Ben Spencer MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  What is most interesting about the spending review is what is not mentioned: there is no mention of the River Thames scheme, no mention of our rivers, no mention of the Animal and Plant Health Agency in New Haw, and no mention of improvements to rail, despite the nationalisation of South Western Railway. In fact, there is almost no mention at all of the south-east, despite the Chancellor saying that this a spending review for the whole UK. However, she has effectively confirmed the third runway at Heathrow, despite there being no local engagement. May I invite the Chancellor to come to Runnymede and Weybridge to meet people and see if their priorities are indeed hers, as she claims?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Transport (Duty to Cooperate) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for a duty on transport authorities and other specified persons to cooperate to reduce transport disruption and to ensure the effective operation of transport networks; to provide for reporting requirements in connection with that duty; to require the publication of assessments of expected transport disruption resulting from maintenance, construction, and other works related to transport infrastructure and ancillary services; and for connected purposes. As the Member of Parliament for Runnymede and Weybridge, my mission is to keep them moving. We rely on our transport networks to get to work, school or college and doctor’s appointments, or just to see friends and family, whether by road, rail or even air. We are dependent on our transport networks. Discussions about critical infrastructure often focus on big, apparently unprecedented events, such as the recent power failure at Heathrow, but even the smallest road is critical infrastructure if someone cannot leave their house because of an engineering diversion route. We all welcome work to improve our roads and transport network, and we of course recognise that this may cause some disruption. We understand that there will be temporary disruption for unexpected emergency works, such as a power cut or a gas leak. However, all too often our transport infrastructure in Runnymede and Weybridge is brought to a halt due to multiple planned works happening at the same time, or planned utility works causing recurrent disruption through multiple providers—gas, electricity, water, broadband—digging up the same road over and over again. Disruption should be avoided and minimised, by authorities and providers talking to each other and co-ordinating works. Ensuring co-ordination when road and rail works take place is the purpose of my Bill. Sadly, in Runnymede and Weybridge, we have loads of examples where co-ordination has not taken place, despite repeated assurances that authorities do co-ordinate and discuss issues regularly. We have had full M25 closures coinciding with mainline rail engineering work, despite reassurances otherwise. Roads in some areas of Chertsey have been repeatedly dug up, often under the guise of urgent works, from gas to water to electricity. Perhaps most infuriatingly, authorities or utilities sometimes do not adequately staff works or leave them unattended, meaning that when the signals failed at Painshill roundabout, and separately in Weybridge, it took hours to resolve because the right equipment and staff were not on site to fix the problem. We understand and expect there to be some disruption, but I believe better planning and co-ordination can prevent and avoid much of what we have seen locally. Surrey county council has been working hard to address issues on our local road network. I thank the council, and in particular Councillor Jonathan Hulley for his leadership and work on this issue. Surrey has established a new taskforce to drive better co-ordination and communication of works across our road network. Surrey, along with National Highways and six major utility providers, has called on the Department for Transport to make changes to systems and processes to reduce the negative impact of emergency utility works across the county. It has called for changes to digital services used to manage highways works in England to enable prior notice of urgent works where possible, improving communication and co-ordination. Surrey has also called for, among other things: mandatory onsite signage for emergency works to explain delays, the lead agency to improve information for road users, and of course, a requirement for swift completion of works to reduce disruption and support economic productivity. I fully support the proposals, which could resolve many local issues, but they alone cannot achieve the co-ordination required across networks to address all the issues I have highlighted. That is why I am bringing forward the Bill, calling for a statutory duty to co-ordinate. Under the duty, National Highways could not have informed me that it was unaware of the impact excess trains on the Chertsey branch line would have on level crossings and the local road network on the same weekend as a motorway closure, because it would have been required to communicate, co-ordinate and assess the likely impact of its actions. Under the duty, Network Rail would not have been able to inform me that while it usually does communicate with other authorities, on “this occasion” it forgot. Combined with the work undertaken by Surrey county council, under the duty, utility companies would not have been able to place repeated and unannounced works alongside major diversion routes with impunity. When utility companies dig up the road, they would need to check if anything else needed to be fixed at the same time. Our transport links are the lifeblood of our communities and our economy. In 2021, National Highways estimated that total delays on its network alone cost £3 billion each year. Add to that the cost of delays on local road networks—hours missed from work, goods stuck in transit—and the value of addressing the issue is clear, if not just for the benefit to our communities but to the UK economy as a whole. I ask the Government and colleagues across the House to support the Bill and the work of colleagues in Surrey to address these issues, and to ensure our national transport infrastructure operates effectively and efficiently for all. Let us keep Runnymede and Weybridge moving. Question put and agreed to. Ordered , That Dr Ben Spencer, Rebecca Paul and Gregory Stafford present the Bill. Dr Ben Spencer accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 25 April, and to be printed (Bill 216).

