Daniel Zeichner MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 May 2026 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

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  This is a complicated set of issues. There has been a genuine change in the structure of the industry because of the legal cases to which the hon. Member refers. Over the years, out-of-area working has particularly troubled me; I hope we can address that and make it safe. The hon. Member is absolutely right that the squeeze on drivers has been harsh, so I hope we can address that too. I am delighted that more than a quarter of a century after I led a debate at the Labour conference on lowering the voting age, it looks as if it is finally going to happen. It is ironic that it has taken 25 years to lower the voting age to 16, but I am really pleased. While I am on constitutional reform, I suspect that there is still some unfinished business relating to the second Chamber. I would love to see that addressed. Most of all, like one or two others, I welcome the proposals to bring us closer to the European Union. One of my happiest days as a Minister last year was the day of the agreement that we had started to develop. I remember the celebrations that evening in the Downing Street garden, where pieces of cake with Union Jacks and EU flags on them were being passed around. Our phones had been confiscated, unfortunately; I would have loved to send a picture back to my constituents in Cambridge. I understand that not everyone would have been celebrating, but I can tell the House that my constituents would certainly have been delighted. I was very pleased to hear the Prime Minister’s comments on that in his speech on Monday. There is a paradox here, is there not? I think most people in this country can now see that there was a problem with the Brexit process and that what was promised at the time has not been delivered, and yet the very people who led the campaign have been surging in the polls. They are the people responsible for the damage, and frankly I think we have been a bit too cautious about pointing it out. The argument goes that we should not be telling the electors that they are wrong. That is absolutely right, but it is not the electors who were wrong; it is the people who, frankly, misled them. They were shamelessly misled, and frankly I think they are being misled again. We should repeat the message endlessly: “Be warned—do not listen to these people.” In his speech on Monday, the Prime Minister explicitly chose Europe. He also chose young people, and in doing so he chose the future. I was genuinely thrilled to hear it because, as far as I can see, my generation and the generation above it have run off with all the money. The only way in which that will change is through explicit political choices. There is a feeling that politicians cannot say anything about the pensioner generation for fear of upsetting them, because they vote. Well, I think it has gone too far, quite frankly. It is time to recognise the very real intergenerational unfairness that has emerged. I hope not only that we will see schemes to help young people working and travelling in Europe, but that every policy will be examined and the question asked will be, “What impact will this have on the younger generation?” Let me make one final point. In my speech during the Budget debate a few months ago, I railed against what I called the “fragmentation and privatisation”—the decay—of the public realm. In retrospect, I think that was a rather Cambridge way of putting it, because frankly I needed to be a bit more blunt. The question is: why are so many areas around the places where people live in such a state? That point has been made by a number of hon. Members. It is no wonder that people are fed up. Whether it is graffiti, fly-tipping or potholes, we need to tackle those issues with an urgency that for too long has been missing. Yes, local government has been hollowed out and under-resourced, but just saying that will not reassure angry voters; we need to actually fix those problems and show that we are fixing them. When we had the pandemic, it was a national emergency, and I think we need to take a similar approach to address problems of this scale. I wish the Prime Minister well as he tries to make the national machine work. Frankly, the Labour party needs him to succeed, but, even more, the country needs him to succeed.

• 10 Mar 2026 · Technology Sovereignty · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah). I have three quick anecdotal points and then a question for the Minister. Data sovereignty has been part of my life. I started my career as a trainee computer programmer at Shire Hall in Cambridge. My prime job was to carry the punch cards to the punch room to make sure that payroll ran properly. Anyone who dropped them was the least popular person in the entire institution, and at that time, the idea that that could be triggered by someone from elsewhere in the world would have seemed fanciful. A decade later, I was working for a major insurance company. We were struggling to deal with multiple records for the same clients, and we brought in the Americans. They were big people from Texas—really big people. When they went to the coffee machine, they came back with two coffees and two bags of crisps. But they could not solve the essential problem, and the question still remained: who was in control of the data? Fast-forward two further decades, and I am MP for Cambridge. A major American software provider came to talk to me about the cloud, and the same question arose again. I asked, “Where is the data?” They said they would build more data centres in the UK. I know that it is more complicated than that, but the question of sovereignty and independence is also partly about people. We have to maintain our own workforce. Let me quickly raise with the Minister an issue that has been coming up very strongly to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee: funding changes at UK Research and Innovation. I think that this is an unfortunate unintended consequence of a laudable attempt by the new regime to implement the goal, set up a decade ago, to use resources more rationally. UKRI has fallen foul of the existing research council structures, meaning that even though the Government are putting more money in overall, people in the particle physics, astronomy and nuclear physics sector are facing 30% cuts. That cannot be UKRI’s intention. I hope that the Minister can confirm that it is not the Government’s intention, and that he will use his influence to get a rethink. Our technological sovereignty will not be secured if we are closing doors to future researchers and putting a key part of our research sector at risk.

