Blake Stephenson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Dec 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

  More

  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This morning I received a notification via the Facebook page of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) that the planning for the Universal UK theme park, which is located wholly within my constituency of Mid Bedfordshire, has been approved. The hon. Member for Bedford shared a letter that he had received from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Subsequent to notifying the Secretary of State about this point of order, I received a letter. Madam Deputy Speaker, could you advise whether it is appropriate for Ministers to provide notification of a planning approval in a Member’s constituency to the neighbouring Labour MP but not to the Member themselves?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q12. Digital ID is intrusive and fundamentally un-British. The Government have no mandate for it, and no sensible person believes that it will tackle illegal immigration or illegal working. It is an attack on our open society and a staggering waste of taxpayers’ money, isn’t it?

• 8 Dec 2025 · NEET Young People · Hansard source

  More

  3. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of young people not in education, employment or training.

• 8 Dec 2025 · NEET Young People · Hansard source

  More

  About 1,200 people in my constituency are not in education, employment or training. With two job-destroying Budgets and the Employment Rights Bill on the horizon, does the Minister really understand the concerns of my constituents, who feel that this Government are simply making it so much harder for young people to find work and get on the career ladder?

• 3 Dec 2025 · Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor · Hansard source

  More

  That was a very helpful intervention. Local councillors in our area are crying out for Government support to deliver the growth that the Government want in our area. It would be very useful if the Minister could respond to that. To take the most advantage from Universal, our county needs to join the majority of others in establishing a local visitor economy partnership. Without an LVEP, we risk missing out on the level of local expertise needed to direct growth and reap the rewards that the significant new tourism will attract. It cannot be right for one of the largest tourist attractions in Europe to be opened in one of the only places without a tourism strategy. We also have the opportunity to deliver another fantastic local tourist attraction—the Bedford to Milton Keynes waterway park—but we need Government investment to unlock it. I know that Members representing Milton Keynes and Bedford might comment on that. Finally, my communities need to be assured that rail infrastructure on East West Rail and the midlands main line is fit for the needs of a growing economy—the heart of our growth corridor. That means delivering step-free access at Flitwick and Harlington stations and on the Marston Vale East West Rail line in time for Universal to open. I would welcome an opportunity to meet the Minister to discuss how we can work together on a cohesive plan that delivers for my constituents and the Government.

