Chris Hinchliff MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T8. In recent weeks Ministers have been arguing that vital support for the disabled is fiscally unsustainable because it is forecast to rise to £60.7 billion a year by 2029-30. What assessment has the Chancellor made of the fiscal sustainability of the 107 non-structural tax breaks that are currently costing HMRC £207 billion a year?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Disabled People in Poverty · Hansard source

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  The level of destitution among disabled people in England is not just a problem—it is a national disgrace. Three quarters of adults receiving health-related universal credit are experiencing material deprivation. Poverty among the disabled is the deliberate outcome of an economic model and a style of governance designed to serve the interests of ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations. Under this Labour Government, there can be no moral or fiscal justification—none at all—for maintaining the lowest corporation tax in the G7 alongside a social security net so threadbare that hundreds of thousands of disabled people have already fallen into poverty, let alone cutting back further the support that it provides, which would result in even more widespread destitution.

• 8 May 2025 · Environmental Audit Committee · Hansard source

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  I welcome the publication of the report, which reminds us all once again that nature is the true foundation of all wealth in our country and around the globe. A wide range of environmental organisations and eminent academics —including Sir Partha Dasgupta, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Cambridge, whose review for the Treasury underpins the Committee’s entire report—have publicly written to warn that proposed plans in the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill are “not a tool for ecological recovery” but “a licence to kill nature, with no evidence to suggest this would in any way help our economy.” Does my hon. Friend agree that when leading economists, former Government advisers and leading conservationists with decades of collective experience have expressed such deep concerns about Government legislation, Ministers must listen and think again?

• 28 Mar 2025 · Water Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister is shaking her head, but I agree that it is difficult to see how any boss could qualify for a bonus in the current system. I would be failing to adequately represent the constituents of North East Hertfordshire if I did not make it clear that they have no faith whatsoever that private water companies, after years of disgraceful neglect, can now be trusted to restore the health of our rivers. The residents who sent me to this place are rightly furious at being asked to pay more to make good the malpractice from which water companies have been profiting. The public do not want to pay towards rescuing discredited corporations that have spent decades extracting wealth from our countryside and polluting our rivers to the detriment of wildlife, the pleasures of wild swimming, and any ordinary citizen who cares about the natural world. No doubt, some of the activities and profits of these companies have been included in the calculations of our nation’s GDP. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly that, so often, what passes for valuable economic activity in this country in reality inflicts enormous costs on the public, while threatening the very environment that underpins true prosperity and wellbeing for all. Frankly, it is difficult to disagree with my constituents when they say that, given the damage done by water companies to our rivers through a combination of over-abstraction and pollution, Ofwat is wrong to allow them to charge so much as an extra penny on bills, never mind the staggering 31% increase granted to Thames Water. The residents contacting me about this issue have repeatedly called for water companies to pay for the damage they have done. They say that if the water companies cannot afford to do so without going bankrupt, then let them. And should nationalisation be required as a result, then let Parliament set the appropriate level of compensation for shareholders, netting off not just company debt, but all the dividends shelled out while our rivers and streams have choked with pollution. I recognise that Parliament is not yet ready to accept the radicalism of the wider public on this issue, but this Bill offers a clear and pragmatic solution both to restoring democratic faith in the management of our water system, and to ensuring that it puts people and nature before profit. The whole saga we have witnessed in our water system means that we can now say, in all candour, that the capitalism of Adam Smith, in which the aggregate of self-interested economic decisions produces the collective good, in so far as it ever did exist, is now just a folk story told to justify the actions of the richest members of our society. When it comes to our water system, the free market is a myth, and pretending it exists has only served to inject more pollution into our environment and inequality into our economy, as has happened on almost every occasion on which we have privatised one of our nation’s major assets. The Bill offers a solution to reassuring residents in Baldock that the Ivel will flow fully once again; to residents in Buntingford that planning consultations will no longer be waived through, where they will cause already overloaded infrastructure to flood people’s homes with sewage; and to residents in Barkway that effluent will no longer flow into our rivers for hundreds of hours every year. Something which unites the rivers at each of the locations I have just referred to is that they are all chalk streams. We are proud custodians of 10 of these internationally significant waterways in North East Hertfordshire and I would be remiss not to take this opportunity to ask Ministers to publish the ready-to-go chalk stream recovery pack. It would be a move warmly welcomed by many local groups in my constituency and across the country. I would like to extend an invitation to Ministers to join me in visiting the River Ivel in my constituency to discuss a superb chalk stream restoration pilot project that could be implemented there. To conclude, the Bill has my full support and I hope that Ministers will reflect its whole spirit in their responding remarks today.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Seriously Ill Children: Financial Support for Parents · Hansard source

