Adam Thompson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is giving an important introduction to the Bill. Does he agree that international alignment in the standards we are discussing on scientific matters is essential for the smooth operation of modern advanced manufacturing?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  As the Secretary of State said earlier, I believe I am the first metrologist to be elected to this House in history, so it gives me great pleasure to rise to debate the Bill. I took the liberty of checking Hansard and until the Secretary of State used the word earlier, I was the only Member to have ever used the word “metrologist” in the House of Commons. I am proud to be here today and prouder still that the Labour Government have brought forward a Bill featuring metrology in the first year of our new Government. Most of the debate has focused on the product regulation in the Bill, but given my background I will focus on the metrology. Prior to my election to this place, I was at the University of Nottingham, where I was active in research in metrology for advanced manufacturing, beginning with my PhD, continuing through several more years as a research fellow, and latterly as a senior research fellow. However, like most people I have known in my life, when I began my PhD, I had absolutely no idea what metrology was. Indeed, I am sure several colleagues in the Chamber did not know what it was before today, and I fear some still do not, so I would like to provide an explanation of the nature of my science, and explain why, contrary to popular assumption, it has nothing to do with clouds. [ Interruption. ] Please forgive my terrible pun. The international standard, “Vocabulaire international de métrologie”, formally defines metrology as “the science of measurement and its application”, noting that “metrology includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement, whatever the measurement uncertainty and field of application”. It is not the “branch of science concerned with the processes and phenomena of the atmosphere, especially as a means of forecasting the weather”, which is, of course, meteorology—something I have explained almost every day of my professional career. Metrology broadly encompasses the various fields of research that seek to develop the science and technology of measurement, be that measurement of any of the seven base quantities from the système international d’unités—the SI—or any of the units derived from those base quantities. The seven base quantities are, of course, length, mass, time, electric current, thermodynamic temperature, amount of substance and luminous intensity. The great physicist Lord Kelvin once expressed: “To measure is to know”. He also said: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” Those sentiments are rarely more applicable than in the advanced manufacturing industry, where we are interested both in ensuring that a manufactured component meets the dimensional specification laid out by its designer and in constantly improving on existing products. Metrology is a science that fundamentally underpins all other science. Without tools that allow us to measure and know, we cannot gain any understanding of the world around us, nor can we improve on it. In the fundamental scientific pursuit of understanding our universe, we are most often concerned with the metre, the first of the SI base units. The metre is defined formally by taking the fixed numerical value of the speed of light in a vacuum, C, to be 299,792,458 when expressed in the unit of metres per second and where the second is defined in terms of the caesium frequency. In fact, that definition changed very recently—it came into force in 2018. The metre is more simply described by its older definition, which is simply the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in a time interval, in seconds, of one divided by the speed of light. In my opinion, the metre is one of the most beautiful creations in science: it is defined by light itself, and it is a creation that allows us in turn to create everything in our world. At the start of this debate, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) asked the House when weights and measures became metrology. The answer to that question is: several thousand years before the common era. Behind every great scientific advancement in history, there has been a metrologist. Behind the pyramids, there was the first standardised unit of measurement—the royal cubit, defined as the length of the pharaoh’s forearm as measured from the tip of his forefinger to the base of his elbow. The cubit was a technology so advanced that it allowed the ancient Egyptians to position the building blocks of the pyramids with an accuracy almost equal to modern methods. Thousands of years later, there remains speculation on whether they were in fact built by aliens, because of how incredible an achievement that was. They were, of course, built not by aliens, but by metrologists.