• 3 Dec 2025 · Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor. It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. It is also a pleasure to lead a debate on plans that have been talked about for many years and that seem, finally, to be coming to fruition. I should declare at the outset that I am a council member of Innovate Cambridge. In this debate, I will first outline my experiences of the growth corridor project over the decade I have been in this place, to illustrate the stop-start nature of the previous Government’s approach. I will then make some broader points, particularly from a Cambridge perspective—I am sure that others will wish to make points from other perspectives—and conclude by seeking assurances from the Minister that the next decade will be very different from the last, and that we will actually make this happen. Before that, I would like to thank many of the people who contacted me to raise points in advance of the debate or whose advice I have sought. They include Cameron Holloway, the leader of Cambridge city council; Dan Thorpe of Cambridge Ahead; Peter Freeman of the Cambridge Growth Company; the University of Cambridge; Andy Williams and the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board; the ever watchful Harriet Jones of Universities UK; Marshall in Cambridge; England’s Economic Heartland; Luton airport; and those who speak on behalf of motorsport and Formula 1—to name but some. There is a lot of interest in this issue and in this debate, and I welcome that. Let me start with a bit of history. When I was first elected, back in 2015, the idea of recognising that the area between Cambridge and Oxford could become something rather special had been talked about before, but I have to admit that in Cambridge—the same may well have been true in Oxford—support was somewhat lukewarm. The focus was on links to London and the wider world. Yes, there was a hankering after the old Oxford-Cambridge railway line, and yes, people bemoaned how long it took by road, but the real driving force when I came into Parliament was coming from Milton Keynes, where people could understandably see real advantages. Over time, though, I and many others have become completely converted to the position not only that this is an idea whose time has come, but that we need to get on with it and make it happen. It is so frustrating to me to look back at all the false starts and missed opportunities of the last, lost decade. At first, the Conservative Government talked of a new road, calling it a super-highway. A huge amount of time, money and discussion went into a project that was rightly described at the time by the then chief executive of the sub-regional transport body England’s Economic Heartland as a 20th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. In my view he was right, and, as a shadow Transport Minister, I secured a promise from the Labour Front-Bench team at the time that we would scrap it. We did not win the election, but we had won the argument—alongside, I have to say, some very effective campaigners—and the plan for the road was dropped. In the meantime, plans for the rail link ebbed and flowed, with a distinct lack of clarity about what it was for. Was it a link between the two cities? Or was it a way of getting people in and out of those cities, opening up desperately needed housing and avoiding situations such as Cambourne near Cambridge, where major developments were allowed to go ahead without proper transport links—a legacy that is still argued over today? Was it a freight line? Was it going to be electrified? Over the years, at the annual conferences regularly devoted to the subject, local government leaders came together with other interested parties and were, frankly, pretty amazed to hear that large numbers of civil servants were allocated to the project, beavering away, yet it seemed that little tangible output was coming through. I remember complaining bitterly about this one year. I felt rather badly about the senior civil servant I was tearing a strip off, but it just felt so frustrating. The following year, I found myself at the same conference extracting a promise from the then chief executive of East West Rail. He promised me that not a litre of diesel fuel would be purchased, although I did wonder whether that might have been because the rail line was never going to get built. Ironically, of course, the technology has completely changed and moved on in the years that have passed, so the choice is now much less binary than it was then. We could spend a long time this afternoon discussing the rail line—I know that some have a view on it—which remains controversial in the areas where, of course, any new rail line is disruptive.