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  I agree that the gaping hole in our benefits system is devastating for families. My hon. Friend once again highlights how incredibly important it is that the Government resolve this as a matter of urgency. Over 80% of surveyed families experienced a significant decline in household finances due to their child’s illness. The core principle underpinning our welfare state is that nobody should have to consider their bank balance when faced with challenges not of their own making. Benefits exist to ensure that when life deals a cruel hand, its cost does not crush those who are already burdened. Instead, we share the responsibility across society, leaving nobody behind. There is no group more deserving of support than families caring for seriously ill children. If, as a society, we fail to address this gap and spread the burden, we betray the very principle on which our welfare state was founded. Hugh’s law offers a straightforward solution to plug this gap, by providing immediate, non-means-tested financial support to parents of children diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses. It would provide a grant of £750 a month for up to three months, activated from the day of diagnosis. Eligibility would be limited to children diagnosed with life-threatening or chronic conditions requiring hospital care. Applications would be completed by the healthcare provider, cutting out needless stress for families and meaning no more 40-page forms. There are examples of similar policies across the world, including in Sweden, France and Canada, where the employment insurance family caregiver benefit provides financial support to parents caring for a critically ill or injured child under 18 years old. Benefits are paid for up to 35 weeks, helping families to manage the financial strain while focusing on their child’s care. It is estimated that Hugh’s law would have an annual cost of just £6 million to £7 million and would support around 4,000 families annually. To put that into context, the figure represents just 0.0025% of the Department for Work and Pensions’ 2023-24 budget. Given the unimaginable challenges these families face, caring for a seriously ill child while grappling with emotional strain, financial hardship and uncertainty, it is clear that the cost of such support is minuscule in comparison with the burden they carry. Life does not stop when a child gets sick. In fact, families often face higher day-to-day costs that impact them immediately—not in 90 days’ time, when support might become available. Hugh’s law would offer much needed financial relief, allowing parents to focus on what matters most, being by their child’s side, without the crushing weight of financial anxiety. We have heard about the immense challenges faced by families caring for seriously ill children, which go beyond emotional strain to include financial hardship and bureaucratic obstacles. The tireless advocacy of Ceri and Frances, through their It’s Never You charity, has highlighted a gap in our welfare system that we simply cannot ignore. Hugh’s law offers a practical and compassionate solution: immediate support to parents with a child diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Some 70 MPs signed my letter to the Prime Minister, and I have since written to the Department for Work and Pensions and met the Minister, who advised that the policy could be pursued with the Department for Business and Trade. I have now requested a meeting with the relevant Minister there. My request to the Government and the Minister today is simple: embrace this campaign and take practical steps to make Hugh’s law a reality. I will meet with any Minister necessary to advance this policy, but the Government must do the right thing and work proactively to turn Ceri and Frances’s inspiring campaign into law.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Seriously Ill Children: Financial Support for Parents · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I encourage the Minister to reflect on the fact that all the evidence we hear from It’s Never You shows that this very real problem is impacting families right across the country. The systems that are in place were not designed to accommodate the urgent and unpredictable nature of childhood illness. Studies have shown that delays in financial support during critical life events significantly increase psychological stress and deepen financial instability. Research published in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology found that economic insecurity heightens parental stress, which can in turn hinder a family’s ability to provide the best possible care for their child.

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

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  I completely agree. The Government need to deliver a coherent vision for development in this country that matches the clarity and boldness of Labour’s 1947 vision, putting democratic control and social justice back at the heart of the planning system. First, we must contend with the fact that more than 1.2 million homes that were granted planning permission since 2015 have not been built. Rather than waiting for developers to drip feed land into the system at their convenience, keeping prices high and profits maximised, we must introduce firm financial penalties for land banking to spur on construction and dampen price inflation. Secondly, in towns like Buntingford and Royston, although thousands of houses have been built in recent years, local people remain stuck on sky-high waiting lists, with enormous knock-on costs for those families and our wider communities. We must therefore address not just the aggregate quantity of building but the types of homes we are providing with a new era of council housing, especially in our small towns and villages. The housing crisis is also about the concentration of land ownership in the hands of the super-rich. Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population. Between 1995 and 2022, land values rose by more than 600% to £7.2 trillion, now representing more than 60% of the UK’s total net worth. I welcome the Bill’s expansion of powers for local authorities to prevent developers cashing in on inflated land prices at the cost of the taxpayer. We must maximise the public capture of land value uplifts to provide the necessary funding for genuinely affordable homes that are linked to local incomes and based in well-designed communities that benefit from easy access to all the facilities we need in our daily lives. Simultaneously, the Government must also grasp this opportunity to reshape how councils develop local plans. Empowered councils with well-resourced planning departments should be able to take an active role to assess the needs of local families, identify appropriate sites and proactively use compulsory purchase orders for genuinely strategic land assembly to meet the needs of their communities. Finally, given the collapse of nature in our country, we must use this legislation to recognise the very real environmental limits on growth. It is high time our planning system ensured that a presumption in favour of sustainable development ceases to act as a presumption in favour of any development whatsoever. I look forward to working with Ministers to advance this legislation and secure the strongest possible Bill, which restores our role as custodians of the countryside, compels the private sector to deliver and places the power to meet our housing and infrastructure needs firmly back in democratic hands.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Research has found that the cost of presenteeism to the private sector in mental ill health alone is £24 billion a year. Does my hon. Friend agree that shows that reforming our statutory sick pay is the most pro-prosperity, pro-productivity policy that we can pursue?

