Dan Tomlinson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Jun 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his work on so many important issues in the region, and for finding the time to answer questions from Members in all parts of the House so thoroughly over the past two hours. I also welcome his important announcement about sanctions that draw an essential distinction between the far-right extremist Ministers and the people of Israel as a whole. We desperately need a ceasefire, we need more aid to get into Gaza to alleviate the horrendous human suffering, and we need the hostages who are still being held to be released. What further steps will the Government take towards achieving all those objectives?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I expect the hon. Member knows that the housing targets have been reduced in London because of the additional premium that was put on by the previous Government just to make life more difficult for the Mayor of London, which we all know Conservatives love to do. We are trying to be reasonable and proportionate in the location of the new homes. As I was saying, it is important for us to do all we can to ensure that we can hit our target of 1.5 million new homes. As much as I respect my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire and his work in this space, I hope his amendment will not command the support of the House today. I know my hon. Friend and Members on both sides of the House are strong supporters of social housing, but without the unamended changes in the Bill, we will not get the social homes that we need to be built. People have spoken movingly about those living in temporary accommodation. I spent four years or so as a child living in emergency and temporary accommodation. I was homeless for a number of years. Back then—15 or 20 years ago—there were not that many young children who were homeless and in temporary accommodation. There are now 160,000 children—one in 21 children in London, one in every single class—in temporary accommodation. We cannot allow a system that fails both nature and those children to persist. I implore any colleagues thinking of voting for the amendment to think of those children and the vital homes that could be built, and built quickly and at pace.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I will come to the point my hon. Friend raises in a second. If the amendment were adopted, the homes that have been blocked to date would continue to be blocked, and vast numbers would face unacceptable delays or, indeed, never be built. What would happen under the amendment, as we can interpret it, is that we would first have to wait for the EDP to be drafted, for the relevant funding to be secured and for the funding to be distributed to the relevant farmers or others who can help with the mitigation. The works would then have to take place; the impact of the mitigation would have to be monitored; and the monitoring would then have to conclude that it had been a success before any new homes in an area could be built where nutrient neutrality is a concern.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with those points. It would also make it virtually impossible to meet our manifesto commitment, on which we were elected, to build the 1.5 million homes that we need over this Parliament.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I should make progress so that others can speak; my hon. Friend and I will have to talk later. This Bill and this Government are all about the economic growth that ultimately is the route to more jobs, more opportunities and higher living standards—a better life for all of us in every part of the country. That is the potential of this Bill, and we must match the scale of the problem with the scale of our ambition. Britain’s economic decline has gone on for too long. Families are suffering with a crippling cost of living crisis, driven by high housing costs in many parts of the country and high energy bills everywhere. We just do not invest as a country; we do not build, and year after year we find ourselves surprised that we are worse off and that we are stuck in a doom loop from which no politicians in recent decades, if we are honest, have had the guts to pull us out. We finally have a Government elected on a promise to wrest us from this decline, and legislation that takes steps in the right direction to do just that. Of course, there is more to do—much more—but this is a strong legislative start. For the prosperity of all our constituents, I hope the Bill passes unamended today.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  The Bill before the House has the potential to be one of the most pro-growth pieces of legislation passed by this place for decades and to transform our country for the better, but the amendments proposed will blunt its impact and make us all worse off. We should reject them for the prosperity of our constituents and the future of our country. Every day in this place has to be about our constituents and the lives they lead. In Chipping Barnet, time and again I see the impact of our failure to build homes. Take Maryam—a victim of domestic violence and mother of a seven-year-old, working a zero-hours contract. She found herself with nowhere suitable to live to the point that she was living in a car. Or take Hayley—a wheelchair user living in a property that is not accessible for her. Due to a lack of available housing that is appropriate for her, she is often housebound because she simply cannot leave her home without support. These are the stories of Britain today, but it does not need to be like this. This Bill gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix many of the things holding our country back. For too long, we have not built enough in this country, and we are paying a huge price for that. Under-investment in our homes and infrastructure has made us all worse off, both financially and socially, living in homes that skewer the prospect of a good life. That is why I do not support the Opposition amendments. I also do not support amendment 69 proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), which sadly misses the mark. Labour was elected on a manifesto that sought to prioritise growth and making people better off. The Bill demonstrates how that is possible, alongside improved protections for nature. The nature restoration fund is a genuine win-win, but its successful and timely implementation is put at risk by the amendment.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  The explanatory statement to amendment 69 states: “This amendment would require Environmental Delivery Plans to set out a timetable for, and thereafter report on, conservation measures, and require improvement of the…status…before development takes place in areas where Natural England”— thinks there could be harm. How long does my hon. Friend think that that would take in the case of nutrient neutrality and a developer who wanted to build a new social home?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make a bit more progress. Let us take the example of nutrient neutrality. It is estimated that no fewer than 160,000 homes across the country have been blocked by Natural England on that basis. That is because on-site mitigation on a site-by-site basis is often virtually impossible, and those homes remain stalled. The environmental delivery plans that Natural England will produce will mean that rather than homes being held up by those rules, the very issues causing nutrient neutrality challenges can be addressed in a strategic way—better for building, for nature and for people. EDPs take the challenge of nutrient neutrality seriously and mean that builders can get stalled sites built, providing much-needed new homes.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member believe that farmers are able to choose how best to use their land?

