Barry Gardiner MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Jan 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that the Government will not lift the limited ban on arms sales to Israel until he or another Minister has come back to this House and explained why the danger of those arms being abused has receded?

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

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  The Government have said that by June, they intend to ratify the agreement on biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions, more commonly known as the global oceans treaty. They have also said quite correctly, and highly unusually, that before they do so, they intend to take steps to put in place the measures to implement the agreement. That will require primary legislation. Can the Leader of the House tell us when such legislation may be brought forward and what form it might take?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on his statement and, in particular, on the importance he places on the presumption in favour of sustainability and getting the design of developments right. My hon. Friend is a champion for the natural world, and I am aware that he is sympathetic to the need to include biodiversity measures in all new builds, such as swift bricks, which are an essential nesting habitat for the survival and recovery of cavity-nesting birds. Will he provide this much-needed boost for a declining population that has sadly been placed on the critically endangered red list? Will he ensure that these simple requirements are not only in the NPPF but are translated into the national development management policies to ensure they have statutory weight?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Syria · Hansard source

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  Thirty-five years ago, as the evil regime of Erich Honecker collapsed and the Berlin wall came down, the threat of chaos in East Germany was countered, and that country reintegrated into western Europe only with the investment of $2 trillion. The Foreign Secretary rightly speaks of the dangers to the UK that continuing chaos in Syria could cause. If Syria is not to sink further into despair, and if the UK and other democracies are not to feel the repercussions, where will the necessary investment for Syria’s reconstruction come from?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Migration and Border Security · Hansard source

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  It is clear that my right hon. Friend inherited a chaotic immigration situation from the last Government, and I commend her on the work she is doing. She rightly focused on international co-operation, but principally on removals. Does she accept that, in a world as interconnected as ours, migration can no longer adequately be managed by treaties that are now more than 70 years out of date? We need to co-operate with our international partners, to create a new structure and a new settlement for managing global migration.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Bangladesh: Attacks on Hindu Community · Hansard source

