Charlotte Cane MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am an East Cambridgeshire district councillor—a district council that erroneously boasts of being debt free because it sold its housing stock many years ago, and that criticises the other district council in my constituency, South Cambridgeshire, and indeed Cambridge city, for having major debts, without mentioning that those councils have retained their council houses, built more, and continue to build more. I agree with the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) that we have to address that. Average house prices in my constituency are about 10 times the average salary, and the average rent is over £1,000 a month, so it is not surprising that a lot of emails in my inbox are about social housing need. I have had people in my surgeries in tears because they cannot get a decent home for their family. We must build more council houses; I support that. I would like the Minister to consider rural areas carefully. In such areas, we might be able to accommodate only two or three units, but we really do need them. It is not just a case of building large quantities in the bigger towns; we need a good mix of council housing, including larger houses for larger families, and bungalows for people who are getting older and want to downsize. We also need to make sure that the houses that we have are in really good condition. I really welcome the warm homes social housing fund, which is helping many of my constituents to replace their oil-fired boilers with air source heat pumps, but I wonder if there could be a similar sort of grant to bring those houses up to a good standard. Many of them were built in the ’20s and ’30s, and were then very poorly insulated around the ’70s, which added to the damp problems. Addressing those problems is a huge cost for social housing providers. As we have heard, when those houses become empty, because the providers cannot make the figures stack up—the cost of the repairs versus the future income stream from rent—they sell the houses in the private sector. Some of those houses are in my villages, where we already do not have anything like enough social houses. Providers really need financial help to bring that stock up to a decent standard. People are also worried about shared ownership. They feel trapped into paying very high service charges that they cannot afford, but when they try to sell their property, potential buyers see the charges and pull out of the sale. I am glad that the Government will review that.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a district councillor on East Cambs district council. The residents of Ely and East Cambridgeshire will be relieved that they are not going to have the wrong unitary imposed on them, but they will be worried about the chaos and uncertainty that we have heard about, and about what happens next and when. What is the remit of the review? How is it going to be run to ensure that local people get their voices heard? And what is the real timetable? “As quickly as possible” and “at pace” are all great, but what is the actual timetable? Also, the Secretary of State appeared to say that May’s elections would be held on the existing district council boundaries unless the unitaries were in place by then. What did she mean by that?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. The single patient record is so important to make the NHS work efficiently and effectively, and to help it treat patients better. To achieve that, patients have to trust that the data is being well protected, and I am afraid that a lot of the people I talk to, including GPs—who are obviously critical in convincing patients that Palantir is safe—do not trust it. We have to pull out of the contract with Palantir. Will the Minister please consider that, please consider the issues faced by rural areas, and please, please, please get us some NHS dentists in Ely and East Cambridgeshire?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  In my constituency, only 40% of adults have seen a dentist in the past two years, and only 54% of children have seen one in the last year. The impact of that is that 12.5% of children in East Cambridgeshire have tooth decay by the age of five. We are in a dental desert, and it is incredibly difficult to get an NHS dentist appointment. When I talk to the dentists, the most frustrating thing is that it is the contract that prevents them from treating people, not their intentions. The contract is based on units of treatment. For example, dentists tell me that if they do one filling, they just about cover their cost for the unit they get paid for. That unit covers up to three fillings, however, and at three fillings they are making a loss. Even more frustrating is that they get allocated units at the beginning of the year. Once they have used them all, they can get no more; yet they are aware that other local dentists have not used all their units by the end of the year, and they hand them back. Why is there no mechanism whereby those units can be given to dentists who have the capacity to do more work, so that more people can be treated? It is really frustrating to know that my constituents are struggling without a dentist, and that there are dentists in my constituency who are willing to treat them but cannot get funding to do that from the NHS. It is utterly shocking. That is why I support new clause 18 and other amendments that seek to make dentistry more available to people.