• 3 Dec 2025 · Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this important debate. Many today may claim the same, but my constituency sits right at the heart of the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor. We are home to Cranfield University, world renowned for cutting-edge research and technology and some of the most innovative companies in Britain, growing our economy and delivering high-value jobs for our communities. Subject to planning approval—I do not seek to influence the Minister’s decision in any way—we will soon be home to the Universal UK theme park. Universal will welcome more than 8 million visitors to our part of Bedfordshire every year, bringing in £50 billion to the UK economy. Mid Bedfordshire is a constituency full of potential. That includes potential to contribute to the Government’s growth agenda, and potential to connect the growth corridor through East West Rail, which will run along the Marston Vale line and the midland main line, providing easy connectivity to the soon-to-be-expanded Luton airport, to London and right across the region. Our local economy already benefits from easy access to the M1, with major multinationals such as Amazon calling Mid Bedfordshire home. The Millbrook Proving Ground in my constituency is one of the largest vehicle testing centres in Europe, and we are a hotspot for defence technology, with the Lockheed Martin site at Ampthill delivering the next generation of equipment to keep Britain secure. To fulfil our potential, we need the Government to support Mid Bedfordshire’s role in the growth corridor. Junction 13 of the M1 desperately needs to be upgraded. It is a key point of access for Cranfield University, Millbrook Proving Ground, Amazon, the future Marston Valley development and so many other local employment centres, but without an upgrade, we risk the only sustained growth in Mid Bedfordshire unfortunately being the time stuck in traffic jams. To ensure that our rural lanes are not overwhelmed by traffic as our areas grow, we need Government assistance to unlock the long-promised M1 to A6 link road. That project will alleviate the growing problem of HGVs using rural lanes as a cut-through, and support the delivery of central Bedfordshire’s local plan. At this point, I declare an interest as a councillor on Central Bedfordshire council. My communities are desperate for new infrastructure to ensure that housing growth does not mean growing waiting lists for local services. That particularly includes a GP surgery for the new town of Wixams, for which I have campaigned since I was elected to Parliament.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Does the hon. Lady agree that while Labour in government pretends that it is the party of fairness, this Budget is deeply unfair to both her constituents and my own constituents?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  I have no time. We will back young people to buy their first home. We will not stifle the chances of a good job, punish people with higher taxes when they do find employment, push graduates into higher student loan repayments or make it harder to save for retirement, which is what this Government are doing. The appeal of fleeing socialist Britain has never been more obvious, nor has it ever been so easy, and the exodus has already begun.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  I think everybody in this House wants to bring children out of poverty. The way to do that is to get more families into jobs, so that they can afford to bring their children up and take responsibility. Conservative Members know that it is business that invests, creates jobs and grows our economy, which enables investment in our public infrastructure. The backbone of our economy includes our high streets. Labour Members may visit their local pubs and cafes and post on social media expressing how much they back their high street—even posting about visits to businesses that have since closed—but the truth is that they have been standing idly by while the Chancellor has thrown the local businesses they rely on and claim to champion under the bus. They did it last year; they will do it again this year when they vote this Budget through; and if the Chancellor comes back for more, as she will, they will do it again. Let us look at the damage being done to a typical high street pub in Bedfordshire. Charged £7,448 in business rates by the last Conservative Government, that figure increased after the last Budget to £24,309. While local authorities are yet to publish the charge for next year, after the three-yearly business rates revaluation and the abolition of retail, hospitality and leisure relief, the charge is likely to be around £45,000 when transitional relief ends. That is a whopping tax increase of roughly 500% over the course of this Parliament before a single penny has been taken in sales. That is an absolute disgrace. It is an attack on our ambitious small business owners—on our constituents who leap out of bed at the sound of their alarms, work hard, play by the rules and create jobs. Is it any wonder that many of them are now asking themselves, “What’s the point?” Business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses must be abolished, and that is exactly what a Conservative Government will do. Who is paying for the price for this Budget? It is the very working people whom this Government pretend to support, especially young people starting out as I did—washing dishes in the pub, waiting on tables and working in local shops. Labour Members pat themselves on their backs with smiles all around for increasing the minimum wage, but they are doing so while crushing jobs. It makes absolutely no sense to do this at a time when the market can least afford it. Unemployment is through the roof; some 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, and that number is rising. That is an absolute scandal that this Government’s economic plan does nothing to fix.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to nip out to my Delegated Legislation Committee without missing my spot. I met with businesses this morning, and it is clear that the people who take risks, invest, create jobs and drive tax receipts are busy scratching their heads to find some positive from this Budget. The truth is that it is a disaster for everyone in Mid Bedfordshire and right across the country—for young people looking for their first job, for hard-working families, and for aspirational business owners and job creators. Our country does need investment and renewal, but to pay for it, we need strong businesses and a strong business environment. The Chancellor is delivering the absolute opposite. Just like last year, she has launched a calculated assault on all our constituents; they are now paying the price for spiralling welfare and higher debt costs with their jobs, all to save the Chancellor’s own. The simple truth is that this Government are backing benefits Britain, not alarm clock Britain, and with broken promise after broken promise, the Chancellor is slipping into a black hole of her own making—one that cannot come quick enough for most of us.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is absolutely right—it makes it worse. The benefits of an increased minimum wage are meaningless for those who do not have a wage. We should be investing in a brighter future for young people, one of aspiration, hard work, investment and wealth. Only the Conservatives have a plan to do that, by bearing down on welfare spending, cutting taxes, and repealing every job-destroying, anti-business, anti-growth measure in the Employment Rights Bill. We will kick-start young people’s working lives with a £5,000 first jobs bonus.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Office for Budget Responsibility Forecasts · Hansard source

  More

  The Chief Secretary to the Treasury failed to answer a critical question raised by my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor and a similar question raised by the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), so I will ask the question in a slightly different way. Does the Minister agree that the FCA must urgently investigate whether conduct has fallen short of, in particular, part 7 of the Financial Services Act 2012 and article 12(1)(c) of the UK market abuse regulation, and does he agree that no stone should be left unturned in that investigation?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  My constituents want politicians to work on a cross-party basis to improve SEND education. Is the Secretary of State committed to working cross-party, and if so, what steps is she taking to do that?