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

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  Our planning system is critical and should protect against inappropriate development, including on the green belt and flood plains. It needs to protect and enhance biodiversity, and it needs local democratic and community input. Rather than dictating to communities, the Government should work with them. We need not only houses but homes, and that means infrastructure, roads, schools, health services and sewers. Whether through “infrastructure first” or making them all statutory consultees, it has to work. Planning enforcement must also work, but it is an ongoing issue in my patch despite recent changes and improvements. On the changes proposed to the NSIP system and development consent orders, I will speak about the experience in my constituency because we have had DCO complete, have one ongoing and hope to have one in the future. I will start with the one that has finished, which is the Esso pipeline project. It ended up blocking access to homes and ripping up green spaces, with poor communication and no compensation to the residents affected. When I asked for compensation, the answer was, “Well, it’s not in the DCO.” Reform must ensure greater protections for communities affected by a DCO project. The M25/A3 DCO, which many Members will know about because of the M25 closures, one of which over the weekend, is a fantastic project that will improve local connectivity, but it has wreaked havoc through diversion routes and problems at the Painshill roundabout, which National Highways admitted was deprioritised in favour of the works. It has caused problems with kids getting to school and to their exams. When I tried to raise this to get enforcement, including through, among others, the Office of Rail and Road, no formal investigation was even opened, and it has been pretty much impossible to find a meaningful way to get enforcement when things go wrong. We hope to have—we must have—a DCO in the future with the River Thames scheme, which will massively reduce my constituents’ flood risk and make it far less likely that we see a repeat of the impact of the 2014 floods. We have had countless rounds of consultation. I am concerned that, because of the current system, perfect has become the enemy of the good, and I am worried about the problems with local council reform and the impact they will have. Will the Minister in his wind-up explain and give advice to people putting together a DCO as to what they should do given the Bill’s impact when it gets Royal Assent?