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate. When Dad died a few years ago, I was able to go with Mum to our local bank branch to deal with all the issues that come from a bereavement. Subsequently, Barclays has closed that branch in Ely and its branch in Newmarket. That means that the residents of Ely and East Cambs no longer have that facility available to them. I am grateful that Barclays has opened a hub in Ely, but it does not provide all the services that a bank used to. I have a lot of farmers in my constituency. They need a bank branch that understands their business, the ebb and flow of their cash flow, and, in a summer like this one, the extra pressures that their businesses are under. We heard from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) that when he came back from Spain he was able to deposit a cheque online. Community groups cannot do that. As they have two signatories, they have to go to a bank or post office to deposit cheques. I heard on Sunday from someone who had gone in to pay some cash from his community group. The post office refused to take the Scottish notes, as many of my Scottish colleagues will have experienced, no doubt—that is a problem as well. As we have heard from everyone, Link just looks at access to cash. That is not the real problem any more; it is about access to that wide range of banking services.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  I agree. As we have heard already, bank scams are a real nightmare for people. If people can go into their local branch and talk to people who know them, they are much better protected against online scams. I am afraid that we have basically advised my mum not to do online banking, and not to click on any links, unless one of us is with her, because there is too much risk. If there were a local branch, things would be so much better. I call on the Minister to seriously consider widening Link’s remit so that it looks at the wider range of banking services and we can keep them in our various constituencies.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Cambridgeshire · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation: Cambridgeshire · Hansard source

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  I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a district councillor on East Cambridgeshire district council. One of the other big problems for this proposed Mid Cambridgeshire unitary is that it will have most of the soil-affected roads in Cambridgeshire, which are really expensive to maintain, and most of the internal drainage boards, which need significant funding to keep our market towns and villages dry so that people can live in them. It will be a very challenging unitary to run financially.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am an East Cambridgeshire district councillor. There will clearly be a great deal of uncertainty across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Has the Secretary of State considered additional funding for the electoral staff who are planning for elections in May, which the Secretary of State says he intends will go ahead, when they do not know the boundary of the council, let alone the ward boundaries or the number of councillors? Will he also explain what process he has in place to liaise and consult with local people over the next few months to make a proper decision on what will happen in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Waste Management Sites · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing this debate. I have several waste management sites in my constituency. At most of them, we just get the odd problem now and again, and we can deal with it by talking to them, but one causes particular problems. Grunty Fen sits in the heart of the countryside and is accessed from narrow fen roads. In normal operation, the residents of the nearest village, Witchford, suffer large volumes of heavy lorries and litter blowing from those lorries. The fen roads used by the lorries sit on peat soils, which expand when it is wet and contract when it is dry. The combination of the changing subsoil and the regular heavy lorries corrugates those roads vertically and horizontally, breaks the road edges away, and creates ever-growing potholes. The roads are virtually unusable by ordinary cars, let alone cyclists. The residents feel that they have no say in the timing and volume of the traffic, nor do they see extra funding for road maintenance. That would all be bad enough, but there have recently been several fires at the site. One such fire in April burned for about 17 hours, generated significant black smoke that spread over Witchford, and required an extensive fire and rescue response. The Environment Agency recently published the findings of its inspection. It found that the emissions from the fire breached one of the permit conditions. It also found that the fire risk assessment, emergency management plan and cell 11 environmental action plan failed to adequately identify and control the risks associated with fires. The operator, East Waste Ltd, has to rectify those issues, or the Environment Agency says it will take enforcement action. Meanwhile, the residents who have suffered from the fires—especially those with pre-existing respiratory illnesses such as asthma—fear further fires. They would like to see the site closed, at least temporarily, until all the changes are in place. As part of the plans for the new unitary authorities, the Government must ensure that councils have adequate powers and funding to monitor waste sites, and the Environment Agency needs the powers and the funding to enforce their proper management. Will the Minister confirm that there are plans to make sure that the Environment Agency does indeed have those powers and the capacity, and that it will use them?