• 25 Nov 2025 · COP30 · Hansard source

  More

  I, too, would like to ask the Secretary of State some questions on the TFFF. I am glad that he is proud of the previous Government’s actions and innovation in setting up that facility. He has explained that there is a tough fiscal situation and that is why the Government are currently not committing to that fund, but it is disappointing that in the statement there is only sentence on the TFFF. It concludes that “work on this was moved forward at COP”. Will he please update the House on what specifically was “moved forward” at COP in relation to the TFFF? When will decisions be made in the future about a financial commitment to that facility?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  T7. The Government have said that they want to improve standards in public life, which I entirely agree with. At a recent council meeting, the leader of Milton Keynes council swore and was abusive following the speech of a 16-year-old resident. Does the Secretary of State agree that that behaviour is totally unacceptable?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

  More

  Stamp duty is the worst kind of tax; there seems to be cross-party consensus on that point today. It stands in the way of the aspiring young couple who want to buy their first home, or move on and bring up a family. It punishes the older couple who want to downsize to a more suitable home once their family have flown the nest. It stifles growth and restricts mobility, and it has become so complex that it confuses even Deputy Prime Ministers. It is in all our interests to simplify it, and we can do that by abolishing it, so that we can get the housing market moving once again. Members on both sides of the House have said that the market is bunged up, and it absolutely is. So many properties have been on the market for many months, not selling. That applies to houses at all points on the housing chain, not just multimillion-pound houses; but if those multimillion-pound houses do not sell, houses throughout the chain will also not sell, which has an impact on young people, families and old people throughout the country. We have made a commitment to unshackling our housing market by abolishing stamp duty on primary residences. I was extremely pleased when that was announced at the Conservative party conference a few weeks ago. I was also pleased by the honesty of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) when he said that this debate had been ongoing in the party for some time, and I am very pleased indeed that we have settled on this position. In my constituency, the average house price is about £372,500. Purchasing a property at that price—if the online stamp duty calculators are accurate—would require a stamp duty outlay of £8,625. When the stamp duty land tax was introduced on land transactions by the then Labour Government in December 2003, the average house price in my constituency was £169,000, which meant a stamp duty outlay of just £1,090. When stamp duty is taken together with increasing house prices, there has been a 224% increase in the cost of buying a home; average earnings have risen by just 190% in the same period. Abolishing stamp duty will not fix that overnight. We still need to do more to build warm, dry homes in the places where people want to live, and I am pleased that today’s debate has been broadened slightly to cover the subject of house building. I think that parties across the House want to build good-quality homes in the right places to enable young people to get on to the housing ladder. We do not seem to be at odds on that. However, those homes need to be in the right places, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire that their quality is incredibly important. If we improve the quality of new build homes, our communities will be much more open to accepting house building, which will increase supply and improve opportunities for young people. That is critical for all Members on both sides of the House. In places like London, however, this Government and their Labour Mayor of London have utterly failed to tackle a severe housing crisis; there are lower targets, and there is reduced aspiration, rather than ambition. Building more houses will help to arrest the charging growth in house prices, but we know that just building is unlikely to bring prices down. Some 20% fewer 25 to 34-year-olds are homeowners today than in the year 2000. Average first-time buyers are almost a decade older today than in the 1980s. Our property market is failing our young people. We must therefore do more to make it more affordable for people to make that next move. The Chancellor, desperate to raise more money following her economic vandalism, wants to drag more people into paying stamp duty, or into a higher rate of stamp duty, by freezing thresholds. Reform, which is reportedly about to scrap its half-baked stamp duty plans, is looking to concrete over our green belt, as it lacks any credible plans to deliver homes at all. The Conservatives are the only party with a sensible plan to unlock our housing market and give young people a stake in society and roots in their communities. By abolishing stamp duty on primary residences, we can make it more than 2% cheaper for families to buy the average house in my constituency overnight. We can save prospective first-time buyers in London an average of £18,000—and I am sure that at least one hon. Member on the Government Benches, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake), might wish to comment on the savings that she could deliver to her constituents by supporting this motion and pushing this policy through within her party. That is the sort of real impact that people will feel in their pockets, and that they will feel while unboxing their prized possessions in the living room of their new family home. It will enable a new generation of young people to achieve the dream of home ownership, enable families to move up the housing ladder into more suitable family homes, unlock our housing market, and knock down a barrier to social mobility, stimulating our economy and abolishing the drag on growth. That is what I got into politics to deliver: less Government red tape, fewer taxes on aspiration and mobility, and families in homes of their own.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member is making a powerful point in support of our motion. Does he intend to support it this afternoon?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member is making a powerful argument. I just wonder whether he has reflected on the size of the welfare budget. Is he making the argument that welfare spending should not come down at all?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

