mean that our already stretched safer local neighbourhood teams have to take on additional responsibilities in their absence. The Richmond Park constituency used to be home to three police stations, but after years of cuts not a single one remains, even though Barnes is one of 72 wards in London that are more than a 13-minute drive away from the nearest police station. These cuts cannot continue, and I urge the Government to stick to their commitment of increasing the police presence in London and across the rest of the UK. I receive daily emails from my constituents expressing their concerns about theft, violent crime and the lack of visible policing. Will the Government be able to provide assurances that my constituency will not have fewer officers serving it at the end of this year than before Labour took power? Investment in London can and does boost economic growth, which provides investment for other regions. I urge the Government to understand and acknowledge the significant contribution that London makes to our national economy. London must not be short-changed by the Government. I encourage them to review the criteria for their fair funding formula, to invest in the repairs to Hammersmith bridge and to release more funding for the Met to ensure that residents and tourists feel safe walking our streets.

• 10 Jul 2025 · London’s National Economic Contribution · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for securing this important debate. London is an economic powerhouse, which generates revenue for the entire country. The capital city’s contribution to the economy is nearly 25% of the UK’s entire GDP. While redistribution of revenue across the UK is important, it should be noted that London has some of the highest rates of poverty. In particular, it has the highest rate of child poverty, at 35%, compared with a national average of 29%. Disparate income bands and living standards are more evident in London than anywhere else in the UK, but the cost of living is also greater in London than in any other area. The average London house price is more than double that in the rest of the country. I raise those points because the Government’s changes to local authority funding will mean that London councils face a funding shortfall of an estimated £500 million. Consequently, most London boroughs will have to raise council tax by the maximum amount each year to raise revenue for the funding of key statutory services. It also means that some councils will be threatened with bankruptcy. Redistribution of wealth across the UK is important, but the absence or poor use of measurements in the Government’s fair funding formula will produce unfair results for Londoners. The index of multiple deprivation is being used as a need driver in the fair funding formula, but, as the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) pointed out, that index does not include a measurement of deprivation after housing costs. London residents pay the highest average rents in the country, so excluding that statistic will result in an unfair measurement of deprivation, and London residents will lose out unfairly.

• 10 Jul 2025 · UK-EU Trading Relationship · Hansard source

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  A few months ago, this Government reached a small but welcome trade agreement with the EU—our largest trading partner—and just this week, Members of this House heard from the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, about the closeness of the relationship between the UK and France. It was the first state visit by a French President since 2008 and the first by a European Union political leader since Brexit. Now that UK-EU relations are at a turning point, does the Minister agree that it is finally time to be more ambitious, drop the red lines, cut the red tape, and aim to negotiate a UK-EU customs union that would boost the public coffers by £25 billion a year?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Government Resilience Action Plan · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for advance sight of the statement. The world is now less stable and more insecure than at any time since the cold war. Consequently, the Government must ensure that the British people and the United Kingdom are prepared in the event that our country or an overseas territory is threatened. The Liberal Democrats therefore welcome any measures to strengthen our resilience, especially to the cyber-security threat—a new and evolving threat against which we must be armed. While the Liberal Democrats welcome the alert test, we call for a wider public information campaign to support resilience building across the UK, and to ensure that the public are properly ready for any potential future conflict or disaster. Perhaps we could take lessons from our Scandinavian neighbours, who are always working to address future threats and providing information to their citizens. Information should be provided through a number of different means, including leaflets and traditional broadcast. While we welcome the alert test, websites and text alerts will miss millions of British people—those without phones, or without signal or battery—so we need to be ready on all fronts, and not just rely on single text alerts. Will the Government accept the Liberal Democrats’ call to launch a national awareness campaign that draws on different modes of contact? I welcome the talk about being more resilient to climate emergencies. We have all seen the horrifying pictures and upsetting stories from the floods in Texas in recent days, and in this country, we have had one of the hottest starts to a summer in UK history; it is vital that the Government are not caught unawares as the temperature rises. Last week, I had a meeting in my constituency with Thames Water, which told me that it is preparing drought mitigation measures. The regular supply of water to people’s properties, businesses and agricultural land is vital to livelihoods and everyday lives. What steps are the Government taking, and perhaps putting in their new action plan, to ensure that any drought mitigation measures will not significantly impact the country in the coming months?