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Do not worry, Madam Deputy Speaker—it is not one for today. I am nearly finished. Each stage of the traceability chain has some discernible uncertainty, which generally increases as we move down that chain and instrument accuracy decreases. Estimation of uncertainty at each link in the chain is essential; it is impossible to have a traceable measurement without the inclusion of an uncertainty with that measurement. When applied in manufacturing, traceability allows us to create anything we can imagine within the confines of our chosen manufacturing process. It is the cornerstone of our modern manufacturing industry. Through this Bill, the Government seek to update metrology regulations and the means by which those regulations are enforced. We have heard at great length different opinions about that process, but the Government are today ensuring conformity with SI, ensuring uniformity in the measurement, sale, monitoring and quantity of goods. Further, they are ensuring that the Secretary of State and other appropriate bodies have the powers they require to inspect and enforce that conformity. The Bill will ensure that UK law is updated to recognise new or updated international regulations and keep us at the cutting edge of science and regulation. Members said earlier in the debate how the UK was at the forefront of regulation. I spent many years on standards committees working through these things. Every standards committee I ever worked on fed into the British standard, which fed into the European standard and the international standard. Those are the frameworks we are updating today to ensure that we remain at the forefront. It will mean cost savings for business and it will promote regulatory stability. Finally, the provisions laid out in this Bill continue the work begun by the ancient Egyptians—the work that allowed us to build everything from the great pyramids to the phones in our pockets, the paper that we hold in our hands and indeed the very floor on which we stand today. Our work today will ensure that the bulbs that light this room are of an appropriate brightness, that the air that we breathe and that surrounds us is of an appropriate temperature, and that we can finally get a fairly measured full beverage of exactly 568 ml in the pub. I support this Bill wholeheartedly.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  Like so much of the midlands, Erewash as we know and understand it today was born of the industrial revolution. Ilkeston was transformed from a historic market town to a place of hard, serious industry, and Long Eaton was scarcely a village before the coming of the canals and the railways. While the economy has changed, this Erewash of good jobs, thriving town centres and proper communities is still very much in living memory. At the heart of the east midlands—halfway between Derby and Nottingham—Erewash is now a place of immense potential. With this Bill, I believe we can unlock that potential, unleash prosperity, spur economic growth and help to deliver national renewal, creating the jobs and building the new homes that my constituents and this country need. In Ilkeston, the old Stanton ironworks was a British industrial giant, employing nearly 10,000 people. Now, 20 years on from its closure, on the largest brownfield site in Derbyshire, New Stanton Park rises from the rubble. Every time I drive past, new work has been done on the park, and new jobs are already being created, but this restoration has taken too long. The planning process, with the immense costs, time and insecurity involved, has a serious, direct and negative impact on businesses’ ability to grow. Erewash has not met its housing targets since they were introduced in 2011—not once in the last 15 years. This problem is part of a decades-long national failure to build enough new homes, which has resulted in a housing crisis named by some as the worst in the developed world. As a result, the cost of buying a home has risen exponentially, rents are ever increasing and the average age of first-time buyers is rising consistently. From the peak, where homeowners represented more than 70% of the population just over 20 years ago, home ownership has fallen by nearly 10%. Most disturbingly for me, Erewash borough council has a social housing waiting list of more than 5,000 people, or about 2,400 households. This is a staggering failure of the state. Recently, I had the pleasure of showing my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury around 50 new social homes built on a brownfield site in Long Eaton. While this site represents excellent work by my council colleagues, it is not enough. Fifty new social homes is a droplet in the ocean when we have 2,000 families waiting to move in. For too long, politicians locally and nationally have clung to stopgap measures, trying to treat the symptoms but falling short of a cure. Nobody is denying that people may not like it and that this is really difficult, but the solution is simple: we have to build more new homes. For the young families wanting to settle down, the renters tired of having so much of their hard-earned income paying their landlord’s mortgage, and the 1.3 million households—not people, but households—on social waiting lists in England alone, we have a moral duty to build new homes. This Bill is at the very heart of this Government’s decade of national renewal. If we are going to make Britain a green energy superpower, we need to build the vital infrastructure that is required. If we want to take back our streets, break down the barriers to opportunity and build a national health service fit for the future, we need to unlock economic growth, so the Government have the money to properly invest in and restore public services. If we are going to put money back in people’s pockets, we need to make it cheaper to buy a home, and if we are going to create the good jobs that people want and need, Britain needs to be a more attractive place to invest, grow and do business. To do all of that, we need to make it cheaper, faster and easier to build a better Britain.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  In Erewash, there are many disabled and sick people who can never work, but who are forced to jump endlessly through hoops for the benefits they need to survive. I welcome the Secretary of State’s plan to switch off reassessments and end the needless stresses that these people must endure. Will she elaborate on those plans?

