Bradley Thomas MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member refers to industrial activity. Does she agree that the predominant industrial activity that solar supports is far-eastern manufacturing of solar PV? What would she say in response to Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, who said in January that by pursuing this route we are in effect ceding control over national security and resilience to foreign powers?

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that we face a perfect storm of conditions? There is not just a widespread societal push towards net zero, but, with changes to agricultural property relief, a real risk that solar will become the new cash crop, at the expense of valuable food production, which is as essential as energy security.

• 15 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Congestion on the A38 in Bromsgrove is making it nearly impossible for residents to get around easily—yet, despite current investment, there is widespread scepticism that the Bromsgrove route enhancement plan, known locally as BREP, will improve the situation. Does the Minister agree that investment in transport must deliver a tangible improvement in traffic flow, and will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss investment in Bromsgrove so that we can keep Bromsgrove moving?

• 15 May 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Estate management monopolies are blighting the lives of homeowners across the country, including residents of Cofton Hackett in my constituency. The most egregious examples by companies including FirstPort—of which I know many colleagues are aware—represent at best carelessness and at worst a lack of moral ethics. Does the Leader of the House agree that the regulation of estate management companies is essential, and will she update the House on when these essential fleecehold reforms will come forward?

• 12 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  So many disabled members of society are unable to demonstrate the minimum academic requirements to get on to many courses, or to secure employment. What steps are the Government taking to support those people, so that they can demonstrate vocational and non-academic competencies, and get the jobs that they deserve?

• 6 May 2025 · Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan: 80th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  This is a particularly poignant debate for me to attend today, because this morning I attended the funeral of Betty Webb, a 101-year-old former Bletchley Park codebreaker who epitomised the very best of this great generation. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to and thanking Betty, as we lay her to rest, for the sacrifice and commitment she provided to the war effort?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hair and Beauty Sector: Government Policy · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) for securing this important debate, about which I have had much communication from constituents, particularly those who operate their own health and beauty businesses in my constituency. Those businesses, of which we are all aware, are a cornerstone of our high street and community. They provide valuable employment; I was particularly struck by my hon. Friend’s comments about the volume of employment that they provide, particularly to female members of society. But the crisis that we face is urgent, the stakes are high and the voices of salon owners, staff and apprentices must be heard. I would like to highlight an example from my constituency. A constituent who operates a salon in Bromsgrove got in touch. After 33 years of contributing to the local economy, creating jobs and nurturing talent, they face the heart-wrenching possibility of having to close their doors within the next 12 to 18 months. Severe financial pressures, exacerbated by Government policies, have pushed them to the brink, and without support, staff—including a promising new apprentice—may lose their livelihoods. One of the major challenges is the disparity caused by disguised employment practices. VAT-registered salons, such as theirs, are struggling to compete with establishments exploiting loopholes through which workers are falsely registering as self-employed to dodge VAT. That creates an unfair playing field, forcing ethical businesses to consider unsustainable practices simply to stay afloat. However, the consequences of inaction extend far beyond individual salons. Industry forecasts paint a bleak picture: a 93% drop in employment by 2030, no new apprentices by 2027 and the loss of generations of talent. Rising costs—including, in this case, a wage bill of £52,000 before factoring in rent, national insurance and pensions—make it impossible for compliant salons to thrive under the current VAT threshold of £90,000. That is why support from the Government is not optional; it is essential. This salon owner, alongside many others, has taken proactive steps to bring attention to this crisis. They are a member of the British Hair Consortium and they have contributed to comprehensive dialogue with Government urging action—action that cannot wait. I am also struck by the comment made by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) about non-surgical aesthetic treatment; I have raised that before in the House of Commons myself. My constituent, Nicky Robinson, is quite happy to go on the public record as someone who often performs corrective action for surgery that has gone wrong. That is another dimension to an industry that presents an emerging healthcare crisis that I, too, urge the Government to address. I would also like the Minister to confirm when the Government will introduce a mandatory licensing regime that will protect not just consumers but those practising in this industry. The beauty sector is not merely about aesthetics: it is about empowering individuals, building confidence and fostering community connections that we all know exist across our constituencies. It is time for the Government to recognise the importance of the industry and take the necessary steps to ensure its survival.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Birmingham: Waste Collection · Hansard source

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  Which legacy is the Minister most proud of: rubbish and rats in Birmingham, or Labour’s breach of its promise to the electorate to freeze council tax?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund · Hansard source