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Post Office Horizon Inquiry: Volume 1 · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for giving me advance sight of his statement. The Horizon scandal was an appalling miscarriage of justice, and today’s report highlights the extent of the human suffering that it has caused. Reading the stories of some of the victims in this report was truly heartbreaking, and it could not be clearer that far too many people’s lives have been irreparably affected. No scandal of this kind can be allowed to happen ever again. We warmly welcome the publication of the first volume of the independent inquiry’s report, which has the full support of the Liberal Democrats, and I sincerely hope that it will focus Ministers’ minds in getting victims the compensation and justice that they deserve as soon as possible. It is shocking that victims of this scandal have had to wait this long for their rightful compensation and justice. The Government need to move at speed and bring an end to this unacceptable delay. Although we welcome the promise of full compensation, the Liberal Democrats will continue to hold the Government to account in order to ensure that victims get the payments they deserve as quickly as possible, so will the Minister confirm that the Government will implement the recommendations of today’s report in full? Will they set out a timeline for when all victims can expect to receive full and fair compensation? What conversations have the Government had with the Post Office and Fujitsu about restorative justice in the light of Sir Wyn’s recommendations? Lastly, when will the Government finally introduce legislation on a full duty of candour, for which sub-postmasters and the victims of so many other scandals and disasters have so long called?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Parental Leave Review · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s commitment to the much-needed review on parental leave. Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the opportunity to flourish, no matter their background or personal circumstances. Too often, parents struggle on inadequate parental pay and without good enough access to shared leave. Childcare costs are eye-watering, and the balance between family life and work has only become harder to strike. The Liberal Democrats have been calling for an overhaul of the parental leave system, to give parents a genuine choice about how they manage their responsibilities in the first months of their child’s life. If I could gently correct the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), it was the Liberal Democrats who were proud to introduce shared parental leave in government. However, years later, millions of parents are still being denied the choice to spend more time at home, with around a quarter of fathers ineligible for paternity pay. As we welcome this review into parental leave, I urge the Government to look more broadly into the prevalent inequality in caring responsibilities. What steps are they taking to support the millions of family carers who are looking after disabled or elderly relatives and who have no paid leave at all? Will they commit to a similar review into provision for unpaid carers and to make carer’s leave paid? Will they commit to reviewing the needs of carers and those of the families who have taken on kinship caring responsibilities? I welcome that commitment in the statement today, but do the Government plan to introduce statutory kinship care leave? We call on the Government to use the review to finally deliver meaningful reforms that address the long-standing concerns of carers and their loved ones, as well as making changes to the circumstances of working families that can make parenting a joy rather than a burden, and end the dilemma of having to choose between work and family.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) for his work in securing this important debate. It has been a real pleasure to hear from so many of my Liberal Democrat colleagues about their constituencies. That underlines the fact that Liberal Democrats represent all the best places in the UK, and that is why tourism and hospitality is a very important sector for us. I was lucky enough last summer to do a little tour through the constituencies of Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire; Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross; and Orkney and Shetland, so I can very much confirm that all three constituencies have excellent hospitality businesses that are very welcoming to visitors. This Easter, I was lucky enough to spend a few days in West Dorset in the wonderful town of Lyme Regis, and I have spent many happy family holidays in Westmorland and Lonsdale. There are also many hospitality businesses in my constituency of Richmond Park. Just last Friday, I hosted a representative of VisitBritain, who came to see me because Kew Gardens in my constituency is second only to the Tower of London in this year’s list of the most-visited paid attractions in the UK. We had a long conversation about the issues affecting the tourism sector, and I was very interested to find that the Government have recently cut funding for efforts to promote domestic tourism. Those who are not as lucky as I am in having many colleagues who represent constituencies in such wonderful parts of the UK do not know enough about domestic tourism. I would like the Minister to comment on that. As my many wonderful