• 11 Mar 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  May I thank the Minister for her answer, and also extend my thoughts to Joanne’s family and friends? In recent years, women and girls have increasingly expressed distrust in the ability of the justice system to resolve cases of violence and sexual harassment, as so few of those events result in prosecution. What steps is the Minister taking to restore trust in the justice system, so that my constituents in Erewash know that they have somewhere to turn when they are targeted by such hate crimes?

• 11 Mar 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  11. What steps her Department is taking to help tackle violence against women and girls.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I am proud to speak in firm support of the Bill. Many of my constituents feel that crime, especially day-to-day antisocial behaviour, has grown exponentially over recent years. It impacts every part of my constituency, from the town centres in Ilkeston and Long Eaton, to villages such as Draycott and suburban estates such as Cotmanhay. The Bill is about making people feel safe, so that Erewash residents from Sawley to Shipley View can live their lives free from the fear of crime. As our local police forces were gutted by austerity under the previous Government, so-called low-level offences such as antisocial behaviour, shoplifting and even burglary were increasingly ignored and functionally decriminalised by the Conservative party. Shoplifting was functionally decriminalised under the negligence of the previous Government, who set guidelines stating that it should not be dealt with if goods worth less than £200 were stolen. Although major supermarkets and surviving high street chains might be able to stomach that volume, our small businesses cannot. How were those businesses meant to grow, how were investments meant to be made, how were town centres meant to thrive and how were people meant to feel safe when criminals and thieves were given impunity by the previous Government’s shoplifters’ charter? The Bill repeals that thieves’ charter, which will surely come as a relief to business owners and the hard-working, law-abiding majority of constituents in Erewash and across the country. Knife crime has more than doubled in Derbyshire in the past decade. The recent horrific stabbing and subsequent death of a teenager in my constituency has rightly given rise to a lot of anger in my community—some of which ended up being directed at me, as people asked bluntly, “What are you going to do about this?” That is why I will be very proud to vote for the Bill, which creates a new offence of possession of a bladed item with intent to cause harm. It will give our police the new and stronger powers that they need to seize, keep and destroy knives confiscated from private properties. Finally, on violence against women and girls, 13,000 stalking and harassment offences were recorded in Derbyshire in 2024—the highest figure in the east midlands —along with more than 3,400 sexual offences. In that time, one of my great friends and constituents reported to police that she had been followed and had sexual abuse shouted at her. That abuse happened in broad daylight and in public, on West Park in Long Eaton. The Government’s mission is to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. If we are to do that, our police will need the measures in the Bill. If we have now entered the decade of national renewal that the Government promised, yes we need to get the economy growing again, yes we need to get Britain building again, and yes we need to get the NHS back on its feet, but we must also ensure that crime is punished and that the police are given the powers that they need to properly enforce against offenders. We must take back our streets and excise the rot. If we restore social order and respect for our communities, we can fix broken Britain.

• 5 Mar 2025 · Antisocial Behaviour and Illegal Bikes · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) for securing this very important debate. The rise of illegal off-road bikes has been a particular concern for many of us attending this debate, and that concern has been mounting over the last few years. This issue has had an impact on many communities, including in my constituency, especially in Cotmanhay and the north of Ilkeston, and along the Nutbrook Trail. Off-road bikes too often point to a litany of other crimes, such as shoplifting, mugging and drug dealing. Although our local police work tirelessly behind the scenes to combat those underlying causes, much of that work cannot be publicly disclosed, which leads to frustration among residents who feel that not enough is being done. Such bikes are almost always being ridden illegally, whether on residential streets, public parks or private land, and with a total disregard for the law and without respect to local residents. That illegal activity creates community tension, sows distrust and damages pride in local communities among those who are simply trying to live their lives. It is clear that the present state of affairs is simply unacceptable. There has also been a concerning post-covid rise in such criminals covering their faces with masks, snoods and balaclavas, making it extremely difficult for the police to identify and punish perpetrators. Those issues extend beyond off-road bikes; e-scooters pose similar problems, particularly in town centres. Again, the use of those bikes and scooters is often linked to further crime. I am very pleased that the new Crime and Policing Bill will tackle this rampant antisocial behaviour and, as other hon. Members have said, will give the police new, much-needed powers and take away many of the obstacles to bringing criminals to justice. The police will now be able to immediately seize off-road bikes—something I was shocked to learn they simply could not do when a local police officer raised it with me at the Ilkeston classic car show last summer. That will deal a serious blow to the petty gangs that use them to aid everything from shoplifting to drug dealing and assault. I am very pleased to see the Labour Government taking action on this issue.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Hong Kong Democracy Activists · Hansard source

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  Since the launch of the British nationals overseas visa route for Hongkongers, more than 209,000 people have been granted a visa, of whom more than 150,000 have arrived in the UK, including in my community in Erewash. I welcome the Government’s continuing support for Hongkongers. What steps is the Immigration Minister taking to support the integration of those coming into the UK via the BNO route?