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  Thank you for allowing this urgent question, Mr Speaker. Since the fall of the previous Government in August, Bangladesh has seen more than 2,000 incidents of violence, most of which have been targeted against the minority Hindu community. Hindus make up less than 10% of the population of Bangladesh. As my hon. Friend will be aware, anti-Hindu violence has been a recurrent event in Bangladesh. Indeed, earlier this year, the Jamaat-e-Islami party was banned after riots in which 200 people were killed. While Bangladesh no longer has the secular constitution of 1971 and became an Islamic state in 1988, there are none the less supposed to be protections for minority religions under the constitution, including articles 28 and 39. However, these appear not to be being enforced. There are reports of police and army standing by, as more than 20 places of minority Hindu and Sufi worship were vandalised and their worshippers attacked. This came to a head on Friday, when extremist groups from the Jamaat-e-Islami party attacked two Hindu temples in Chittagong and conducted a campaign of orchestrated violence against the Hindu population. A leading Hindu monk, Chinmoy Krishna Das, a former leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness has been arrested. ISKCON is a worldwide branch of modern Hinduism with its UK headquarters at Bhaktivedanta Manor in Bushey, many of whose worshippers live in my constituency of Brent West and the surrounding areas of north-west London. People are concerned that while he was engaged in exclusively peaceful protest, he has been denied due process, charged with sedition and refused bail, yet none of the individuals who attacked the temples has been apprehended or charged. On Saturday, senior Bangladeshi journalist Munni Saha was taken into police custody following an attack on her car by a large mob in Dhaka, and released only under the provisions of the criminal code. The situation is clearly on a knife edge. With such large diaspora populations in the UK and large Hindu communities with strong links to the community in Bangladesh, I ask my hon. Friend what more she can do to have discussions with the Bangladeshi Government and other partners in the region to ensure that tensions are lowered, the rule of law put into effect, and calm and order restored.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Bangladesh: Attacks on Hindu Community · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the situation in Bangladesh and recent attacks on the Hindu community there.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have huge respect for the hon. Lady for the way that she has conducted this debate over the last few weeks. My concern is that she has focused today on the individual and the individual choice, but we are here to legislate for society as a whole. In legislating, what we are saying if we pass the Bill is that it is okay to take that choice— [ Interruption ] — and there will be some people who have six months of their life to go who will then feel, “Ought I to do this? Is this something that I now should do?” That brings into play a whole set of considerations—“Is it better for my family? Is it financially better for my family?”—in ways that, at the moment, are out of scope. Rather than simply focusing on the individual suffering, which we all recognise is acute, we must broaden the debate to the impact that the legislation will have on society as a whole.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I am sorry if I have given the hon. Gentleman the impression that I think fishing communities would be against this; I do not think that. That is precisely why I welcome the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes and for South East Cornwall about the importance of consultation. Look at a case such as Lyme Bay: it was the local community, in consultation with the scientists, who produced the efflorescence that has taken place there. This must be done through the industry co-operating with the scientists. We should note that MPAs were designed specifically to protect the nature within them from human activity that damaged it, and that includes fishing. It should therefore not be considered a negative that those areas are being protected. The partial ban on destructive dredging and bottom trawling in MPAs has been a success, and I hope it will be extended to a complete ban once the due process and consultation have taken place. I wish the Minister and his team well in the upcoming negotiations. If he binds himself to the mast of science and turns an Odysseus-like ear to the siren voices urging him to allow greater quota, I cannot promise him popularity, but he would become a unique and respected first voice for common sense and a sustainable future for our industry. First-hand sales of UK-landed seafood were over £1 billion in 2022, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes said. That is a good reminder that wild-capture seafood is a national resource. It is remarkable that the UK Treasury does not benefit directly and that those that benefit the most are large businesses that have managed to aggrandise themselves via the poorly regulated sale of individual quotas over many years. Small-scale fisherfolk and non-sector vessels are left to fish from the pool that accounts for just 4% of opportunities. In addition, those big businesses that benefit the most by their control of quota also benefit from the free management of the resource via central and local government funding of the MMO, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Natural England and the inshore fisheries and conservation authorities. It is also clear that big businesses are best placed to make representations and influence policy in a way that a single-handed inshore fisherman simply cannot. A quick scan of successful Government grant applications demonstrates that it is also big business that benefits from grant schemes, with support being provided to companies with turnover in the millions. The impact of market forces on this national asset has left a handful of families and businesses benefiting the most via consolidation of beneficial ownership of quota, while small-scale fisherfolk and our coastal communities wither and are lost. Depleted stocks and limited funding for robust data collection of all commercial species, leading to precautionary management decisions, are by-products of the current system. I ask the Minister whether it is time for the UK to consider what alternative systems to manage this valuable natural resource could look like. I welcome the beginnings of transparency that have come about from the publication of quota holdings, but that is only part of the story of who benefits from the amazing national public asset that is our fisheries. We all know that in-year swaps and leases occur. Would the Minister look at completing the transparency exercise and requiring those swaps and leases to be published too? We need a system that is not based on the happenstance history of 40 years ago, when the current quota system was put in place, but that provides opportunity and certainty more equitably. We need a system that links opportunities to compliance with fisheries and conservation regulations and that helps to fund better data gathering and evidence to inform our fisheries resource management —one where a sustainable bounty from the seas ensures that the interests of our small fishing communities, the taxpayer and the planet are aligned. It has already been said that fishing is one of the most dangerous peacetime occupations. The marine accident investigation branch accident reports make sombre reading, but they also provide an excellent opportunity for learning and change. Multiple capsizes of small vessels over several years led the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to update its codes for small vessel inspections, but reports from around the coast demonstrate that those new regulations appear to be applied inconsistently, and in some cases they run contrary to the marine architect designs and tested vessel stability. The financial burden of being tied up by an MCA inspection and being required to make modifications to a vessel’s hull can be exceptionally heavy. Owner-operators are forced to sell their vessels and in some cases leave the industry, as they simply cannot afford to comply with an individual inspector’s request. I urge the Minister to speak with his colleagues at the Department for Transport to help convene a group of small-scale fishing vessel safety experts? They can help the DFT and the MCA to better understand the impact of their inspection regimes and to find a coherent approach to that vital work—one that provides a consistent set of outcomes, without the lottery of where a fisherman is based and which inspector they get producing different outcomes on similar vessels. The lack of MCA inspectors means that vessels can often wait weeks for an inspection slot. While a vessel is awaiting reinspection, the fisherman cannot earn. What should be a straightforward process can provide huge financial risk and strain, from which some of those microbusinesses simply cannot recover. Finally on safety, I draw the Minister’s attention to a simple fact that the last Government seemed to do little to address. The MAIB reports set out the circumstances surrounding each accident and the component elements that led to it. All too often, these accidents are highly predictable and could be prevented by simply conducting good maintenance, onboard training and safe operations. Here, I would interject that the question of English language skills, which we debated earlier, comes into play: English language skills and the ability to communicate with every member of the crew is vital for crew safety.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  Before the Minister does that, could he look at what we might learn from the American fish management plans, which are gold standard and have had the clear management objectives that, I am afraid, many of ours lack?