colleagues have already alluded to, the current economic landscape is really challenging for many businesses and industries. Years of dire economic mismanagement by the last Conservative Government have led to businesses facing huge challenges, ranging from recruiting and retaining good staff to soaring energy costs and the increase of trading obstacles following their botched trade agreement with the EU. However, many of those challenges are now being compounded by decisions taken by this Government. Last autumn’s Budget hit the hospitality sector with an extra £3.4 billion of annual costs through the cumulative impact of changes to employer NICs, increases in the national living wage, and the near halving of business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. A recent survey conducted by UKHospitality of its members found that, since the autumn Budget, a third of hospitality businesses are now operating at a loss, with 75% having increased prices, two thirds reducing hours available to staff and six in 10 cutting jobs. Those cuts are a last-ditch attempt by many businesses to stay afloat, as they are crying out for support. The Liberal Democrats welcomed many aspects of last week’s industrial strategy, but very little in it will alleviate the heavy burdens imposed on the hospitality sector by Labour’s tax reforms. The Liberal Democrats have called for the hospitality industry to be exempt from the hikes in NICs announced in the Budget, as we recognise the difficult position that many business owners have been in since the pandemic. Small businesses are the beating heart of our economy and at the centre of our communities, and they create the jobs that we all rely on. We are glad that raising the employment allowance will shield the very smallest employers, but thousands of local businesses, including many in the hospitality sector, will still feel the damaging impact of many of the changes. That is why my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have voted against the changes to employer NICs at every opportunity, and I once again urge the Government to scrap these measures. More broadly, we will continue to call on the Government to introduce vital reform to the business rates system. In 2019, the previous Conservative Government promised a fundamental review of the business rates system, but failed to deliver it. Meanwhile, the current Government pledged in their manifesto to replace the system, but still no action has been taken. The Liberal Democrats have called for a complete overhaul of the unfair business rates system, replacing it with a commercial landowner levy, which would shift the burden of taxation from tenants to landowners. The current system penalises manufacturers when they invest to become more productive and energy efficient. It leaves pubs and restaurants with disproportionately high tax bills and puts our high street businesses at an unfair disadvantage compared with online retail giants. In too many places, pubs, restaurants and shops are being forced to close, taking with them jobs, opportunities and treasured community spaces. More broadly, this outdated system inhibits business investment, job creation and economic growth, holding back our national economy. It has existed for too long, and it is time that the Government took action. Our proposals for fair reform would cut tax bills, breathe new life into local economies and spur growth. Equally, they would provide long-term certainty for businesses, which is what the economy across the UK needs. With regard to long-term planning, I am glad that the Government introduced the industrial strategy last week. I welcome this commitment to stability, and I am pleased that it will allow businesses to look and plan for the future with more certainty. As the Government unveil their strategies to bring together skills development plans and a long-term industrial strategy to ease the pressures that so many employers face, we have reservations about the cohesion between these schemes. What steps are the Government taking to ensure effective collaboration and transparency across different strategies and public bodies? We welcome last week’s announcement in the industrial strategy that we will see a funding boost for skills and training. However, the announcement stops well short of the fundamental reform that we need to address the workforce shortages that many industries are facing. British businesses must be able to hire the people they need with the skills they need. A key cause of workforce shortages is ill health, and to tackle the problem, the Government must invest in our NHS and social care so that people can get the healthcare they need to rejoin the workforce more quickly. We have called on the Government to fix NHS backlogs, cut ambulance waiting times and raise the minimum wage for care workers by £2 an hour to boost our social care system and get people out of hospital quicker. Any business will tell us that the apprenticeship levy does not work. They cannot get the funding they need to train staff, and hundreds of millions of pounds go unspent. The Liberal Democrats have been calling for the apprenticeship levy to be replaced with a wider skills and training levy that will give businesses more flexibility over how they spend money to train their staff. Will the Minister accelerate the reform of apprenticeships and empower Skills England to act as a properly independent body, with employers at its heart? Finally, as we look more broadly at factors impacting workforce shortages, I once again urge the Government to act with much more urgency in introducing their youth mobility scheme. The changes to the immigration system implemented in April 2024, increasing the minimum salary threshold for skilled worker visas, shrank the talent pool from which hospitality businesses can recruit, contributing