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  First, I acknowledge that disparities in outcomes in our judicial system are a real issue and merit serious attention. I recognise the work of the Lammy review in 2017, as well as the conclusions of the Ministry of Justice’s 2020 report, “Tackling Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System”, which found disparities in how people from minority ethnic groups are treated in the judicial system. It is important that these issues continue to have the focus that they merit. However, I am glad that the Bill has passed its Second Reading and that we are progressing through its remaining stages today. I am firmly of the view that it is not for the Sentencing Council to make policy decisions on this matter, for those are the domain of politicians and must remain so. The Government should be able to make political decisions and implement them, and the ballot box is the right place for us to be held to account. What I find refreshing about the continued passage of this Bill is that we are showing that politicians do not have to be jelly-like in the face of blockages to their desire to make political decisions. At the same time, I support the unamended passage of the Bill, because it finds a way to thread the needle with a targeted intervention. Amendment 3, tabled by the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, goes too far and would undermine the independence of the Sentencing Council.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not think that anyone in this House is a blockage—far from it. The point I am making is that I believe that this House should be the place where political decisions are made, and that politicians should make decisions about important things that matter to people in this country. It is my view that the Sentencing Council is an important body. Crucially, however, it is not political, and I think that if the guidelines had gone through, it would have undermined the important principle of equality before the law. That is a political decision, and Members of this House hold different opinions, but it is for us to contest them in this place. I am glad the Government are making sure that we can make progress on the things that we believe need to be pushed forward for the British people, and I hope that the Bill will pass unamended today, because the precise changes that it proposes would prevent sentencing guidelines from being changed in ways that undermine equality before the law. I do not think that the amendments tabled by the Opposition are necessary, because they take things too far. With this Bill and much else besides, it is time for us to show that moderate politics, which is the politics of this Government, does not have to be like soup—weak and watery, and impossible to hold on to—but can instead be the politics of action and delivery. I welcome the continued passage of this Bill and urge Members to vote for it today.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q2. Mr Speaker,“there is going to have to be a coming together of Reform and the Conservative party in some way”—a deal, a pact or a merger. Those are not my words, but the words of the most senior Tory in elected public office in the country, the Mayor of the Tees Valley. If senior Tories are plotting it, and the Leader of the Opposition will not deny it, is not the only way to stop the plot to vote Labour tomorrow?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. As a north London MP, I know that tackling the high housing costs in this city is a priority for my constituents. It is my belief that one route to that is investing in the country as a whole, so that we are not just flying on one London-shaped engine. To that end, did you know, Mr Speaker, that Leeds is the largest city in western Europe that does not have a tram or a mass transit system? That is a damning indictment of decades of economic failure. Will the Chancellor do all she can to ensure that the Leeds tram is built as fast as possible so that her constituents and mine can be better off?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Council Guidelines · Hansard source

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  I thank the Justice Secretary for her decisive action on this issue and note that this Government are not ducking political decisions, farming them out to quangos like the last lot did with bodies like NHS England, or blaming the blob for crashing the economy when it was Liz Truss’s mini-Budget that did that. Does the Justice Secretary agree that politics and policy are the domain of this House and its Ministers, and can she reassure me that this Government will continue to make sure that we in this House can make the decisions that the public expect us to make?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Government Finances: London · Hansard source

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  Barnet council now processes 10 homelessness applications every single day—more than double the number it was processing just two years ago. This, coupled with additional spending on educational needs and adult social care, is crippling councils’ budgets, much as council leaders will try to do the best they can by their local communities. Does my hon. Friend agree that that must change if we are to see a sustainable future for councils in outer London?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Government Finances: London · Hansard source

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  In Barnet, we have around 85 care homes. Inner London boroughs such as Camden and Islington have around 20, yet the grant that inner London boroughs receive is around £3 million, whereas Barnet council and other outer London boroughs only get around £2 million. Does my hon. Friend think that that injustice in the funding formula is also causing issues for councils such as the one in the area he represents?

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

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  How does the hon. Gentleman square his support for getting more homes built and helping children who are living in temporary accommodation with his opposition to 250 new homes in his constituency, which he announced online just this month?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Clean Power by 2030 · Hansard source

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  4. What progress he has made on achieving clean power by 2030.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Clean Power by 2030 · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State agree that community energy has a vital role to play in the transition to cleaner and greener power? Will he accept an invitation to come to my constituency in north London to visit Community Energy Barnet, which is working on one of the largest community energy projects in the country?