• 11 Mar 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Equally I thank the Minister for the spirit in which he has conducted this debate. It is an important one, which has captured the focus of a great many people, not only those in the creative and AI sectors whose livelihoods absolutely depend on us getting this right, but all of us who love and benefit from the products of the UK creative industries. I will discuss clauses 135 to 139, which the Government are seeking to remove, before I speak to the new clauses that stand in my name and those of other Opposition Members. While there are problems with clauses 135 to 139, they do reflect the creative industries’ well founded and much publicised concerns about the manner in which AI developers conduct data mining activities to train their models and for generative activities. I should declare an interest; I recently attended the Brit awards with my wife with support from the British Phonographic Industry, so I received hospitality in the last couple of weeks.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  As the Minister noted, the clause is a provision that was introduced in Committee in the other place, along with clause 28(3) and (4), and clause 45(6), which have now been removed from the Bill pursuant to our decisions in Committee. Clause 140 aims to ensure the accuracy of data underpinning digital forms of verifying identity, and more broadly. To a degree, it is ironic that we live in a world where we have to debate data dictionaries when it comes to the definition of sex, but I think the point about data dictionaries more generally, over and above the focus on sex data in this debate, is nevertheless sound. We are aware of the Government’s argument that the clauses inserted in the other place pertaining to data accuracy—in particular, clause 45(6)—are not compatible with certain provisions of the European convention on human rights and the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I am grateful to the Minister for writing to the Committee on that, among other matters, but I do not think that his explanation gives any rationale for the removal of clause 140. We strongly disagree with the Government’s position for the reasons I set out last week, but I will not rehash those arguments now. Rather, I want to make a simple argument in favour of retaining the clause on data dictionaries that the Government intend to remove. Clause 140 grants the Secretary of State the power to make regulations establishing the definitions and associated metadata for core personal data attributes. The Secretary of State may require that those definitions are used for, among other things, personal data recorded by public authorities, under subsection (1)(d), and the digital verification service, under subsection (1)(a). My noble friend Lord Lucas compellingly stated the case in support of his data dictionary amendment in the other place, saying that “if we are to live in a data-rich world, we really need a set of well-understood, good definitions for the basic information we are collecting.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 28 January 2025; Vol. 843, c. 237-238.] It really is that simple: giving the Secretary of State the power to define those core personal data attributes so that a consistent approach can be taken across the board by public authorities and entities engaged in digital verification services. My question for the Minister is, therefore: what is the objection to the Secretary of State having that power to clarify the meanings of those essential terms, which we need to define data attributes? A clear definition of data attributes, and in particular the meaning of sex, is a foundational building block that will help to ensure that the data we collect can be harnessed for good-quality research on which sound public policy decisions can be based. In the other place, the DSIT Minister, the noble Lord Vallance of Balham, acknowledged the need for data to be “based in truth” and “consistent and clear”. However, he opposed this clause on the basis that the Government would prefer to consider the matter of data accuracy and consistency holistically, outside the scope of the Bill. In that regard, he pointed to ongoing research in the field, including the Sullivan review of data, stats and research on sex and gender, which was commissioned by the previous Conservative Government, and the findings of which this Government would like to take into account in developing their policies in the area. I welcome the fact that the Government intend to take a closer look at the importance of data accuracy, especially in relation to the collection of sex data, but there is no need to kick the can down the road. The clause compels the Secretary of State to do nothing—well, not in an active sense— [ Interruption. ] If only. It does not compel the Secretary of State in an active sense, but it does give him the important power to put definitions of core personal data attributes in place once the important Sullivan review and other studies have been published and considered. As we have mentioned a few times, the Bill has gone through many iterations and a long legislative period. We believe that this clause will be useful, if not essential, for resolving some of these issues. Getting those basic definitions right is essential. If we do not, there could be mistakes that could become entrenched in the records of public authorities. That could lead to skewed research findings on important societal matters, such as health disparities and outcomes across the sectors, as well as employment opportunities and equal pay. For those and many other good reasons, let us take this opportunity to get the basics right. In that regard, I encourage the Minister to heed the timeless words of Julie Andrews with which he opened Committee stage. As far as definitions for core data attributes are concerned, “Let’s start at the very beginning, A very good place to start.”

• 7 Mar 2025 · Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition on this important topic. Thank you for calling me now, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will not speak for too long, because there are so many Government Members who are keen to take part in this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) on bringing this private Member’s Bill to the House and all the different people, companies, charities and organisations that he has worked with as part of the campaign to drive it forwards. I do feel for him, as I know what it is like for a Back Bencher in the party of Government to navigate the challenges of trying to use a private Member’s Bill—I have had two ballot Bills myself—as a campaign vehicle to drive change. I therefore hope that he will forgive me for some of the comments I shall make about the content of this Bill. We can only deal with the text of the Bill before us, which was only published in the past few days, so my comments will necessarily reflect the detail of the hon. Member’s proposals. In a sense, this debates reminds me of Schrödinger’s cat, in that Members have made equally reference to a former Bill and a current Bill in their speeches. It feels like we are having a debate on a Bill that could have been and a debate on the Bill in front of us. Indeed, the hon. Member’s speech spoke to the lack of a need for further research, but equally the Bill calls for further research to take place. We have heard some fantastic contributions from all parts of the House. I would like to note the contributions from my right hon. Friends the Members for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), and my hon. Friends the Members for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) and for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), who reiterated the importance of driving forward change. Many stories and personal declarations have been shared about the impact of social media and the difficulty of parenting at this time. I should declare that I am also a parent, although thankfully my children are not at the stage when they have started consuming social media in the way that I have heard others talk about today.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Old Oak Common Station Construction: South-west Travel Disruption · Hansard source

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  Traffic delays at level crossings in Egham, Addlestone and Chertsey are punishing my constituents, and engineering works and diversion routes just make that worse. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can mitigate and improve our level crossings, especially during these engineering works?