Calum Miller MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2025 · Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government · Hansard source

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  I welcome the opportunity to contribute on the important matter of how we spend money on local government, given the huge range of services it provides to each of our constituencies. The residents of Bicester and Woodstock share the pressures that many areas face when it comes to housing and homelessness. Like so many Members of this House, my surgeries are dominated by those who are unable to access the social housing that they wish—those who are living in inappropriate accommodation, often trying to look after their children in environments in which no child can advance their education. As such, I very much welcome the Government’s words about their ambition in this area. However, I regret the fact that during the debate on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Government resisted the request from our party that they make a firm commitment to make 150,000 social homes available each year. I very much hope that the Minister will look for a way to implement that goal in practice, even though he resisted the legislative request. I also welcome the fact that the Government have committed to the abolition of the Vagrancy Act 1824. That campaign, which my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) has run for many years, is coming to fruition. It is so important that we do not criminalise those who are unable to access housing. I will now turn to the broader issue of financial predictability that our local authorities face. The Minister will know the importance of financial management—indeed, I am sure he is caught up in it almost every day of his working life—but for local authorities to plan, the Government must give them time. As such, could the Minister give us two undertakings: first, that the local government finance settlement will be multi-year, in line with the spending review, and will be set for three years; and secondly, that the draft local government financial settlement on which councils start to plan will be announced much earlier than 18 December as it was last year? That announcement was one of the latest in any year. In common with many Members, the other theme of my surgeries is the plight of many families who are coping with a child with special educational needs and disabilities who cannot access the services they need. Whether it is a lack of places in special schools or an inability to get the assessments they need to estimate their educational potential, too many young people are being let down. As such, given the huge deficits that have been accumulated in high needs blocks—in Oxfordshire, for example, the figure is £137 million—does the Minister recognise that councils simply cannot wait for an education or schools White Paper in the autumn to begin to understand how they will manage those figures in the future? Can he give some guidance to councils about the Government’s intentions for the next financial year, so that they can start to plan for what could otherwise be deeply destabilising cuts? Finally, one highlight of local government is how it touches many aspects of our constituents’ lives and provides many diverse services. I call on the Minister to look at the public health grant and its role in providing for preventive healthcare, working closely with the other branches of the health system. We have figures out to 2026, I believe, but predictability about the future of that budget is a matter of huge importance.

• 22 May 2025 · School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations · Hansard source

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  I was a school governor for 13 years and served as a finance governor, so I know these issues well. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the plight of small, rural primary schools. There are many such schools in my constituency, and they are really up against it with the costs that they face. In the school that I served, 86% of the budget was spent on staffing, so a significant unfunded increase in staffing costs, whether through national insurance or salary contributions, has a huge impact. Will the Minister meet me to discuss sparsity funding and the equalisation of per capita funding so that primary schools in small, rural areas are not so serially disadvantaged?

• 21 May 2025 · Ukraine: Forcibly Deported Children · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Stuart. Like everyone else, I thank the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) for securing this important debate and for the commitment and tenacity that she has shown in raising this topic, about which she cares so deeply. It is so important that we are discussing this shocking topic today. Of all the crimes that the Russian leadership has committed in its invasion of Ukraine, this is the most distressing. No Ukrainian deserves to be caught up in this horrendous war, but we are all touched by the vulnerability of babies and children, so it is heartbreaking to consider what has been done to them and to family members who see their child ripped from their care. The emotion we have seen here is testament to how deeply that is felt by Members of this House. Members have spoken with compassion and concern about this subject, and I welcome the consensus across all parties and the shared commitment to work together to challenge Russia’s crimes. Many, including my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Steve Darling), for Woking (Mr Forster), for Horsham (John Milne) and for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) and the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth), have referred to the impact of their visits to Ukraine and the experiences they had there. I am grateful for their testimony. Members have underscored the depth of friendship between the UK and Ukraine. The hon. Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) recalled celebrating Ukraine’s independence day in the beautiful Victoria Park. Others have highlighted specific cases. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) for referring to the experience of disabled children, and to the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove for drawing our attention to the experience of the Ukrainian children and young people here in the UK. We have also heard practical suggestions from Members, including the day of action proposed by the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) and the seizure of Russian assets that my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove called for. This gruesome project is the product of the twisted will and inhumanity of one man: Vladimir Putin. Driven by his imperial ambitions and archaic vision of a Russian empire, he aims not only to destroy Ukraine’s independence, but to erase its future. His systematic programme for the abduction and forced assimilation into Russia of at least 20,000 Ukrainian children will go down as one of the vilest acts not only of this war, but of this century. As other Members have said, the Yale University humanitarian research lab has indicated that the real figures are likely to be much, much higher, and sadly, we can only expect them to continue to rise, so long as Putin’s invasion and control of occupied territory continues. The Yale lab has identified at least 43 children’s camps throughout Russia that house deported children, of which at least 32 are explicitly labelled as “re-education facilities”. The former Ukrainian children’s rights commissioner Mykola Kuleba puts it chillingly: he said that these re-education programmes constitute “death camps for Ukrainian identity.” As my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) highlighted, in March President Trump and Elon Musk took the callous decision to slash funding for the Yale lab, an organisation that has been helping to lead the search for the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. Gathering evidence of these war crimes is critical. It matters because it will allow prosecutors to go after the architects of this atrocity. It also matters because it increases the chances that when the conflict ends, these children might be returned to their Ukrainian homes. On 1 April, I asked the Foreign Secretary whether the UK would step in to fill the funding gap left by the US Administration. He said: “It is not our assessment that we can meet the shortfall left by the withdrawal of USAID”. —[ Official Report , 1 April 2025; Vol. 765, c. 149.] I know that the Minister is committed to this issue, so may I take this opportunity to ask him what sum would be required for the Yale lab to continue its critical work and what the Government have done, working with partners, to secure the future of this project? Reports suggest that the lab’s data repository could soon be transferred to Europol so that its vital work can be taken forward. Can the Minister state whether those reports are accurate and what support the UK is offering?

