Caroline Dinenage MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Jun 2026 · Asylum Accommodation · Hansard source

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  The Minister spoke about necessary arrangements and approvals being followed, but the Haslar immigration removal centre proposals are meaningfully different from those originally planned. The Home Office is bypassing the local planning authority, Gosport borough council, and the public consultation has been utterly derisory. This is a residential urban area, yet local people do not have any opportunity to have a say, because it will be decided by the Secretary of State in Whitehall. Leaving aside all the rhetoric, can the Minister just answer some straight questions? Will he set out exactly how many people will now be housed at Haslar, who they will be and how long they will stay there? What opportunity will neighbouring residents have to influence the development and how it looks? When will the Home Office have proper public meetings, so that Gosport people can put their questions and have them answered? Will he meet me to answer all the other questions I am getting from my residents, who are furious about what the Government are doing?

• 16 Apr 2026 · Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games · Hansard source

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  Many of our Commonwealth hopefuls started their careers in community events like parkruns and local sports clubs, and yet the sport and recreation sector is in a state of utter confusion because of the Government’s chaotic roll-out of the new rules on medical provision. The Government have said that they do not want small events to be “overregulated”. What does that even mean? There is a wholesale lack of information from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Care Quality Commission about who will be impacted and what it will cost, and there has been no meaningful impact assessment. The Government have warm words about local sport provision, but their actions never stand up to the test. Can this Minister please give us a definitive answer?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Funeral Directors: Regulation · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that it will be a rather morbid debate this evening. We spend remarkably little time in our lives thinking about the practicalities of death, and it is probably part of human nature that we do not dwell too much on the inevitable future fate that awaits us. That means we put far too much implicit trust in those who take responsibility for our bodies, and in those of our loved ones when we die. We all assume that in death we will be treated with respect and care by professionals, but his evening I am afraid I will share some hard truths about the gruesome reality of death. I warn anyone watching that what I have to say will be graphic and distressing—there in no way around that. Last year, Gosport residents and funeral directors Richard Elkin and Hayley Bell were found to have kept 46 bodies entrusted to their care in a completely inappropriate environment with an unregulated temperature. Describing entering the place to see his mother, one of my constituents said, “the awful smell is something that will never leave me”. Concerns about what was going on behind the doors of Elkin and Bell funeral directors were first raised by local residents, and then by the senior coroner at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth. A body had been sent for a post-mortem that was “laying in pools of bodily fluids” and infested with maggots. The post-mortem also found that the deceased individual had suffered a spinal fracture after death. After a Gosport borough council environmental health investigation raised concerns but took no further action, a few months later, simply because bills had not been paid, bailiffs attended the property, where two bodies were discovered, putrefying, in a room with bloodstained floors, water dripping from the ceiling, and broken windows. One of them was an elderly gentleman who had been left for 36 days. His body was found in a badly decomposed condition. It is too much of a cliché to compare this to a horror movie, because this is real life, or real death. When the family of one of the deceased was contacted, they were surprised, because they were under the impression that their loved one had already been cremated. The company had certainly taken payment for it. As the Minister will know, it was completely legal for Elkin and Bell to keep dead bodies in a room like that. Elkin and Bell could only be brought to justice by some incredibly diligent work by Hampshire police, the Crown Prosecution Service, and John Price KC, using a variety of different offences including fraud, forgery and a piece of common law that dates back to Victorian times. The crime of preventing lawful and decent burial was dusted off from the days when it was used to convict grave robbers. That is instead of what should have been possible, which was sentencing the pair because they had wilfully neglected bodies in their care, and treated people’s loved ones as nothing more than money spinners. The case highlighted that the funeral sector is nothing better than a wild west. When this was first brought to my attention, I was incredulous and horrified to learn that there is no regulation of any kind governing the sector. In fact, the only law that governs the funeral industry is around the financial transparency of funeral plans, and that was put in place after a Competitions and Markets Authority investigation in 2021. There are simply no mandatory qualifications, no accreditation, no licensing, no designated working practices or formal inspection and, crucially, no law to fall back on when things go wrong.