• 11 Mar 2025 · Israeli-Palestinian Peace: International Fund · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I believe that we cannot lose sight of the need for a two-state solution—for Palestine to exist alongside Israel. That is deeply important and it is the way forward in the region. We know that civil society organisations shape attitudes on the ground, and that is crucial. Even now, they are integral to resolving the conflict, with programmes that create new ideas, leaders and political dynamics, fostering mutual understanding and advocacy. I met civil society organisations when I visited the region and it was they who gave me the deepest sense of hope that we could find a way forward, and a way towards peace. I conclude by saying that I hope the UK will continue to build on the Prime Minister’s pledges of support for the international fund, which have shown our commitment. Will the Minister further seize the initiative next week by ensuring that the matter of the fund is raised at the meeting of G7 Foreign Ministers in Canada?

• 11 Mar 2025 · Israeli-Palestinian Peace: International Fund · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I refer hon. Members to my registered interests. I strongly welcome the ceasefire in Gaza, the release of hostages—including the British hostage Emily Damari—and the increased flow of aid into the region, which must continue. The ceasefire undoubtedly marks a crucial moment of relief after 17 months of devastating conflict started by the massacre committed by Hamas on 7 October. Too many have lost their lives and countless others have been displaced, injured or traumatised. I know that the UK Government, in partnership with their allies, will do everything possible to ensure that the ceasefire holds but we must look to the long-term, and a route towards a two-state solution. The path to peace runs primarily through political resolutions, political will, and reaching a mutual understanding of the rights and freedoms that should be afforded to both Israelis and Palestinians, but we know that civil society organisations can also play a crucial role. In fact, the political route to peace is made easier if attitudes on the ground shift.

• 7 Mar 2025 · Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill · Hansard source

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  I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) for bringing this Bill forward. I am proud to be a co-sponsor of the Bill and to have worked with him on it. I also thank him for giving us all a chance to speak in what could be the most engaged Chamber we have ever seen, as we all grapple with the hypocrisy mentioned by the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) and whether we can be on our smartphones. I am sure we will all be listening attentively in this debate. What were Members, collectively, all doing when they were in school, back in the mists of time? Thinking back to the early 2000s when I was in school, I would go out afterwards, calling ahead on the home phone to see whether my friends were in—we did not have smartphones then. During the summer holidays, the rule was that I had to be at home before the streetlights came on. I remember playing out in front of the local shops day after day in the long summers. If we think of children today and the childhood that they will have, we imagine them playing their favourite game, but with a device in their pocket, buzzing every minute, telling them that someone has responded to their latest Instagram post, or that all their friends are checking their phones, too. The game starts to feel a little bit different. Instead of enjoying independent play outside, today’s children and young people are spending hour upon hour of their free time glued to their screens. The average British 12-year-old is estimated to spend between 20 and 30 hours a week online, while the nation’s green spaces sit increasingly empty. That is why I believe this is an issue where the wellbeing of a generation is at stake. As other Members have mentioned, the trends that have emerged since young children started to get their own smartphones just a decade ago are concerning. I am worried about the heartbreaking rise in suicide and self-harm, rising depression and anxiety, online bullying, the things that children get exposed to through the devices in their pockets and the 46% of teenagers who say that they are using their phone almost constantly. I am worried about the risk from traffic or muggers to kids who walk to and from school staring at their phones and the evidence showing a negative impact during the school day. It is not just tired old dads like me who are concerned. Four in every five 16 to 24-year-olds say that social media has become addictive in the past five years. Most heartbreakingly of all, only 18% of girls in gen Z believe that life would be worse if social media was switched off entirely. The vast majority think that their lives would be better without it. I was radicalised over the summer, after being first elected on 4 July, by reading Jonathan Haidt’s book, “The Anxious Generation”. I decided then to reach out to Smartphone Free Childhood and my local campaign team, led by a fantastic resident called Nova Eden, to work to try to get every single school in my constituency and in my borough to go smartphone-free. I met primary school heads about that last year. Every one of them said that they were concerned—10 out of 10—about the issue. We have worked hard, and I am proud that the borough for which I have the honour of being one of the Members of Parliament will be going smartphone-free from September this year. Every single primary school—103—has signed up, and the secondary schools are following suit. I commend the work of teachers and parents—fantastic people who want to do the best by their children—in our borough. I hope that the measures in the Bill can be taken forward to help children have the best start they can in life and so that we can protect the wellbeing of future generations.

• 7 Mar 2025 · Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that he has done on this issue. When decision makers chose to set the age at 13 rather than 16, what evidence did they use and what detailed work did they do to ensure that the decision was grounded in evidence and good for children?

• 4 Mar 2025 · NICs Increase: Impact on Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that planning reform is essential for higher growth and lower taxes? Is he, like me, concerned that the anti-growth Opposition we see before us in this House will vote against the forthcoming planning and infrastructure Bill, which is possibly the most significant piece of pro-growth legislation that this Parliament will see in decades?

• 4 Mar 2025 · Iranian State Threats · Hansard source

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  It is welcome that the Minister is taking such strong action to counter the threat posed by Iran on Britain’s streets, but will he explain how the process to consider a proscription-style framework to tackle the IRGC will work?