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I am, of course, well aware that it is headline advice and that other things come into play, but as the right hon. Gentleman himself mentioned in his opening remarks, the things that come into play—I think he called them the nuances—are often political—

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman missed out the United States of America from that list.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I think Hansard will record that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that himself in his opening remarks. Overfishing means that the stock is driven down even further. There is no cure to a collapsed stock that involves continuing to overfish. The Celtic sea cod stock has declined by 95% since 2012, but last year the total allowable catch was set at basically the level of the entire adult population—it was actually set just 2 tonnes lower—and now the entire spawning population is lower than that. If we roll over that TAC, the catch limit would exceed the entire spawning population. The Irish sea whiting stock is currently about 9% of the level it is legally supposed to be. International commitments and the Fisheries Act 2020 commit the UK and the EU, which shares many of those populations, to maintain commercially harvested stocks at a level that can support maximum sustainable yield. The stock is at a mere 9% of that—not 9% of its natural size, but 9% of the already much lower level that is the legal minimum. That is another stock that has declined by more than 90% since the 1980s. Climate change represents a significant threat to marine life and the fisheries that depend on a healthy ecosystem, but it was not climate change that collapsed those stocks; it was heavy and constant overfishing. We sometimes hear big fishing interests blame climate change for the collapse, and it certainly makes the recovery of those populations harder, but the truth is that we consistently set catch limits above scientifically advised levels. That has crashed those stocks and will continue to do so as long as Ministers are prepared to go into the negotiations and ignore the science. In introducing the debate, the right hon. Gentleman spoke about climate change and cod stocks. In recent years, every time quotas for North sea cod have been set at sustainable levels in accordance with the science, the stocks of cod have increased. Every time quotas have been set out of line with the science, the stocks have declined. Our understanding of the additional pressures of climate change should be driving us to be even more precautionary in our approach to the protection of fish stocks—not to be pretending that it is the cause of their collapse. While I am thinking about cod and the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) about the processing industry, I should say that the cod that comes to Grimsby is predominantly from Greenland, Norway and Iceland, which have a much more precautionary approach to setting the quota. Many people here will remember the introduction of the discard ban or the landing obligation referred to by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). It is a ban on throwing away perfectly good fish that had been caught. What many people will not know is that this ban applies only to quota stocks of dab, flounder and gurnard. All other non-quota stocks can be thrown away at sea perfectly legally, and many are. About 35,000 tonnes of dab are discarded in the North sea every year—that is roughly 90% of the catch and equates to about 5 million fish. Remember that when we talk about the importance of food security. The irony is that dab actually used to have a quota, but the quota was removed when the landing obligation was brought in. The purpose of the landing obligation was to create a real incentive for fishermen to use gear types and fishing methods that reduced unwanted bycatch and led to more selective fishing. It was designed to reduce the choke problem by incentivising more selective gear that would avoid choke species. Unfortunately, that works only if it is enforced and all the evidence shows that the landing obligation is now being widely ignored. More worryingly, not only is it being ignored, but potential discards are not even being accounted for in the TAC-setting process. The only solution to discarding and improving scientific assessments is for the introduction of remote electronic monitoring—cameras, specifically. Without them it is impossible to know what is being caught and being discarded. Monitoring is essential for compliance. We currently have a system that literally incentivises bad behaviour. I was very taken by what the hon. Member for St Ives said about his fisherman and pollack. A fisherman who, like the one the hon. Gentleman mentioned, spends money on more selective gear, abides by the landing obligation and avoids certain areas because of higher bycatch of unwanted species, is massively disadvantaged compared with a fisherman who ignores those regulations. We are, as it stands, incentivising non-selective fishing, rewarding illegal behaviour and punishing those who stick to the rules, such as the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. The fishing industry rightly talks about the challenges it faces, yet its biggest challenge comes from an unhealthy marine environment that is incapable of supporting thriving fisheries. The notion that we can have a thriving fishing industry without a thriving marine environment is an illusion. We cannot have a growing sustainable fishing industry on the back of a depleted marine environment. No measure of Government support or access to markets can make up for no fish. Somehow this self-evident truth goes out the window when it comes to making decisions. We should be clear: if we do not recover fish stocks and start setting catch limits at levels that allow stocks to grow and adopting a precautionary approach that favours long-term sustainability, then we will be back there every year wondering why quotas have to be cut. There are instances where the advice is for large increases in quota, and they were mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland; I think he said that when the data became available, it showed a 211% increase in relation to monkfish. When that is the case, I do not think we should chase down every last fish because that will simply result in smaller catches in future years, as well as significant increases in bycatch of other stocks, which will often result in overfishing. However, the argument the right hon. Gentleman made is absolutely right: we need to get good data and it needs to be comprehensive. Once we have that and we can base the scientific assessments on really strong data, we can make sure we fish in line with the science and that stocks can recover.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister actually believe that the discard ban is being observed? If he has doubts about that, would he agree that ensuring there are onboard cameras and monitoring is the best way to put an end to that element of illegal fishing?