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Government on recognising the state of Palestine. That recognition was long overdue, but a state needs territory, and its citizens need safety and security. The state of Palestine and its citizens do not have either. Gaza has been devastated by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s military action, which has widely been called out as genocide. Many of Gaza’s residents have been killed or injured, and the survivors have lost family and friends, homes, health services, businesses and jobs. Meanwhile, in East Jerusalem and on the west bank, so-called settlers, who are better described as terrorists, are threatening, injuring and even killing people to take Palestinian land. The Israeli Government take no action to prevent this; indeed, they openly encourage the settlements. Members of the Israeli Security Cabinet have even stated that their goal is to make a sovereign Palestine unviable. We have to prevent that, because a two-state solution is the only way to achieve peace in that part of the world. The Government have confirmed that the settlements are illegal, so now they have to go further. Like many Members here today, I have had reams and reams of emails about this issue, and my constituents have called on me to ask the Government to take more action. As well as using diplomacy, which I am sure we are doing, we must make the settlements economically unviable, so I call on the Minister to ban all trade in goods and services with these illegal Israeli settlements.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Future of British Horseracing · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on securing this debate. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, where I detail hospitality received from the Jockey Club last July. I am also a member of the APPG on racing and bloodstock. Much of the home of horseracing is in my constituency of Ely and East Cambridgeshire. The July racecourse, Newmarket equine hospital, many of the studs and yards, including the National Stud, and Newmarket’s famous rearing stallion statue are all in my constituency. Horseracing provides jobs and great days out, and it cares for much of our beautiful landscape, yet it feels under attack from many angles. As we have heard, horseracing depends on the income from the betting levy. I am grateful that the Government listened to calls to double gambling duty on remote betting, rather than harmonising all gambling tax rates, but I am worried, like others, that plans to extend affordability checks could damage horseracing. I recognise the dangers and problems that gambling can cause, including the psychological distress and the financial and social difficulties. Government attempts to reduce that damage are worthy, but they will be counterproductive if they continue to drive people to unregulated sites. I understand that the Gambling Commission has announced that it will introduce financial risk assessments, with a phased implementation. I ask the Minister to monitor that closely and ensure that those assessments do not cause unintended harms. In my constituency, I have a small bioenergy plant that is under threat of closure due to the removal of Government subsidies. Its sister plant in Thetford takes the bedding waste from local stables to produce energy and organic fertiliser. That plant is also under threat. Gaining a small income from waste bedding instead of having to pay for its disposal is important for the industry. I ask the Minister to talk with colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to help them understand the significance of these small bioenergy plants to horseracing and other rural industries. Planning policy, as we have heard, also needs to respect the horseracing industry. Breeding, training and racing horses needs a lot of land. The Newmarket area has wonderful soils and clear water from chalk streams, which grow the excellent grass that in turn develops thoroughbred horses. We must not allow the genuine need for new housing and green energy to damage the water and grassland, or to restrict the land available for the horseracing industry. The Sunnica solar farm has been approved, despite the concerns expressed by the horseracing industry, among others. It is vital that we mitigate any damage. In particular, we must have strong regulation and enforcement to ensure that any fire in the battery energy storage units can be managed without damage to the surrounding area, people, horses, wildlife and our precious watercourses. Applications for further solar farms must take account of the needs of the horseracing industry, particularly the studs where breeding mares need a calm environment. We also have a speculative application in the area for something called Forest City. That is causing a worrying amount of concern and stress for people, because it would completely destroy the environment of the area and really damage the horseracing industry. Unless it puts in a planning application, answers all questions and has that planning application decided, it can continue to cause stress and angst in the area with its well-funded plans that have no detail behind them. To end on a positive note, I was honoured to attend the National Stud graduation ceremony last week. We celebrated with the 29 graduates, all of whom have jobs to go to following their qualification. They are people from all areas of our economy and from all backgrounds. Of course, some of them have always been interested in horses, but some did not know they were interested until they heard about the scheme and got involved. We had a taxi driver and someone who had been cooking burgers. They have all qualified with this prestigious qualification and, as I say, they all have jobs to go to. These people are the future of horseracing. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the graduates and thanking the staff at the National Stud for running an excellent training programme?