Andrew Snowden MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q5. Given that the right hon. Lady appears to be enjoying spending yet another week practising to be Prime Minister, maybe she can give us her view on who she would get rid of in the coming reshuffle. Would it be the Chancellor for killing economic growth? Would it be the Work and Pensions Secretary for the botched handling of the welfare Bill and the winter fuel cuts? Would it be the Environment Secretary for trying to destroy British family farms? Would it be the Foreign Secretary for giving away British sovereign territory and paying billions to rent it back? Or given that the Prime Minister is now polling as having had the most unpopular first year in modern British political history, would the right hon. Lady do herself and the country a favour and tell him to show himself the door?

• 14 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q10. Whether or not people agree with the Prime Minister’s net zero targets, he must agree that he will not achieve those targets without taking people with him. The cable corridor and substation for the Morgan and Morecambe offshore wind farm is one of the most objected to national energy infrastructure projects in the country. What is angering me and thousands of others is that there is a perfect alternative cabling route further up the coast that would bring local economic benefit, would be more cost-effective as a whole lifecycle project and could connect to existing national grid infrastructure, but no one is listening. Will the Prime Minister now listen, pause the planning inquiry for the existing application and ask the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to consider and cost the alternative route to avoid untold devastation to our coastline and countryside?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Emergency Preparedness · Hansard source

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  While I was a police and crime commissioner, I saw many of the things that have been referred to by hon. Members as critically important for emergency resilience planning across the public sector and working with the private sector. To ensure that that is all targeted in the right way, it is key to make sure that all the different agencies, public bodies and companies have a shared understanding of the risks that we face as a country, and receive the latest updates on those. Can the Minister tell the House when the Government will next update the national risk register, and explain what plans Ministers have for the frequency with which those updates will be published?

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  Given that the vast majority of the Ministry of Defence supply chain is in the private sector—for example, BAE Systems in Fylde at Warton and at Samlesbury, with jobs across Lancashire—and that those private companies have seen significant increases in costs following the Chancellor’s Budget squeezing their payroll costs, as well as increasing regulation through the employment Bill and in other areas, we will be able to buy considerably less kit for 2.5% at the end of the defence review than at the start of it. As the Government go through the defence review process, are they cutting the shopping list or planning to go above 2.5%?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  In Fylde, it feels as if our green belt is under attack from all directions and not in a co-ordinated way. The Morgan and Morecambe wind farm cabling corridors and substations are coming in at St Anne’s on the coast and cabling all the way through Fylde to Penwortham; solar farm applications are being made left, right and centre; and our housing target has just been doubled with pretty much nowhere to put housing other than on the green belt. May we have a debate in Government time to discuss the demands placed on the green belt and our countryside by different Government Departments, which result not just in lost farmland and countryside, but in flooding, congestion and other dangers? If we are to preserve our countryside, the Government must tackle those issues in a co-ordinated way.

• 19 Dec 2024 · Flood Protection Funding · Hansard source

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  In Fylde, a number of new housing developments over the years have been constructed in flood areas where the developers knew that the construction sites had flooded, yet they still sold properties without disclosing that to buyers, and in some circumstances they had not constructed the flood defence requirements—the mitigations on site—to spec. Both residents and councils have felt powerless to get developers to correct what they should have got right in the first place, and a number of properties have flooded several times since people purchased them. What plans does the Minister have to give residents and councils more power to hold developers to account when they do not properly construct developments or disclose information about flooding?

• 18 Jul 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  As one proud Lancastrian MP to another, congratulations on your unanimous re-election to the Chair, Mr Speaker. Planning on the green belt is a huge concern in my constituency of Fylde—housing is part of it, but there are also the Morgan and Morecambe wind farm proposals. Most residents back the new renewable energy being built off the Fylde coast, but there are concerns about the cabling and substation route, which appears to take the route of least resistance. It will see miles of farmland and countryside dug up, and substations built in inappropriate locations. We seem to be unable to get answers from the company on why that has been chosen as the preferred route, when other far more appropriate routes for cabling and substations exist. Will the Leader of the House assure me that the Government will work with us to get answers from the company and clarity about the other routes that could be used for the cabling, and to ensure that it works with me, local campaigners and the council to get the most appropriate route?