• 3 Dec 2025 · Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful; the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) never disappoints. He is absolutely right that housing is important everywhere and is a key part of this project. I was thrilled with the appointment of Lord Vallance as the Minister and leader of this project. I think we are now finally getting into gear. Last year’s Budget identified it as a key priority for the Government, and the Chancellor’s publication of the prospectus is a statement of intent. I hope that the Minister can report on the progress that is being made. I would like to make some brief observations from the Cambridge end of the corridor. Recent announcements about revving up the Cambridge Growth Company are very welcome, but could the Minister give an assurance that the funding announced will be made available quickly? That will mean that the very best chief executive officer can be sought with a green light that the funds are readily available, and will give investors the confidence they need. Could he also comment on his preferred approach on land value capture, including on direct Government purchase? The Supercluster Board, which covers this whole area, includes some of the country’s leading FTSE 100 and privately owned companies, including AstraZeneca, GSK, Airbus and AVEVA, and other investors and Britain’s top universities. They have welcomed the ambition to double the economy of the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge region by 2035. Among their key asks is for what they describe as “taskforce-led governance”, modelled after the successful vaccine taskforce, which would embed a permanent partnership between Government—local and national—funding bodies, industry and academia to co-ordinate delivery. They want the taskforce to provide consistent decision making across Government that prioritises the growth corridor in national-level policy areas, and to be empowered to instruct Departments to act where existing rules prevent delivery. That is a very big ask, as I well know, but the governance issues really do matter. I well remember Sir John Armitt from the National Infrastructure Commission reflecting on how hard it is to co-ordinate when dealing with some 22 local government bodies along the corridor. The University of Cambridge points out that together the universities of Oxford and Cambridge have produced over 400 spin-outs, which is the highest of any UK academic institution, and that in the last decade the University of Cambridge has curated no less than nine unicorn businesses. Its spin-out companies have also raised over £3 billion of investment in private venture capital. The university also highlights the need for skills, seeking collaboration across the corridor to ensure that a pipeline of talent is available and that those living across the corridor benefit from the opportunities that it will provide. It wants to ensure that there is provision for training the highly skilled technicians who are needed to support world-leading research; they are critical to everything that the university does and vital to support emerging spin-outs. Can the Minister spell out what the Government are doing with local authorities and employers to develop a strategic skills plan to deliver infrastructure both in the corridor and the wider east, and how they will use this plan to raise outcomes and incomes for local people? My local authority, Cambridge city council, rightly highlights the need for sustained and meaningful engagement with local residents and significant investment in social housing, including council housing. It also highlights the need for investment in skills to provide opportunity for local young people, and it supports having a wider talent pool for local businesses. It highlights the need for the corridor to be environmentally sustainable and seeks support for a doubling nature target. When the Minister was in Cambridge at the Innovate Cambridge event a few weeks ago, there was widespread welcome for his announcement of a new forest. Perhaps he could say more about that today. The organisation Cambridge Ahead highlights the existing challenges that have to be tackled, including the way in which the infrastructure gap is constraining growth in the corridor. That includes issues around the fresh water supply, waste water treatment capacity, electricity grid capacity constraints, and intracity regional transport connectivity. It is worth asking what reassurances the Minister can provide about infrastructure-enabled capacity through to 2050 at least being in scope for the Ox-Cam project. England’s Economic Heartland tells me that delivering an integrated transport system in the corridor should not be a choice for Government, because that is absolutely essential—and it is right. The global significance of the Oxford to Cambridge growth corridor means that it should be matched with a world-class transport offer, embedding the principles of the imminent integrated national transport strategy from the outset. It makes economic sense to do so, and the corridor should be an exemplar for that strategy. Many others along the corridor will have similar asks and stories, and I am looking forward to hearing them. The Formula 1 sector tells me that the Formula 1 ecosystem employs over 6,000 people directly in the UK, and its teams work with 3,500 British-based companies that support approximately 41,000 jobs, including 25,000 highly skilled engineers. In total, the Formula 1 industry contributes more than £12 billion annually to the UK economy, and the key point is that from 2026 onwards, nine of the 11 Formula 1 teams will have bases within the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, alongside a dense supply chain of advanced engineering firms. This cluster supports tens of thousands of local jobs and positions the region as a global centre of excellence for motorsport engineering and innovation. Similarly, London Luton airport, which I am sure we will hear more about today, is well placed to serve the corridor and has an important role to play in Universal’s plans to build its first European theme park near Bedford. The airport’s location and growth are both potentially key factors in the company’s decision to choose a location within the Oxford-Cambridge corridor. I am conscious that I have been speaking for a while now. There is much more to be said and I suspect that many hon. Members will take the opportunity to raise their own issues. However, I hope that the Minister gets a sense of the enthusiasm that exists along the corridor and a sense of the huge opportunity that exists, not just for the area in question but for the UK economy in general. I leave the Minister with the question that I posed at the beginning of my remarks. Will this be the decade when we move to action and, if it is, can he set out exactly the plans to make that happen?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Asylum Policy · Hansard source

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  I support my right hon. Friend’s statement, and particularly her announcement about safe and legal routes. She will know that cities like Cambridge have a long tradition—going back to the Kindertransport—of welcoming people, including those from Syria and Ukraine. I very much hope that she will work closely with authorities like Cambridge city council on measures that can make those routes work.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Moorland Protection · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her powerful contribution. I join her in expressing sympathy for all those who have been affected and I thank all those involved in fighting those fires. This is a cross-governmental issue. Wildfire and fire and rescue services are the responsibility of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but my hon. Friend will be aware that we have been consulting on ending locational burning to improve moorland resilience to wildfire. We know that restoring peatlands with diverse plant species prevents the over-dominance of heather and molinia, which dry out peat and increase the risk of fire. Frankly, recent wildfires show just how degraded our peatlands have become.