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I thought that his points on visas were well-made, but it is important that we put safety at the forefront. Paradoxically, the common denominator that runs through every report is that the crew involved had all attended courses and attained the required safety and training certificate. I gently suggest that it is time for the DFT and the MCA to consider their syllabuses to see whether what is being delivered leaves graduates with the practical understanding they need to transfer to their work environment. I think a review is overdue. The roll-out of CatchApp and inshore vessel monitoring to the small-scale fleet has been widely seen as a disaster by inshore fishermen. I am told that CatchApp is regularly down, and inshore vessel monitoring systems and approved suppliers are not required to provide robust support in a timely fashion, leading to lost days at sea. The stress and anxiety that those two systems are causing around the coast is palpable. The MMO warned, during the roll-out of both those systems, of the risks of pressing ahead with them before they were fully tested and, in the case of the I-VMS, that not stipulating service levels would leave fisherman at the mercy of the providers. We debated the issue in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the time, but the Government simply rode over it. I appreciate that the roll-out programme came under the last Government, but can Ministers urgently investigate what is going wrong with those systems from the user’s standpoint, and what steps the MMO can take to make things work better? Small-scale fishermen are the beating heart of so many of our coastal communities. Fishing is not a job; it is a way of life, but one where it is increasingly difficult for new entrants to be found or gain appropriate training. Many of today’s fishermen came into the industry via the youth training scheme. It provided college, a small salary and on-the-job training. Some of our country’s finest inshore skippers came via that route, but they are now close to retirement. Only large companies can afford to recruit and invest in new entrants, and over the past decade we have seen a growing reliance on foreign crews. We have heard, and will no doubt hear more, about visa problems. Local apprenticeship courses have met with varying success, but they will not provide the numbers or the pace to replace foreign crews, let alone the fishermen who have reached retirement. When the Minister considers the successor funding scheme to the fisheries and seafood scheme, I will be grateful if he looks at what more we can do to grow our own talent and build the workforce, particularly for the small-scale fishing fleet. It cannot fund apprentices directly itself, but its members have a lifetime at sea and the knowledge to help to grow that talent.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I want to clarify something in relation to pollack. My understanding is that the scientific advice given out in June was that the total allowable catch should be set at zero, but it was not set at zero. The quota was set at 925 tonnes; even now, the stocks are much lower this year because the decision was not in line with the scientific assessment.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I am delighted that I sat down to receive my hon. Friend’s intervention because she is entirely right. What she said goes to the remarks made by our hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) who, because of illness, is no longer in her place. She made a point about ensuring that consultations happen in accordance with the tides so that fisherfolk will actually be at the consultations and not out at sea. Her point was very interesting because that is not always appreciated.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak under you in the Chair, Mr Efford. My thanks and congratulations go to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. I hope that in the coming years, the Government will find time to return the annual fisheries debate to the main Chamber. That was a good convention that the last Government cast aside, almost as quickly as they did their promises to fisherfolk following Brexit. I am sure that many of us would welcome its return. This debate takes place in the season of the annual fisheries negotiations between the UK and the EU, as well as the trilateral negotiations with Norway. Last year, those negotiations resulted in more than half of catch limits being set above the scientifically advised levels, yet both international and UK law require that all stocks should be at sustainable levels. That is despite commitments under international treaties and agreements to end overfishing. We currently have six commercially fished stocks—two cod stocks, two whiting stocks, one herring and a pollack—that are so depleted that the scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea is for zero catches. We need to understand just how poorly managed those stocks have been. ICES provides zero catch advice for a stock when it is so depleted that, even without any catch, it will not recover above the biomass limit reference point for spawning stock biomass, below which a stock’s reproductive capacity is compromised and it is considered to have impaired recruitment capacity. In other words, the stock has collapsed. It is important to note that the decline of those stocks was not unpredictable, and nor was it unavoidable. Consistently fishing at too high a level guarantees that stocks will decline; if fishing is high enough, the stock will collapse. [Dr Rupa Huq in the Chair ]