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to speak in support of the Bill, unamended, which I believe is crucial to delivering growth and ensuring that we have a highly trained workforce that is fit for the future. As some in the Chamber will know, my job before coming to this place was teaching degree-level apprenticeships in electro-mechanical engineering. I saw at first hand the transformative power of apprenticeships in delivering high quality education while providing real world experience. Like all apprenticeships, degree-level apprenticeships are a tripartite partnership between apprentice, university and employer—a model that has proved highly effective. Our employers frequently reported back to us that apprentices were better prepared for their professional roles than their counterparts with traditional degrees, and degree-level apprenticeship programmes have widened participation, attracting more students from deprived backgrounds, and more students with learning differences who may have struggled within the traditional university system. As a Member of Parliament, I weave my background in education, advanced manufacturing, and apprenticeships into everything I do in this role. I recently visited WEBS Furniture Training, which trains apprentices in bespoke furniture manufacturing—a proper, old-school, artisan skill that they can carry with them and make a career from all their lives. Long Eaton and Ilkeston, the principal towns in my constituency, have a long and proud history of furniture manufacturing and lace making respectively. Both towns are what they are today firmly as products of the industrial revolution, and although the economy has changed since the Victorian era, bespoke furniture manufacturing, done by highly skilled, irreplaceable artisans, survives. IKEA, robots, and giant factories in China cannot replicate the product of the honed, learned artistry that remains the backbone of our British manufacturing, and to survive now in this changing world, those are the kinds of skills that Britain must foster. Such skills are also an incredible means of spurring economic growth and resilience outside London and the greater south-east, and indeed outside the great cities of the north and midlands. Ilkeston and Long Eaton are post-industrial towns in the east midlands, and if we get this right, we can protect and enhance their world-beating lace making and furniture manufacturing industries long into the future. If we are to build the 1.5 million homes that the Government have promised in the next five years, and hopefully many more long after that, and if we are to build the new towns, railway lines, reservoirs, prisons—all the things that this country has failed to invest in for so long—we will need the electricians, carpenters, joiners, builders, welders and plumbers that apprenticeship providers are training across our country. I would like to present a case study about my good friend and colleague, Councillor Harry Atkinson. Harry was one of the many new young councillors elected in Erewash when Labour took control of the borough council in 2023. Next year, he will be Erewash’s youngest ever mayor, aged 25. Harry is also a highly skilled engineer. Leaving school at a time when about half of his cohort were going to university, Harry instead got an apprenticeship at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, which looms across the skyline of my constituency. Until last autumn, it was the last operational coal-fired power station in Britain. Harry has worked at Ratcliffe for nearly a decade. He has become so skilled that he has been promoted to managerial level and he is now a key trouble-shooter when things go wrong. While Ratcliffe is now in its decommissioning phase, Harry can be assured in his future because there is ample demand for the skills he learned in his apprenticeship, both locally and across the country. Harry’s story represents the power of an apprenticeship —the conversion of hard work into real skills, an assured career and good pay. It is those kinds of jobs that we need to create for our young people. It is on us—this Government—to build a future where this kind of apprenticeship success story is the norm, not the exception, and where an apprenticeship holds every bit as much value as a degree, is every bit as desirable for children and parents, and is every bit as much a cornerstone of our growing economy.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  I welcome the statement, and I am very glad that Chaucer infant and nursery school in my constituency signed up to the early adopters scheme. When I had the great privilege of visiting the school recently, Miss Dawley gave me an excellent tour and I had a fantastic discussion with the smart school council about its priorities for our community. Free breakfast clubs will provide a real financial boost for families in my constituency, who have struggled greatly as a result of the cost of living crisis. Will the Secretary of State say more about how they will improve the opportunities available to children in Erewash?

