Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for introducing the debate. My constituents are fed up of mismanagement, debt, and simultaneous price hikes and shareholder bonuses. They are also fed up of hosepipe bans, while water runs down our streets. Since April 2025, our bills have risen by 31%, and this year by an additional 3.4%. What do we get for that? Sewage dumps, burst pipes and drinking water that I advise all Members—if they do not know this—not to drink without boiling or filtering first. Thames Water is one of the worst polluters in England and, last year, got one star from the Environment Agency—I think that is only because it has not figured out how to colour in half a star or a quarter of it. Unfortunately, Thames Water is not just crap; it is also full of crap—9,189 sewage spills last year alone, and nearly 592 million litres of water lost to leaks every single day. The company then has the cheek to call a hosepipe ban. The Thames cannot be seen from my constituency, but anyone who wants a riverside experience can just walk down Brixton Hill, where water is usually gushing from some leak, causing havoc and gridlocked traffic on the main road or some of the residential roads—a reality TV version of “The Hunger Games”, with residents scrambling for bottles of water that have been left there during an outage. Keeping the company under private ownership just delays the inevitable Government bailout—essentially, us paying twice. I believe that the great privatisation experiment has failed in nearly every public service industry in which it has been tried. Some may call me ideological for this, but I point them to Thames Water as a case in point. We do not need a crystal ball, or even a referendum, to tell us that there would be overwhelming support for public ownership, so I ask the Minister: why has it not happened yet? Why has Thames Water not been put in special measures? Why will it not simply be brought under public ownership?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Professor Jason Arday, aged 41 and the youngest black professor in Cambridge’s history, was found dead at his home in my constituency on 13 August, days after resigning his chair and after sustained press intrusion and harassment. An inquest has opened, but there are serious questions for the Government on press regulation and widespread calls for a public inquiry. Tens of thousands attended a vigil in Trafalgar Square, and vigils have been held from Bradford to Bristol. Constituents have sent emails. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education have both commented, but there has been no statement in this House. The Government cannot comment on their own terms, in a way that Members cannot scrutinise, and then resist a debate that the whole House can join. Is the Leader of the House aware that this House regularly debates policy arising from deaths while proceedings are live, but leaving those proceedings alone—for example, we debated press regulation in July 2011 after the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone, fire safety after Grenfell, and policing and the safety of women in March 2021 after the death of Sarah Everard, also my constituent—or during court proceedings, such with as the death of Molly Russell during the passage of the Online Safety Bill, and the deaths of Lucy Meadows and Caroline Flack, which were both connected to press conduct? But the press pursue a black man to the end of his life, and this House says nothing about their conduct. I do not have to tell the Leader of the House why that is wrong, so all I will ask him is when the Government will rectify it.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour to her place; she will make a fantastic Minister. I want to start by talking about the risks that we are seeing to our democracy: the emergence of AI and the use of crypto to fund parties, alongside an expanding electorate and a move away from the two-party system. It is vital that the Bill introduces a much-needed refresh. One area that the Bill has overlooked is electoral participation, which has been in stark decline for many years. At the last general election, just 59.7% of the electorate voted—the lowest turnout since 2001. The picture is far worse in local elections and by-elections; the Clacton by-election, for instance, saw turnout of a mere 44%, although there may have been other reasons for that. Low turnout is indicative of a worrisome lack of engagement in the most integral act of political participation. That is why I have tabled new clause 57, which would require the Government to publish proposals for compulsory voting at UK general and local elections in England within 12 months of the Bill passing. Since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924, Australia has consistently seen a minimum turnout of 90%, with only a minimal fine for non-participation. There are, of course, legitimate reasons why some cannot vote, and this new clause recognises that, while also protecting the right to spoil one’s ballot paper or return a blank paper. Coupled with the compulsory voting provision, new clause 57 would introduce a programme of civic education. This is important, as research from the Institute For Public Policy Research shows that fewer than 42% of teachers in England report their school providing regular citizenship lessons. As the incredibly bright young people who participated in my activism academy this summer told me, it is not just young people who need political education through no fault of their own—many adults also do not understand the basics of our political system. Knowledge is power, which is why new clause 57 calls for the production of learning materials for adults, too. Alongside new clause 57, I support a number of new clauses that would extend the franchise in parliamentary elections to qualifying EU citizens and foreign nationals with the right to remain in the UK. I have also supported measures that address the wild west of UK political donation regulations. Our democracy is seriously at risk of being hijacked by those who have only their own interests at heart. I am extremely proud to support my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) with new clauses 58 and 59 to protect survivors of domestic abuse in public life. I do not understand why support of such new clauses would even be a question or why we would not support them right now, today. Finally, although the Bill does not cover constituency boundaries, I would really like to see a review of how they are set. We represent constituents regardless of their right to vote, and thinking about the numbers in terms of the electorate who go on to vote, fewer and fewer people are involved in our political decisions. However, it is not just that: boundaries drawn on the electorate, not on residents, mean that inner-city constituencies like mine, which have the highest levels of residents relative to electorate, face disproportionately higher levels of casework, representing far more people. I hope that the Minister will consider this matter when enacting part 2 of the Bill. Bills of this nature do not come around often. They offer a generational chance to refresh our democracy, and I hope that the Government will recognise the benefits that these amendments would bring.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member will know that, with the extreme heat and reduced rainfall, a lot of water companies are introducing hosepipe bans to mitigate the risk of drought. Does he agree that that seems a bit redundant, given that artificial intelligence data centres use between 11 million and 19 million litres of water a day? Does he agree that, as we prepare to experience more extreme heat over the summer periods, there is an urgent need to address the water consumption of data centres to reduce the risk of drought across the country?