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  This fund is really important to so many vulnerable children and their families. Although it is disappointing that many families and children have been left in limbo for a good few months, I welcome the Government’s announcement of the extension of funding. I would like to raise two points. First, will the Minister outline what steps are being taken to speed up applications and reduce any potential logjam in the system while funding is being released? Secondly, will she commit to the House and to families and children that she will meet Treasury Ministers and look at the potential for a longer-term funding settlement to reduce such uncertainty in future?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Birmingham City Council · Hansard source

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  Chelworth Road in my constituency is a road of two halves: on one half of the road, which is in the Wythall division of Worcestershire, the rubbish is collected; on the other side, which falls under Labour-led Birmingham city council, the rubbish is piling high, council tax is going up by 21% and a major incident is being declared. Labour is delivering rubbish, while the Liberal Democrats are prancing around on their hobby horses on social media. The Minister talks about priorities, including putting residents first and delivering value for money, but surely this is further proof that only Conservative councils will deliver on those priorities. Will the Minister tell us at what point he will step in to get those bins collected?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. Acorns children’s hospice provides compassionate care to very young cancer patients and their families across Bromsgrove and the villages, yet it faces a staggering £416,000 increase in national insurance contributions as a result of choices made by this Government. With no exemption for hospices and no uplift in non-capital funding, this means that the charity will have to draw on charitable donations made by the public, which will affect frontline services. This is not right, so will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to right that wrong and exempt hospices from this tax?

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

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  If the Government are going to build 1.5 million homes over the course of this Parliament, and we are nine months into the first year of this Parliament, by my calculation they should have built 225,000 by now. Will the Secretary of State confirm how many homes have been built?

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

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  The Deputy Prime Minister makes an important point about the access to energy that all our communities require. Particularly prominent in all our minds, at a time when we recognise that food security is national security, is the displacement of high-quality agricultural land and, in effect, energy becoming a new cash crop. Will she assure the House that we are not at risk of falling into that trap and that we will not displace high-quality agricultural land for energy?

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

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  First, as I think the whole House has suggested in the speeches we have heard, our country does need more homes, particularly for young people. The most obvious stake that a young person can have in society is ownership of their own property that they live in with their family, but it is important that Government get their approach right. There is much to commend in the Government’s Bill, but there are also a few points I would like the Minister to focus on. First, the rural-urban divide has become apparent. In my constituency, Bromsgrove and the villages is 89% green-belt. It is to the south of Birmingham and in the north of Worcestershire. In many ways, it is a rural idyll, yet Bromsgrove is seeing the housing target set by Government increase by 85% at a time when adjacent Birmingham’s housing target is decreasing by more than 20%.

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

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  I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. Friend. She makes an important and pertinent point. If we get urban densification right, it is a catalyst for the economic and social renewal of town centres, which is desperately needed.

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

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  The hon. Member makes a very good point, with which I do not disagree. We have to strike a better balance—that is the point I am making. That leads me to my second point, which is around infrastructure. Bromsgrove has suffered from a lot of development in recent years, and it has not had the infrastructure to go with it. If we want to strike the right balance and enable young people to stay in the communities where they grew up, particularly rural ones, we need to have the housing there, but we also need to recognise that rural areas cannot do all the heavy lifting.

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

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  I will make a little progress, and then I will give way. Linked to urban densification is a pertinent importance to focus on the quality and aesthetic of the development that is taking place. I have long been a fervent advocate for design codes and the role that locally led placemaking principles can play in determining the quality of an area and its attractiveness for future inward investment. I believe instinctively that residents across the country are not nimby, but I fear that successive Governments, including the previous Conservative one and the Labour one before that, have allowed mediocrity to reign. There is a lack of local distinctiveness in development, which causes an entrenched perception of nimbyism running throughout the country. I implore the Government to consider reinstating the Office for Place, which was disbanded back in July, and to think about the importance of those aesthetically-based placemaking principles and the role they can play in promoting the positive impacts of development. Linked to that, we have an acute need and opportunity to promote smaller, more artisanal developers, particularly those focused on developing the vocational skills needed to generate the incoming pipeline of talent to support the house building industry. I will make a couple of points that relate to my constituency, but they probably apply to many others across the country. One is on the protection of the green belt. Green belt is a technical designation, but to the public at large, it is often considered to be lush open fields and meadows. My constituency has this large buffer between Bromsgrove and Birmingham. It is not the case that residents of Bromsgrove are nimby—I do not believe they are—but they do not want the identity of Bromsgrove to be eroded and, by virtue of that, it to become some kind of extension of Birmingham. For me, and for many of my constituents, that word “identity” underpins the fundamentals we should be talking about. It is about sense of place and a lifestyle that people identify with. When I think about constituents from my area, they have probably grown up in Birmingham and moved into north Worcestershire. In many cases, they have done that because there is an aspirational element to moving into the countryside, and they want to benefit from the countryside that Worcestershire offers, while being in close proximity to Birmingham and all the services it offers. I will wrap up my comments with four quick points that I would like the Government to focus on. They should consider intensive urban densification and the positive role that can play in delivering housing where it is needed and where young people live, and in regenerating town centres undergoing a lot of change.