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  Today, Gosport borough council has been given the lowest possible rating by a Government regulator for the management of its social housing. The Minister will understand that this is a deeply worrying time for the 3,000 Gosport tenants and for local council tax payers. What is not helping is the constant ambiguity, uncertainty and speculation from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the borough’s future, compounding the chaos and confusion from the council’s already quite hapless leadership. The Minister has already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) that Hampshire county council does not favour a delay, but does she agree that today’s announcement just adds to the uncertainty that thousands of residents face across Hampshire?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  As I mentioned to the Minister when he was in his place earlier, I started my first business at the age of 19. That is what I did for 20 years, before I became an MP—I ran businesses. That is why I am so upset at some of the ways in which this Government have behaved: I understand viscerally how taking that leap takes everything somebody has. It takes their time, money, energy and social life, and it is all a risk. For so many months—and years, in some cases—people work almost without pay, but the reward is fantastic, because they can employ people, create jobs, offer opportunities, change lives and futures, and generate their own supply chain for other small businesses to do the same. They can play a really valuable part in their local community. That is what small businesses across our communities do every single day. They are brave, resilient and dedicated, and they need to be valued, but over recent years so many of them have been suffering. The pandemic took a huge toll on them, and that was followed by the energy crisis. Now, worst of all, we have a Government who pledged to see their contribution and to help them deliver growth, but this Government are letting them down. I feel viscerally that enterprise and entrepreneurship should be rewarded, which is why I run local schemes in my constituency. I have a competition for the best independent shop running at the moment, in line with Small Business Saturday last weekend. It is the sixth year that I have run this competition, and we get the results on Saturday—it is very hard-fought on my Facebook site. Thousands of residents are voting, and they love doing it, because they like to show how much these independent traders and little shops mean to local jobs, to our communities and to keeping our high streets vibrant and compelling. Last year, I held a best pub competition. After another very fierce public vote, the winner was the Windsor Castle in Hardway. When I visited the pub to give its team their certificate, I saw the time, effort and pride that they put into everything they do—the programme of events, the decorations, and the hospitality they offer—just like all the other pubs that were on the longlist. I saw how much local people value their local, but the message from these pubs is stark: they are suffering. Despite the Chancellor’s spin, the average hospitality business will see business rates rise by almost £20,000 over the next three years. The statistics have already been mentioned very effectively today by the shadow Minister, but these numbers are real lives, real jobs and real futures, and that £20,000 represents an existential threat to the margins of these businesses; it will drive them to extinction. Combined with rising energy costs, after the Government promised to tackle overheads, and last year’s rise in national insurance, this is a perfect storm. It is having a direct impact on jobs in my Gosport constituency, particularly jobs for young people. It is also closing off traditional routes into work. As a parent, I know that a part-time Saturday seasonal job is valuable—we probably all did one. My first job was at Olivers shoe shop on Waterlooville high street. I got £10 a day, and I spent most of it on shoes, but it taught me a lot. It taught me employability skills and how to save money—actually, it did not, as I spent most of it on shoes—and it also taught me the very valuable lesson that I did not want a career in retail or selling shoes. These are all fantastic life lessons and experiences that prepare people for their future careers. Some of those jobs are on contracts that the Labour party has such a visceral problem with, yet they offer flexibility and convenience, particularly during exam time, when young people do not necessarily want to do all those hours. There are sectors that need that flexibility, such as hospitality, leisure and events. In the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, we heard this week from people at major events, such as the London marathon, that the number of staff they need grows enormously as they get towards the event, then obviously tails off afterwards. These are the sectors that offer the most chances for young people, and they are right in the crosshairs of the Government’s punishment. The evidence is clear, and in Gosport it could not be more tangible. The number of young people on out-of-work benefits has gone up by 31% in the last year alone. A recent article in The Daily Telegraph painted a bleak picture of the prospects for young people in my Gosport constituency; it makes for very tough reading.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Independent Football Regulator · Hansard source