• 28 Nov 2024 · Fishing Industry · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. It also adds grist to the mill of the five-year approach, but we perhaps need to be careful. It is perfectly reasonable to move to a five-year approach, but it would not necessarily immediately lead to us increasing quota. It might, in the first year certainly, actually lead to a more precautionary approach because one was looking at things over the five-year period. That might not be something that his constituents would appreciate so much. We have heard today about spatial squeeze and how the fishing industry no longer has unfettered access to the entire ocean. That is true, but as has been pointed out it is unavoidable; indeed, for reasons of wider sustainability and our energy supply, it is important, but it is also an argument for acting in a way that grows our fish stocks.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Storm Bert · Hansard source

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  Last July, the previous Government issued its third national adaptation plan, and this March the Climate Change Committee issued its independent assessment of NAP3. It said that it falls far short of what is needed, that it lacks the pace and ambition to address growing climate risks—which we are already experiencing—and that it fails to set out a compelling vision for what the Government’s well-adapted UK entails, with only around 40% of the short-term actions to address urgent risks identified in the previous climate change risk assessment. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the key recommendations of the Climate Change Committee in its assessment of NAP3 are implemented and that an urgent refresh of NAP3 takes place, to strengthen it and avoid locking in additional climate impacts? Key reforms must be implemented over the next year, along with enforcement. Those are the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee. Can he assure the House that he is taking those seriously and moving them forward?

• 6 Nov 2024 · Draft Barnsley and Sheffield (Boundary Change) Order 2024 · Hansard source

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  Indeed. I am talking about the effect on the future value of these properties. Residents who have moved in under one local authority may find the value of their property affected by its suddenly being designated under another. I must stress that I respect both councils and have no doubt that they look after their populations equally well, but we should have been provided with an impact assessment to show that there are such—

• 6 Nov 2024 · Draft Barnsley and Sheffield (Boundary Change) Order 2024 · Hansard source