• 26 Mar 2025 · UK-China Relations · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Member on two fronts. First, he and I agree more on our disappointment with today’s growth figure than he gives me credit for. Secondly, the Government have set out that they wish at times to challenge, at times to co-operate and at other times to compete with China, but it is my contention that, as he set out, they are too intent on co-operation and not sufficiently intent on challenge. I will briefly set out three areas of threat, starting with security and echoing the comments made by others. We face direct threats in the form of cyber-attacks, the threat of China as an ally to our enemies and see China threatening some of our own allies, including Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Secondly, we face threats in terms of economic vulnerability. Many other Members have spoken about our dependency. In addition, the Government’s regrettable decision to cut the UK’s overseas aid budget creates an opening space for China in the global south, through its belt and road initiative, to increase the debt dependency of countries on itself, and therefore to increase its influence in the world. On the economic side, there are credible reports of China’s attempts to steal intellectual property from the United Kingdom’s university and tech sectors, and I am concerned that the Government are not doing enough to stop that.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Energy Suppliers: Winter Support for Consumers · Hansard source

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  This winter, many of my constituents are concerned about energy outages. Last Thursday, the Cooper school and Glory Farm school had to close for the entire day when they lost all electricity supply. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can ensure the grid has the capacity to avoid these outages, which are so damaging to homes, businesses and critical public services?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement · Hansard source

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  I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a county councillor in Oxfordshire. In my constituency and in my surgeries and correspondence, the frustration, desperation and anger of parents and children with special educational needs is constant and shocking. Their needs are not being met, and as the Minister has acknowledged, the funding shortfall for the high needs block is significant and has led to a deficit, which the Local Government Association estimates will be £3.6 billion at the end of this financial year. I very much welcome the Minister’s focus on this issue, as well as that of his colleagues in the Department for Education. Can he assure parents and children in my constituency that, under the multi-year settlement to which he has referred, the future needs of these children will be adequately met, and the needs of the council addressed, as we face those huge deficits?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate. I will focus on the length of time that young people with SEND often spend travelling to their special settings. This weekend, a mother attended my surgery to speak of her son, who was initially offered a taxi ride taking 45 minutes to his special school outside the county. Another child was added to the journey, taking the journey time to one hour and 15 minutes. A third child has now been added, so that boy, who has special needs and struggles with travelling with other children, is now travelling an hour and 45 minutes in each direction for school. Oxfordshire is not unlike other counties, and my constituents in Bicester and Woodstock often have to send their children outside the county for education. I hope the Government will consider more capital funding for local education authorities so that they can provide more special schools in better settings. I also ask the Minister to consider a commitment that no special educational needs child should have to travel for more than 30 minutes to reach their school each day.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

• 24 Oct 2024 · Special Educational Needs and Disabilities · Hansard source

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  Zak is nine years old. He is one of dozens of children in my constituency who have been failed by the SEND system. Zak was traumatised by his experience in an inappropriate school setting, causing his learning to regress and both his parents to stop work. Oxfordshire county council has an accumulated high needs deficit of £56 million because of inadequate funding, which has failed families such as Zak’s. Has the Minister pressed the Treasury to increase that funding and maintain the statutory override in next week’s Budget?

• 22 Jul 2024 · NATO and European Political Community Meetings · Hansard source

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  I hope the Prime Minister enjoyed welcoming fellow European leaders to Blenheim Palace in my constituency. One of my constituents, Rose, is studying Spanish and French at Southampton University. She would like to spend her year abroad working in Spain to strengthen her language skills and improve her employment prospects, yet as it stands she has no right to work there. I hope the Prime Minister saw the benefit of working with his European counterparts and perhaps making a few new friends. I hear his response on not rejoining the political structures, but as a specific measure to improve opportunities for young people, will he open talks with the European Union on a youth mobility scheme?