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  I want the independent regulator to succeed—not least because of clubs like mine, Portsmouth football club, whose fans had to step in and buy it after it had gone into administration twice—but we need transparency and trust in public appointments. The Secretary of State has said repeatedly that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee found Mr Kogan appointable, and that is correct; we did so under the remit with which we were asked to work. However, we did so taking the unprecedented step of including a recommendation for him to take “concrete steps to reassure the football community” of his neutrality, because it was Mr Kogan—not the Department, and not the Secretary of State—who told the Committee about the donations, at the very meeting that was held to decide whether or not he was appointable. The commissioner’s report points to a wider issue relating to the Department’s public appointments process. All but one of the last 10 public appointments involving parliamentary scrutiny have featured problems with the candidate or the process at some point, which are undermining the organisations concerned and the people who are picked to lead them. Does the Secretary of State accept that the Department must do better when it comes to public appointments, and may I ask her what concrete steps it is taking to achieve that?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Independent Lifeboats: Government Support · Hansard source

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  It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), on securing the debate. People from my constituency have been saving lives at sea for hundreds of years—we are a coastal community. In fact, legend has it that Gosport even gained its name as a result of one such incident, in which King Stephen and his brother, Bishop Henry de Blois, were on a little medieval ship that was caught in a fierce storm in the Solent. In danger of drowning, they were rescued by brave local fishermen, who took them ashore, at which point the bishop declared the place “God’s port, our haven.” That is apparently the romantic lineage of the town’s name. That tradition continues to this day. We have a couple of National Coastwatch Institution stations, staffed by a range of wonderful volunteers, and Lee-on-Solent in my constituency is home to HM Coastguard search and rescue helicopters, but I really want to talk about the team down the coast at the Gosport lifeboat station in Stokes bay, where the Gosport and Fareham Inshore Rescue Service—known as GAFIRS—is based. I pay tribute to the incredible work of that team, who work 24/7, 365 days a year. Anyone who watched “Rescue 999: Seconds to Save a Life” on Channel 5, which I am sure everyone here did, will have seen them in action, and seen the pressure our lifeboat crews are under on the water. Gosport lifeboat station is one of the busiest in the country; remarkably, on one day in July alone, the crew were called out for six separate incidents, beginning at 6 am and finishing 12 hours later. The dedication of these crews is remarkable, but it is even more astounding when we consider that they are all volunteers who are being asked to disrupt their lives to save lives for free. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which I chair, has heard from organisations that they rely very much on these volunteers to continue operating. However, things could not be tougher. The trend in people volunteering is downwards, with 1.5 million fewer people volunteering in 2024 than in the previous year. It is particularly difficult for independent lifeboat charities, because their volunteers have to have a very high level of expertise, and there is a cost to them in terms of the training that volunteers have to be given. As we have heard, there is also a huge capital cost involved in maintaining the station and the assets. These boats are technical pieces of kit, and GAFIRS does not have the facilities to request replacements for boats where necessary—it has to fundraise. And that is not to mention the cost of fuel. Those costs have become increasingly difficult to meet. Research by the Charities Aid Foundation has found that fewer people are now giving to charity, compared with before the pandemic. I am especially concerned about the 34% real-terms fall in corporate or philanthropic giving by FTSE 100 companies in the last 10 years. That means that organisations such as GAFIRS have to spend much more time trying to fundraise, as opposed to doing what they are best at, which is saving lives at sea. GAFIRS is helped perfectly in that by the people of Gosport, who come out in droves to help those fundraising efforts. Indeed, we have a local new year’s day swim, which I have taken part in. We are all encouraged to get dressed up in fancy dress and brave the cold waters of the Solent. I can tell you, Mrs Harris, that it is refreshing after a new year’s eve. However, GAFIRS really needs more support. I am glad that it received a share of the rescue boat grant fund between 2015 and 2020, and I restate the pleas to the Minister—there is a strong argument for doing this—to reinstate it in recognition of the vital work rescue boats do and the lives they save. In the context of rising demand and dwindling volunteers and funds, will the Minister also have conversations with colleagues about what more can be done to encourage philanthropy and charitable giving to organisations such as GAFIRS? I put the same question to the Prime Minister earlier in the summer. His constituency is the second-least generous in the country, based on the proportion of income given to charitable causes, so he has skin in the game and an interest in ensuring that people are encouraged to donate more to charities. I know that there are reasons why fewer people volunteer. One is the economy: times are tough, people work for longer and they do not have much time to spare. But another is the bureaucracy that sometimes acts as an obstacle to people getting involved in volunteering. Will the Minister look at that as well? The work GAFIRS does is literally life-changing; like many other organisations around the UK, its work is fundamental. I hope the Minister will comment on how the independent lifeboat sector can be supported into the future.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Children with SEND: Mainstream Schools · Hansard source

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  The number of EHCPs being maintained by Hampshire county council is rising exponentially, but the funding is simply not keeping pace with the demand and the cost. Surprisingly, the proportion of pupils receiving SEND support in mainstream schools is going down, which demonstrates to me that teachers simply do not feel sufficiently supported to support those children. The last Government introduced the Oliver McGowan mandatory training in neurodivergence for all health and care professionals. I met the Minister’s predecessor to discuss introducing a similar programme for education professionals. Would the Minister look again at how that programme could support teachers who are struggling in some of the most difficult educational circumstances?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Pride in Place · Hansard source

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  My constituents in Rowner were delighted to hear that they had been chosen for pride in place funding, but they are now a little bit worried, and I hope that the Minister can help us. My constituents fear that rather than the money being spent on projects that will change lives in Rowner in a meaningful way, our Liberal Democrat council will attempt to siphon some of it off to bankroll one of its vanity projects, namely the Criterion, a dilapidated former bingo hall. I am pleased that this funding comes with some flexibility, but what protections will the Minister introduce to prevent the money from being frittered away on white elephants by unscrupulous councils?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Social and Affordable Housing · Hansard source

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  There are over 560 families on Gosport borough council’s waiting list for social housing, yet despite taking power a few years ago, the Liberal Democrat council has not built a single extra council house. Meanwhile, the complaints I get in my mailbag about the substandard quality of council accommodation grow more and more every single week. What is the Secretary of State doing to encourage such inadequate councils to build a greater quantity and better quality of council accommodation?