Callum Anderson MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not, just because there is so little time and too many people want to speak. That is why the Bill’s introduction of the new offence of assaulting a retail worker is so important. It is also why I welcome the new respect orders, which will give the courts the power to ban repeat offenders from retail premises. Ultimately, this is a Bill that delivers for retail workers and ensures they are given the respect and dignity they deserve. That is why I will be supporting it tonight.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to support the Bill, which will be welcomed in urban and rural communities across Buckingham and Bletchley. Given the time constraints, I will focus my remarks on part 3, on the protection of retail workers. I have a particular interest in Britain’s 3.5 million retail workers, not least because my mum is one of them, having worked on the shop floor at Morrisons for over 20 years. During that time, she has seen it all—the good, the bad and the ugly. In my conversations with her, particularly over the last decade, two themes have become much more prevalent, and they have already been raised by Members on both sides of the House. The first theme is the increasingly casual and habitual nature of shoplifting and other retail crime. Data from the British Retail Consortium suggests that this is already costing businesses across the country more than £2 billion a year. In the Thames Valley police area, retail crime rose by over a third between April 2023 and February 2024. This year alone, the Co-op store in Winslow has faced two violent raids aiming to remove its cash machine. This is not just petty crime; too often, it is organised. It is this kind of emboldened criminality that must be stopped. Such activity is not just a blot on a company’s balance sheet; it punishes good-faith customers and demoralises the workers, who take pride in the work that they do. That is why I welcome the repeal of section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, to finally call time on Britain’s open invitation to criminals to steal goods worth £200 or less. Secondly, I want to touch on the growing occurrence of abuse and the threat of violence faced by too many shop workers in their workplace. In a 2024 survey of USDAW members, more than two thirds of retail workers revealed they had been verbally abused, almost half had been threatened, and one in five had been physically assaulted while doing their job. That is clearly totally intolerable. Nobody in this country should go to work fearing for their own physical safety. I believe that we in this House, with our security guards and our armed police, have a particular duty to ensure that those who work in our shops feel just as safe as we do.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T8. Football clubs are far more than 90 minutes of entertainment on match day; they are also powerful engines of community outreach, which provide a lifeline for vulnerable people. In the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency, Milton Keynes Dons Sport and Education Trust offers a variety of programmes for those battling dementia or who have suffered from brain trauma or stroke. Can the Secretary of State explain to the House how the Football Governance Bill will help the ability of clubs to continue providing those programmes?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T9. Earlier this month, the Chancellor rightly went to China to put our UK-China relations on a more pragmatic footing. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on what assessment he has made of the National Security and Investment Act 2021 to ensure that it remains fit for purpose in safeguarding the UK’s economic and national security as we cultivate new commercial links?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs: OBR Costing · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that, once again, the Conservative party has failed to agree with the tough decisions we have made and has no idea how to raise the revenue to finance the public services that benefit rural communities like mine in north Buckinghamshire?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Recent developments in the UK investment trust sector have once again shone a light on the crucial role that retail investors play in our financial markets. In her Mansion House speech last November, the Chancellor rightly prioritised leveraging domestic pension capital to drive the Government’s economic growth mission. Does the Minister agree that greater retail participation in UK financial markets also supports growth and democratises wealth, and will she meet me to discuss how the Government can better support access to financial markets for individuals, including in my constituency?

• 14 Jan 2025 · UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chancellor for her statement. Can she set out in more detail how the Government intend to help reinvigorate the UK-China stock connect, so that UK companies and investors can access Chinese capital markets and vice versa?