  More

  Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful if the Government were much more ambitious in finding the savings in their Budget, in order to deliver this ambitious policy that would support young people up and down our country?

• 22 Oct 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Agriculture Sector · Hansard source

  More

  6. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to inheritance tax relief on Scotland’s agricultural sector.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Agriculture Sector · Hansard source

  More

  It is clear that Scottish Labour and this Government do not care and do not understand our rural communities. If we have no farmers, there is no food. Will the Minister listen to the voices of rural Scots, NFU Scotland and communities up and down this country, and ask the Chancellor to rethink this ruinous inheritance tax reform?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I think that the justification for not changing that approach over many years has been an argument about finality of sentence, and giving the offenders that finality. I do not think that stacks up today; we need to afford victims more rights and more sensitivity within the system. New clause 12 is total common sense, and should be supported by Members on both sides of the Committee. It puts victims at the heart of sentencing, and does not compromise the need for finality in sentencing. It pushes the date back, but it does not change the status of that finality.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Last week, I met one of my constituents, Tracey Hanson, in Parliament to honour the 10-year anniversary of the tragic loss of her son Josh, who was murdered in an unprovoked knife attack in Hillingdon, west London, in October 2015. We spoke about the tireless work that she has put into campaigning for victims’ rights, and I heard more about how the law that she wants to introduce—Josh’s law—would ensure that the rights of victims and their families to appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme are clear and equal to the rights of offenders. I will speak specifically to new clause 12, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for the beautiful Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan). After cruelly taking the life of Josh Hanson, Shane O’Brien absconded and evaded police for three and a half years before he was finally caught. Dubbed Britain’s most wanted man at the time, O’Brien was sentenced to at least 26 years in prison, just one year above the minimum sentence. After just missing the deadline to appeal the sentence as a result of unclear information about victims’ families’ rights under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, Tracey has spent years campaigning to ensure that no other victims face what her family did. Unfortunately, far too many victims and their families face the same problems, simply because they are not being made aware of their right to appeal sentences. There are also concerning numbers of cases in which clerical errors—in one case I heard of, it was an email stuck in a barrister’s outbox—lead to the Attorney General running out of time and missing the deadline to appeal a sentence. While appeals from offenders will still be considered by the Attorney General outside the 28-day window in exceptional circumstances, appeals from victims or their families will not. Historically, victims were at the centre of the justice system. Victims were the driving force in bringing criminal cases, and played a central role throughout the process. It was not until the 19th century that there was a significant shift towards state-led prosecutions, with the victims, rather than criminal cases, significantly diminished. The focus only started to shift back towards the victim with the very recent introduction of the first victim’s charter in 1990. I believe that we must recapture more of the focus from the state, and divert it back to those who are most directly impacted by crime. The lives of Tracey and her family will never be the same again. They should have been a central focus in the criminal case, and should have received the same rights, and information about their right to appeal against the sentencing decision, as the offender did. It is vital that victims and their families are clearly informed about their right to appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme. New clause 12 would require the Crown Prosecution Service to write to victims, or their next of kin, within 10 working days of a sentence being passed, providing details of the unduly lenient sentence scheme, the application process for the scheme and the deadlines, which would also be extended, giving victims a better chance of benefiting from the scheme.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy · Hansard source

  More

  The Secretary of State says that she wants to see empowered NHS staff with the right skills to deliver a transformed service, with which I absolutely agree. Level 7 apprenticeships, such as those provided by Cranfield University in Mid Bedfordshire, are so important to delivering that, but the Department for Education has cut funding to level 7 apprenticeships, meaning that the Department of Health and Social Care will be funding ongoing provision. Does the Secretary of State think it is responsible for her to balance the books of her Department on the back of the NHS?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are treating China like it is our friend, rather than the threat that it is?