• 13 Jul 2026 · Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. First, I will acknowledge that although I disagree with the premise of this petition, I recognise the strength of feeling among the hundreds of thousands of people who signed it. However, I cannot support calls for offshore detention or processing centres, and nor will I support calls to immediately deport those who enter this country through irregular routes, because seeking refuge and safety is not illegal, and many safe and legal routes do not actually exist. I strongly believe that Members who support what this petition calls for are not being honest with the wider public about what it would cost, how it is a risk and what the true problems are. Of the people who enter the UK via an irregular route, 95% submit an asylum application. That means that we, as a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention, have a legal duty to assess their claim and place them under the care of the state while that process is ongoing. If their application is rejected, the state’s duty to them persists until the appeals process is exhausted. If that takes too long, it is inefficient, which is on us. Human Rights Watch and a number of other organisations have confirmed what most of us believe to be true, namely that holding asylum seekers in offshore detention is in contravention of our obligations under international human rights and refugee law. Regardless of whether a person’s application is deemed to be legitimate, they cannot be held in an offshore site until their asylum claim and subsequent appeals have been denied. The petition that we are debating today raises the issue of asylum seekers being held in hotels and temporary accommodation. I certainly agree that that is unacceptable; I have seen for myself the diabolical conditions in such accommodation. The Home Office is paying millions each day to house asylum seekers, but that is not the fault of the asylum seekers themselves. It is the fault of the Home Office and the private contractors who seek to make a profit off the backs of vulnerable people. I do not dismiss the views of those who support the petition, but the public debate does not provide accurate information. It regularly conflates the number of legal migrants and so-called illegal migrants. Indeed, migration and asylum are among the most misrepresented issues in public debate. The UK receives far fewer asylum claims per capita than countries such as Germany, France and Cyprus. Also, in most cases asylum seekers are barred from working here, so claims that they are taking jobs or living off benefits do not actually recognise the fact that asylum seekers are desperate for the right to contribute but are trapped in the system. In addition, the language of “swarms” and “invasions” is just inflammatory, racist and dehumanising, and it continues to cause problems throughout the discourse and debate on this subject. While we are discussing how much things cost, which again is a huge concern, we must realise that offshore detention can never be a cheaper alternative than the current system. It is far more costly—as was proved by the last Government, with their failed Rwanda scheme that cost £700 million but under which only four people were voluntarily transferred. Other examples of offshore processing centres operated by Australia, Italy and Denmark show how costly they can be. They are not meeting those countries’ aims, but are causing huge problems and perpetuating those countries’ engagement in really awful rhetoric about migrants—just as we are, while the costs increase again and again. I want us to be able to talk about asylum seekers with some humanity and not to cast off those in our communities who have come here to seek support from us. As I have said again and again, we have a duty to them under the refugee convention and a moral duty to them. The conversation about funding that we keep on having is completely missing the point: it misses the Home Office backlog and the continuing engagement in negative rhetoric of politicians here. When we look at the issue of offshore detention, we have to be realistic with the country about how much it is going to cost and about the fact that it will not solve the issue at hand.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  This Bill seems inspired by the belief that hostility towards asylum seekers will deter them, whereas hostility towards migrants will not deter those we need economically, but we cannot have it both ways. There is a deeper problem with the Bill’s logic on citizenship provisions. The only way to make this approach work is by creating a second class of citizen, but what do we do with those whom we cannot deport? What happens when the person who has done the harm was born here, with no claim to another citizenship? The Bill has no answer, because citizenship deprivation was never really about safety; it is about who this Government treat as fully British, and the proposed amendment on citizenship deprivation confirms that. To be absolutely clear, I am not arguing against deporting foreign national criminals, which we too often fail at. My concern is that the Home Office, with its full arsenal, cannot think of any other way to ensure that we are safe from all groomers and abusers, regardless of where they or their grandparents were born. The Home Office seems able to resolve difficult cases only by creating citizens with fewer rights, which should trouble every single Member, whatever their view on deportation. Press briefings have suggested that the Bill hands Ministers sweeping powers to strip British citizenship. Rather, it moves deprivation appeals out of the independent courts and into an immigration appeals authority that is largely controlled by the Home Secretary. That is a serious change to who judges these decisions, but it is a change of process, not of who can be deprived of citizenship or why. This appears to be blurred with a separate Bill that stops citizenship being restored after the first successful appeal, letting this Government sound tougher than they are while avoiding scrutiny of a power that is already used disproportionately against black, Asian and migrant-heritage citizens. Forcing asylum seekers to pay £10,000 for their own shelter is purely punitive and ignores the legal right to asylum. Denying the right to work and rent, and then demanding repayment, is designed to punish, not uphold human rights. The Bill also deliberately ignores article 8, the right to family life, potentially tearing people away from loved ones, including British citizens. The Bill contravenes the spirit of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 by imposing arbitrary disclosure deadlines and removing leave to remain for trafficking survivors. Automatic deportation for custodial sentences introduces double jeopardy; a wrongful sentence can now also mean unjust deportation. The deportation system is already a mess and is run by the Home Office, which is now asking for sole control of it, without oversight. If the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs oversaw food shortages, would we accept a bid from it to take over all our farms? Finally, this Government have yet again missed the chance to fix child citizenship fees. It costs £1,214 for a child who was born here, and who has lived here their whole life, to register as a citizen in the country that they call home—a fee that the Court of Appeal found unlawful. Between 85,000 and 215,000 such children remain undocumented because their families cannot pay. These children are not migrants, and they are not asking for anything that is not already theirs. If it was not clear, I do not support this Bill.