• 12 Feb 2025 · SEND Provision: Derbyshire · Hansard source

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  First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) for securing this extremely important debate. Put simply, this is an issue I hear about from constituents every single day, as do all my Derbyshire colleagues. In Erewash, SEND families face an uphill battle. Conservative Derbyshire county council has, as we have been hearing about, consistently failed my constituents, as it has failed constituents across the county, causing anxiety and frustration in making any progress on the education and care of our children. We have heard already this evening about the Ofsted report, which confirms what many families in Derbyshire already knew: that SEND provision is failing at almost every level, if not every level. The issue raised with me repeatedly by my constituents was rightly highlighted in the report: communication between families and the local authority. Emails and phone calls are roundly ignored, meaning that families are not updated. They are left in limbo for months. We heard about the incredible length of time that some families go through to get their EHCP in place. Sometimes it takes years, and that leaves SEND families feeling alone. Indeed, many of my colleagues will be receiving multiple new cases every week. I write to Derbyshire county council multiple times every week to raise these issues. At a SEND drop-in I held in Erewash I was told of the case of a child who needs specialist education, much like we have heard from colleagues this evening. He was offered a place in a school that was ready and able to provide support. All Derbyshire county council had to do was approve the placement. However, the council took three months to respond and by the time it did, the offer had been closed. The child’s current school put in an emergency review, which again had no response from Derbyshire county council, so it then had to go to mediation. Since the response to mediation, there has been no further progress. The child is still not receiving the required education, having only two days of alternative provision a week. The process is complicated, long, unnecessarily drawn out, and incredibly painful for the children and families involved. To make matters worse, that child and their family have had no fewer than nine case officers over the past several years, an incredible lack of consistency that makes communication between the local authority and the family even more difficult. Derbyshire has a crisis, as we have heard from multiple colleagues this evening. SEND families are being let down time and time again. Conservative-run Derbyshire county council is failing our most vulnerable children every single day. While Derbyshire now has a Labour representative in every constituency, it is incredibly disappointing that not one Conservative Member of Parliament has joined us this evening to hear about our plight with Derbyshire county council. I was pleased hear in the Budget that the Government are providing an extra £1 billion towards SEND services. I am also very pleased to hear that the Government will be reviewing SEND services. Evidently these services all over the country, but especially in Derbyshire, need to be reviewed and must be repaired. The Conservatives are responsible for this chaos, but I believe in the power of education to change lives and that all children, regardless of their circumstances, have a fundamental right to an excellent education.

• 5 Feb 2025 · English Devolution and Local Government · Hansard source

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  Special educational needs and disabilities families in Erewash and across Derbyshire have been broadly let down by Conservative-run Derbyshire county council, as was profoundly shown in the recent Ofsted report. While I firmly believe that reorganisation of our local services will improve SEND services, news of the devolution plans has caused families in my area to worry that reorganisation might mean further disruption to services. Can the Secretary of State reassure me and the many SEND families in Erewash that measures will be taken to ensure a smooth handover between the old authorities and the new?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Apprenticeships · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) for securing this debate ahead of National Apprenticeship Week. I am a great advocate of the apprenticeship system. This time last year I was employed at the University of Nottingham, teaching degree-level apprenticeships in electromechanical engineering. Degree-level apprenticeship courses strongly complement a traditional format of degree-level education and powerfully support the Government’s skills agenda. I want to focus specifically on degree-level apprenticeships and their unique offering. The course I helped deliver at Nottingham was a new paradigm in degree delivery. When people picture a degree in mechanical engineering, they could be forgiven for thinking of an aged lecturer—often male and white—delivering a sermon on gear ratios or some such nonsense to a half-empty, oak-panelled lecture hall, with his students often more taken by the declining state of repair of his ochre elbow patches than the content of his lectures. However, that image could not be further from the course that my colleagues and I were delivering last year. In a degree-level apprenticeship, content is commonly provided asynchronously via recordings and digital exercises, in a manner significantly more engaging than otherwise might be possible in a traditionally delivered degree. When I was in my previous employment, I often joked that my role was closer to a professional Youtuber than that of a traditional lecturer, with my days spent recording and editing 15 to 20-minute videos in a bite- sized, easily digestible format. I want more degree-level apprenticeships to be offered to allow more people to access the knowledge and experience those courses offer. I want to see people thrive with a new skills offering, and to reverse the decline in apprenticeships that happened under the previous Government. This Friday, I will visit JTL Training in Sandiacre in my constituency, a training facility which supports career development and business growth and offers apprenticeships and traineeships in building services engineering. I am looking forward to meeting the apprentices on Friday, to talk to them about exactly how we can support their growth, and the growth of our nation.