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

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that with regard to good-quality design, not only society but particularly the Government in their relationship with developers have to shift their mindset away from seeing design as a cost to instead seeing it as an investment that will reap benefits in the form of better-quality placemaking and better quality of life for residents?

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

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  My hon. Friend makes a great point. In fact, she leads me to a point I want to stress to the Minister, which is about intensive urban densification. Our country faces a real opportunity if we focus on increasing the number of properties, particularly in larger urban areas, including London and Birmingham. It is also a great opportunity to regenerate some of the larger towns across many of our constituencies.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Disruption at Heathrow · Hansard source

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  In any modern economy, it is clear that the resilience of critical national infrastructure faces many risks and threats, and that resilience goes hand in hand with our national security. Does the Secretary of State agree that the incident and other risks we face demonstrate that the role of the Prime Minister’s national security adviser should be bolstered to more prominently cover national security and critical infrastructure resilience?

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Further to the point that my hon. Friend has just made, does he agree that the Government made promises to the British public that they not only will not deliver, but cannot deliver, such as lowering energy bills? It is not within the gift of Governments to directly control energy bills—that is why the winter fuel payment is so crucial to so many pensioners across the country.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Constituents across Bromsgrove and the villages, particularly older constituents who have previously been beneficiaries of winter fuel payments, rightly feel short-changed by this Government. I know that from constituents who have contacted me and those I have spoken to directly on the doorstep. The faith that they placed in the Government has not been rewarded by the Government supporting them at a time of vulnerability. In the limited time that I have, I would like to point out the effect that this policy has on rural communities in particular. It is important to remember that, while about 83% of homes across the country at large are connected to the gas grid, many pensioners who live in rural areas are not connected to mains energy and have disproportionately higher energy costs. They often live in much more exposed older homes that are less well insulated. This means that their energy demands are much greater than those who live in better insulated or more urban residences. I also want to touch on political choices. I know that this has been stressed many times already today, but governing is about choices. We hear a lot about £22 billion black holes, but we do not hear too much from the Government and Labour Members about the cumulative costs of other choices that they have made. These include the £18 billion for Chagos and the public sector pay award without any increase in productivity. We could say that pensioners are paying the price for the pressure that unions have placed on the Labour party. It is crucial to remember that, during the election campaign, Labour pledged to bring down bills by £300 a year. Ever since the Government have been pursuing their GB Energy policy, which is a quango funded to the tune of £8 billion that will not own any energy-generating assets, they seem to have abandoned any claim over when that £300 deduction in bills will be delivered, but we have seen the price cap rise. I find it quite spectacular how, in 2025, Ministers are suddenly talking about how market forces are affecting energy prices, when back in 2022 Labour Members said it was the decisions of the Conservatives that caused energy prices and therefore inflation to spike. It is important for the Government to reflect on the reality of what drives energy prices and to restore the winter fuel payment to pensioners, not just in Bromsgrove and the villages but across the country.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  On home education, does the hon. Lady agree that not only is it a case of getting the balance right between privacy and the right to educate at home, but it is important that home educators do not feel stigmatised by the ability of the state to enter private property under less-than-forthcoming means that enable it subsequently to make an assessment of home education that is completely contrary to the reality experienced by the child in their own home?

• 17 Mar 2025 · Sentencing Council Guidelines · Hansard source

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  Judging by the lack of action, it appears that the Justice Secretary is comfortable with changes that she has described as two-tier coming into effect in just two weeks. We have heard that she is unhappy; if she really is, can the Minister tell the House and the country what the Secretary of State is doing, other than holding cordial and cosy meetings, to prevent two-tier justice?

• 17 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. There are many fantastic organisations across Bromsgrove and the villages, including Legacy Martial Arts, the Basement Project and the Scouts, which do fantastic work to support young people. The work done by the committed individuals behind those organisations bolsters the confidence, skills and mental health of young people. Will the Minister join me in thanking those organisations for the work they do across my constituency? Will she outline what support is available to those organisations to support them in the valuable work they do?