• 10 Feb 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms · Hansard source

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  We have heard quite a few suggestions already of ways in which this policy could be tweaked or amended. Will my hon. Friend join me in urging the Minister to get Treasury officials to at least model some of those changes, to help to advance the debate in the coming months?

• 17 Jan 2025 · New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I wholeheartedly agree. As I was saying, we could suffer from the potentially profound impacts of competing demands for space for the homes we require, our commitment to protect 30% of our land for nature by 2030, and our fragile food security. Government figures show that with an industry average of 5 acres per megawatt, the proposed ground-mounted solar schemes put forward to date would, if they all went ahead, require a total land area roughly equivalent to Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Newcastle and Leeds combined. Yet at the same time, academic analysis indicates that between suitable existing buildings and new construction, there is potential space for 117 GW of rooftop solar in England by 2050.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Stellantis Luton · Hansard source

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  Many of my constituents will be impacted by this deeply worrying announcement, so can the Secretary of State confirm what discussions he is having with trade unions on this specific subject and what plans he has to mitigate the job losses for residents of North East Hertfordshire?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  I thank the Government for so guilelessly bringing forward such a broad debate allowing those of us with rural constituencies to make wide-ranging demands on behalf of the towns and villages that we represent. I look forward to further inundating Ministers’ in-trays with legions of letters about agriculture in Anstey, school buildings in Baldock and potholes in Furneux Pelham. However, before I am accused of being excessively parochial, I will address the wider systemic issues that undermine rural life in this country. Fundamentally, the problem facing towns and villages such as those across North East Hertfordshire is that for decades almost every aspect of national life has been increasingly geared towards putting profit maximisation before the needs of our communities. Nowhere is that more evident than in our housing sector. Rural areas must deal again and again with totally unsustainable speculative developments dominated by houses designed to maximise profit, on a scale completely unrelated to local needs for organic growth. At the same time, house prices have continued to rise—almost always far beyond the reach of those who have grown up locally—rural homelessness has risen by 40% and local facilities have declined. In one of my local towns, Buntingford, hundreds of new houses have been built, yet it has lost its youth centre, the bank, the community swimming pool, a GP surgery, a daycare centre and the local waste disposal site—those facilities are all gone. The volume of new housing is putting such strain on the infrastructure that residents are repeatedly flooded by raw sewage. I am afraid it is of little consolation that the big developers, which the Tories allowed to force through applications on appeal, have been enjoying supernormal profits as a result. The systemic failures are not unique to rural housing. Our public transport system is next to non-existent in many villages—cutting off young adults from opportunities for work and education, and stranding older residents in loneliness and isolation—because the only bus services that ran under the Tories were those that made profits for shareholders. We expect farmers to steward our land for future generations, but they have—between the monopsonistic power of the major supermarkets and the pressure of global commodity markets—been pushed into the absurd position whereby it is increasingly impossible to make a fair living out of feeding the nation. All that points to economic policy that has consistently failed to recognise the intrinsic value that my constituents place on the rurality of their communities. For too long, economic orthodoxy that is obsessed with agglomeration and utilitarian accounting has proven incapable of recognising the social value of investing in less densely populated areas. To conclude, given the vast change in political representation of rural areas at the recent election, the Government clearly have a unique opportunity and obligation to deliver systemic change that creates a future in which our towns, villages and hamlets thrive as communities in their own right. Ministers have made an important start with policies to refocus house building on delivering new social homes, by paving the way for re-regulation of bus services, by delivering the largest ever budget for sustainable food production, and with a clear commitment to community energy. Today, I urge them to press on further as swiftly as possible by restoring services to our towns and villages and retaining their rurality; by recognising at last that, depleted as it is, the natural capital of our countryside is the better part of the wealth of our nation; and by redirecting investment, leaning into the growth of distributed technologies and remote working, and delivering a new revolution in cottage industries to once again spread economic opportunities across places such as those I represent.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T10. Many towns and villages across my constituency have experienced rapid population growth in recent years, but education opportunities have not kept pace, so will the Minister meet me to discuss the specific investment needed to expand school places for my constituency’s growing population?