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  How good it is to have your guidance, Mrs Harris, for our first legislative duty of the day. Today will be a busy one for all of us, with votes on the Budget and the ramifications of the US election competing in our minds for attention. While boundary changes may seem like minor political fare in comparison, it is important that we recognise that we are dealing with the fine grain of politics. People are affected at the most local level by the decisions we make. I want to express my profound gratitude to our Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and Rushden, for thinking of me as someone who just might be interested in the draft Barnsley and Sheffield (Boundary Change) Order 2024. I know that many colleagues would willingly have supplanted me and usurped my duties on this Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee. I can only guess at why she so singularly favoured me with the appointment, but I trust that the length of the speech I am about to make will be sufficient to express to her just how appreciative I am that she allotted me this task. Inevitably, boundary changes can be controversial. Sometimes we risk separating a region from its history. I do not know whether this is an old saying or just something I have been saying for a very long time, but scratch history and you find geography. Our history is moulded by our natural environment. Each region has its own that depends entirely on the fertility of its land, its proximity to the oceans, and trade routes and its access to fresh water and natural resources such as coal or precious metals. The boundary commission has the serious job of keeping our democracy relevant and connected to people, but sometimes, quite without wishing to, it can end up dividing the community and confusing future residents, all at the expense of the taxpayer. The Minister made much of the fact that the draft order would affect only 12 households, and the final recommendations of the Barnsley and Sheffield principal area boundary review say: “Our final recommendation to change the district boundary in this area currently affects 12 households”. However, the recommendations also say that that figure will rise to 284 households by the time the development has been built. That is about 800 to 1,000 people. The Minister also said that no representations were made. Well, of course they were not; people have not yet moved into those 284 households, so how could they have been? That is why it falls to us here in Parliament to consider what those individuals, when they move in, might wish to know. Let us look carefully at what will be at stake for those 284 families. Of course, we should be just as concerned were the draft order to affect only the current 12 families, but let us consider precisely what will divide those future families from their nearest neighbours in the other part of Oughtibridge Mill. The local authorities’ argument is that it would be more convenient administratively for them if the whole development came under Sheffield, but we ought to be more concerned with the families and what that might mean for them; the decision we take today will have a profound influence on their lives. Any hon. Member who has looked carefully at the map of the area will have noticed that the part of the Oughtibridge Mill development currently under the jurisdiction of Barnsley council in the Penistone East ward is not only by far the larger part of the site—I would say it is about three to four times the size of the part in the Sheffield area—but actually separated from the residential area of Oughtibridge village by not one, but two major physical barriers. The first barrier is the River Don, with only one narrow river crossing available to the whole Barnsley side of the estate. Any resident travelling from the eastern part of the development at the far end of Aspen Road who wanted to walk to the post office in Oughtibridge village would face a 1½-mile journey—a 3-mile round trip. But the River Don is not the biggest problem; there is also the A6102. Langsett Road North is a major road—in parts a four-lane highway—and runs parallel to the River Don. It is not a shared artery that binds the people on one side of a community to the people on the other; it is a road that forms a natural boundary and separates people. No doubt that double barrier was what the boundary commission was accounting for when it made its original proposal. We must not assume that some of the 284 families would not rather enjoy being residents of Barnsley council and appreciate the vision of individuals such Councillor Sir Stephen Houghton CBE, who chairs the Barnsley 2030 strategy board, and Bob Kirton, his vice-chair. Their strategy is about “celebrating and championing” the borough as it progresses to 2030 and sets out some bold ambitions. In developing the Barnsley 2030 strategy, they have worked closely with communities, businesses and organisations across all sectors and with local councillors. In the strategy, it was confidently stated that “our borough’s vision and ambitions represent everyone who has an interest in the future of Barnsley.” When it was written, that included the people in the Oughtibridge Mill development. Who are we to deny those residents access to the bold and ambitious plan that these councillors speak of? The strategy concludes: “We truly believe that together we can tell a better and shared story of our borough and we have a real opportunity to turn Barnsley into the place of possibilities.” In passing this order, we would deny those possibilities to 284 families. I live in the London borough of Brent, but I am only too aware of how many families in Brent prefer to say that they have a Harrow address. Indeed, many of them have a Harrow postcode to justify their little white lie. We have seen no impact assessment of what such a boundary change might do to the value of these properties in Barnsley and Sheffield.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Draft Barnsley and Sheffield (Boundary Change) Order 2024 · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mrs Harris. A point of order was made and I believe a motion was made, but I did not hear any vote taken on the motion. I would have thought that that was the function of the Chair.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Gaza and Humanitarian Aid · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Minister on making his maiden address. Can he reflect on the verb that he used? He said that we have been “asking” Israel to do those three things. He then went on to elaborate that none of those three had actually been fulfilled. Is it not time to stop “asking” and to do something a little stronger?