• 3 Feb 2025 · People with Disabilities and Long-term Health Conditions: Work Support · Hansard source

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  In 2019, my close friend and constituent Jim was at his desk, working as a web developer, when out of the blue he felt a sudden pain. Jim was having a spinal stroke. He has never since been able to walk. The pain medication that Jim must take to manage his condition limits his ability to work, but sometimes he has unpredictable bursts of productivity. However, Jim’s benefit arrangements mean that the work that he could occasionally be able to do might result in sanctions to his benefits. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that Jim can get back into work?

• 3 Feb 2025 · People with Disabilities and Long-term Health Conditions: Work Support · Hansard source

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  23. What steps she is taking to support people with disabilities and long-term health conditions into work.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Prayers · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the House sit in private. Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163). A Division was called.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

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  We have heard extensively about the importance of cross-party consensus, and I believe we have been having a fantastic discussion to that end. Does the hon. Member agree that in the name of cross-party consensus we should be working together and not just party political grandstanding in favour of the Green party?

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 17 Jan 2025 · Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my neighbour and dear friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth). I certainly agree with her and commend the school in Langley Mill. I was her predecessor as the Labour candidate in Amber Valley in 2019, and I know the fantastic work the school is doing. I am a great proponent of visiting schools. I went to two last week: Ladywood primary school in Kirk Hallam, and Saint John Houghton Catholic voluntary academy, which I know my hon. Friend attended as a pupil many years ago. I am a fan of school visits, and as a trained former teacher, I find it one of the most enjoyable parts of my job. I know that many right hon. and hon. Members are similarly strong advocates. I was talking about the importance of better education in school, breaking down the barriers to opportunity and ensuring that all our pupils get access to the knowledge they require to engage fully in our political system. I remember the few short hours when I was a pupil at Llanishen high school in north Cardiff when the headteacher, Mr Robert Smyth, came in and taught my class about politics. He was given just four or six hours over the five years of my time in state education. It is disappointing that we have such a small amount of politics education available to pupils in state schools. I have long been a great advocate of expanding the time given to that. It is one of the things I greatly enjoy doing as a Member of Parliament—joining as many schools as possible to impart to pupils the knowledge that I have gained in this place and through my experiences.

• 17 Jan 2025 · Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing forward this wonderful Bill. It is important to say that this Bill is fundamentally about making it easier to vote in Scotland and Wales. It would improve the situation for residents in those areas by allowing them to vote by post and proxy in a way that they would not necessarily be able to at the moment. I grew up in south Wales, so this issue is close to my heart. I was consistently impressed when I was growing up by the work of the Electoral Commission, or as it would rightly be known in Wales, Y Comisiwn Etholiadol. I must declare that I had a special closeness to the Electoral Commission, because during the noughties my mother was the leader of the Wales office, so the fact that I had great respect for its work is maybe a little close to home. In the 2000s, the commission had a great advert on television, and it stuck with me. Maybe I was paying a little more attention to adverts put out by the Electoral Commission than many of my teenage colleagues at the time, but this wonderful advert had a series of vignettes of cartoon characters, with two guys going about their daily life and talking about various issues they were coming up against. One of the guys was saying, “You should make sure you vote, man,” and the other one kept saying, “I don’t do politics, me.” They would go into, say, a supermarket, and the guy who says he doesn’t do politics says, “The price of milk’s too high.” The next scene is in a pub, and he says, “The price of beer is too high.” The whole message of this advert was that politics is in everything. It is really important that we, as politicians, drive that message home always. We should be doing everything in our power to expand and improve access to politics. That is why the Bill is really important. Those adverts—and there were many put out by the Electoral Commission at the time—were focused on making sure that people had access to voting and were going out and voting. I was not so lucky as to get the vote at 16 in Wales—I was too old for that—but when I got the opportunity to vote for the first time aged 19, I remember getting multiple phone calls from my mum shortly before saying, “You make darn sure you sign up for a postal vote in advance,” because I was at university and had to make sure I was signed up. I am a big proponent of making sure that young people have access to voting and that we do everything we can to encourage them to vote. We should support all young people to vote more easily, and the measures in the Bill are really important in that work. We need to be removing the barriers.