to greater staff shortages. Around three quarters of the hospitality workforce is filled by UK citizens, but international talent has always been attracted to work in the UK due to our pedigree for hospitality and developing careers. A 2024 survey of 1,650 employers from across a range of sectors, including hospitality, adult social care and manufacturing, found that 49% of employers with hard-to-fill vacancies said that a reduction in the availability of migrant workers was one of the main causes. At a time when recent Government decisions in the Budget have added to the overall tax burden on hospitality businesses, with many considering whether their business remains viable, we must provide the tools that hospitality needs to help businesses grow so that it can boost the wider economy, including ensuring access to global talent. I have heard from stakeholders in the hospitality sector, including business owners and supply chain managers, who have said that they would welcome proposals that would bring more stability to the sector, allowing them to make longer-term plans as part of a more predictable and robust regulatory framework. Again, will the Minister set out a timeline for the introduction of a youth mobility experience, which would be good for our economy, easing some of the burdens that the hospitality sector is facing?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Last week, ahead of the launch of its ethnicity code, the Lending Standards Board announced it would be closing, following the withdrawal of support from major high street banks. This was going to be a groundbreaking step towards tackling the barriers that ethnic minority business owners face in accessing finance. What steps will the Government take to ensure that the ethnicity code is implemented, supported and scaled, so that its principles are embedded across the financial sector?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Local Bus Services · Hansard source

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  In my constituency, Hammersmith bridge has been closed to vehicles for over six years. During that time, buses have been unable to cross, emergency vehicles have experienced delays and businesses on both sides of the bridge have lost out. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury was recently unable to confirm on the radio whether the structures fund will be put towards the bridge’s repairs, so will the Minister tell me whether we can expect funding for Hammersmith bridge to reopen?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. In July 2024, the Secretary of State pledged to launch a consultation on the regulation of frontier AI systems “shortly”. [ Interruption. ] However, recent reports suggest that it will not be forthcoming until summer 2026. As leading AI companies have admitted that their systems could be used to develop biological and nuclear weapons, will the Minister confirm why there has been a delay?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q12. London boroughs are collectively facing a funding shortfall of at least £500 million for the current financial year. Despite that, the money allocated to local authorities in London by the Government’s spending review fell 35% short of the amount requested by London councils. Under the Government’s planned changes to local authority funding, the two councils in my constituency—Richmond and Kingston—are set to lose out even more, while the cost of funding local services continues to rise. Is it the Government’s policy that London residents should continue to receive ever-increasing council tax bills, while their local authorities have less and less money to spend?

• 24 Jun 2025 · National Security Strategy · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrats welcome the publication of the Government’s national security strategy, because we recognise that we are living in a world that is less stable and more insecure now than at any time since the end of the cold war. Putin’s forces continue to wage their war in Ukraine, the middle east is teetering on the precipice of a fully-fledged regional war, and the actions of the United States under an unreliable President Trump are putting an enormous strain on the post-war settlement from which we have benefited so much. The nature of the threats we face continues to evolve, as has become immensely clear to millions of people across the country with the recent cyber-attacks on Marks and Spencer and the Co-op, and in other countries we have seen attempts by authoritarian states to meddle in free and fair elections. That is why we welcome so much of what is contained in the strategy. It is also why the Liberal Democrats have welcomed the Government’s decision to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, although we have urged Ministers to go further. Given the new NATO target of 5% of GDP, will the Government now urgently convene cross-party talks to establish a consensus on how to get there? We need to show our adversaries we are serious about that commitment. The strategy also has a welcome focus on resilience, something especially important given not just the scale of the threat we face but its varied nature. Will the Minister look at steps taken by our allies such as Estonia to inform their populations about how to deal with those threats, should they arise? To reflect the threat posed to our democracy by hostile actors, will he make protecting our democracy a national security priority? I also note the importance that the review places on sovereign independent capabilities. Is that an admission from the Government that, under President Trump, the United States is no longer a reliable ally? Will the assessment be carried over into defence procurement, where we look to maintain an inextricably close bond with the United States?

• 23 Jun 2025 · UK Modern Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrats have long been champions of the industrial strategy. We are proud that the strategy we introduced in government set out the Green Investment Bank, the British Business Bank and the regional growth fund, and we strongly opposed the Conservative Government’s damaging decision to scrap our country’s industrial plan. We therefore welcome the re-establishment of the industrial strategy and the fact that it focuses on many of the sectors we prioritised in government, including life sciences, professional services and clean energy. On energy, measures to bring down some of the highest industrial prices in the world will be welcome news for our manufacturers and energy-intensive firms, but we cannot forget that businesses across our entire economy struggle with high energy prices, not least our hospitality businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that small businesses across sectors have access to better energy deals? Will he look to bring forward the industrial competitiveness scheme from its current two-year horizon? On skills, while today’s announcement comes with a welcome funding boost, it stops well short of the fundamental reform that we need, so will the Secretary of State accelerate the reform of apprenticeships and empower Skills England to act as a properly independent body with employers at its heart? One key omission from the strategy is our world-leading agrifood industry, which has been relegated from being a priority sector to receiving only a handful of mentions in the entire document. I hope that the Secretary of State will admit that our farmers and rural communities deserve far better. On trade, if the Government are truly serious about backing British business and going for growth, will they show more ambition on trade with Europe and look to negotiate a new UK-EU customs union, which could put rocket boosters under UK plc? In the extra time that you have kindly granted me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to ask the Secretary of State about access to finance and about addressing inequalities in particular. As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on ethnic minority business owners, I have seen for myself the data on how much more difficult it is for those businesses to access finance, and similar data exists for women entrepreneurs. Addressing those inequalities would add a great deal to growth. Finally, when will we see more details about the National Wealth Fund?

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sorry, but I will make progress. We would all have been better served by asking a team of experts to evaluate the evidence, draw on their professional experience and come to a settled consensus among themselves on this point about mental capacity and, likewise, the questions we had about how best to approach anorexia within the context of assisted dying and whether the Bill provides a suitable framework for the provision and control of drugs designed for the ending of a life. These are not political decisions. They have, however, been decided by politicians, and we have approached them in our usual adversarial way, where the right answer is not the one arrived at after careful thought, consideration and consultation, but the one that can muster the most votes. We have therefore reached a most unsatisfactory conclusion. This legislation imposes duties and responsibilities on professionals who do not think them compatible with their expert practice. It was amended in Committee to require that a panel approve an application for assisted dying, and that the panel include a psychiatrist. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has stated that it opposes this legislation.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am not giving way. By contrast, many decisions are expressly reserved for politicians. Should the limited resources of the NHS be used to deliver an assisted dying service, or should it be possible to offer the service as a profit-making enterprise? What information should be collected and reported about assisted dying? Who should oversee and regulate its practitioners? Members of Parliament are to have no say over any of those matters at all. Those are all powers to be reserved to the Secretary of State, to be decided behind closed doors. Once again, this legislation grants these responsibilities to people who do not want them. Neither the current Health Secretary nor the current Justice Secretary are supporters of this Bill. After today, the House of Commons will be shut out of further decision making on this Bill, even though many of the decisions still to be made are rightfully ours to make. The lack of professional consensus or acceptance of the requirements of this legislation, coupled with a lack of political scrutiny of many of its more important provisions, creates an unstable foundation upon which to build an assisted dying service. For such a service to succeed, it needs professionals willing to deliver it, who can have confidence that they are acting within the law and will be supported by their professional peers and by society at large. I do not see how this legislation can deliver that. It is instructive to compare this piece of legislation with the Abortion Act 1967. That, too, was a private Member’s Bill, brought to this House by the Liberal MP David Steel, but it was preceded by a medical advisory committee chaired by the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which approved the Bill. The professionals who would be needed to enact the legislation had indicated their support for the Bill before it reached the Commons. The Bill only delegated one power to the Secretary of State. The legislation was hotly debated then as now, but once it was passed, it came into force within six months. Remarkably, with the exception of amendments required to bring it into line with successive Human Fertilisation and Embryology Acts and to extend its provisions to Northern Ireland, the provisions that the Abortion Act brought into law have remained almost entirely unchanged in 58 years—until just this week, in fact. The careful consideration of the issues that took place before the legislation came to the Commons, combined with the fact that all its provisions were included within the primary legislation to be debated and voted on in one go, has enabled a settled consensus to develop around abortion provision in this country, in contrast to other jurisdictions. It has enabled vulnerable women to seek the help they need and given healthcare workers the confidence and support they require to meet those needs. That is what we need, if we want to deliver a successful assisted dying service, and this legislation cannot deliver that. If Members want assisted dying, vote against this Bill and make the most of the moment to press for a better approach that can deliver a sustainable framework, accepted and supported by the medical profession, and in which the public can have confidence. If people’s lives are going to be ended prematurely as a result of this legislation that we pass, we cannot take risks. We cannot afford to pass this Bill.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am not giving way. Will there be sufficient psychiatrists prepared to implement the provisions of this legislation, against the advice of their professional body, to ensure that enough panels can be convened for the purpose of facilitating assisted dying? It is hard to see how there could be.