• 22 Jul 2025 · Gene Editing · Hansard source

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  It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. Let me congratulate the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay)—my near neighbour and colleague—on securing today’s debate on such an important policy area. He is clearly deeply knowledgeable on issues relating to EU negotiation and, as we have heard this morning, on matters relating to precision breeding. I will be watching later today to see whether he is seamlessly edited back on to his party’s Front Bench; I wish him well with that. I found myself being taken back to what was for me one of the most rewarding times in Parliament—sitting on the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill Committee. We had many of the discussions that the right hon. Gentleman has taken us through this morning. That Bill was a very good piece of cross-party work; there has been considerable cross-party consensus on this topic, although there are areas of disagreement. This Government were elected just a year ago on a manifesto absolutely promising to kickstart economic growth. We want to work with industry to remove barriers to growth and to seize new opportunities. Key to achieving that is seizing the opportunities presented through harnessing innovative technologies. As the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, I genuinely want to realise the benefits of new technologies to help us address many of the challenges, set out today, that face our agricultural system: to meet our environmental goals, to support productive and profitable British farmers, and to meet the Department’s key priority of achieving food security. Food security, as we all acknowledge, is national security—but, in a world of many different challenges, it is becoming harder to achieve. Precision breeding can play an important role. The right hon. Gentleman set out many of the opportunities associated with breakthrough precision breeding technologies and how they can help to transform and modernise our food system, making it fit for the future. I remember standing in fields near Bury St Edmunds with people from British Sugar and others, looking at varying degrees of decaying sugar beet plants attacked by virus yellows. We absolutely need to find ways of meeting that challenge. I was very struck by the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) about potatoes. Farmers face real challenges. We need to equip them to meet those challenges. The Government have taken action in England by introducing a new science-based and enabling regulatory framework for precision breeding. With that cross-party support, we passed the secondary legislation needed to implement the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 for plants in England. It is absolutely vital that we support that work. It has also been recognised as a key part of engineering biology, a critical subsector within the Government’s recently unveiled industrial strategy. That is no surprise, because in our country we are renowned for scientific excellence. I represent Cambridge. We are home to a world-leading fundamental plant science research base, with regional clusters of excellence across the UK. I pay particular tribute to the work that goes on in and around Norwich, particularly the John Innes Centre. I am very proud of the work that goes on in this area, including in and around Cambridge in my part of the world and including the work of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany. The Government recognise the importance of unlocking the opportunities presented by precision breeding. I assure the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire that our commitment to financial investment is secure. In July 2024, we announced the latest round of crop genetic improvement network programmes—GINs—supported by up to £15 million in funding over five years to boost breeding research for key UK crops. The latest programme includes funding for research into precision breeding. Earlier this year, under the farming innovation programme, the Department announced a £12.5 million competition focused specifically on precision breeding, which the right hon. Gentleman specifically asked me about. As part of the industrial strategy, at least £200 million was allocated to the programme up to 2030, which precision breeding will continue to be in scope for. The right hon. Gentleman raised further concerns that I ought to address—in particular, the impact of the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement that we are working on with our European neighbours. He asked how precision breeding will fit into that. The new agreement will establish a common sanitary and phytosanitary zone between the UK and the EU, making agrifood trade with our biggest market cheaper and easier by cutting costs and red tape for businesses who export to and import from the European Union. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that, on the day that was secured, many food businesses were very pleased, because of the problems they have had over the last few years. On the precision breeding point, the EU has accepted that there will be a number of areas where we need to retain our own rules. With the principles and framework of a deal agreed, we will now need to negotiate the detail of an agreement. The Government have been absolutely clear about the importance of supporting new and innovative technologies, so we remain committed to moving forward with the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 and we have engaged with industry to help inform our approach to further discussions with the EU. We will continue to do so. Although the final legislation has not yet been agreed among EU legislators, the European Commission, as the right hon. Gentleman explained, published a proposal for the regulation of plants by, to use the EU terminology, “new genomic techniques”. We are monitoring the EU’s position closely and will continue to do so as progress is made in trilogue discussions. Those proposals are similar to those that we brought forward in the 2023 Act, but I fully acknowledge that the EU is behind us. That has been the argument for some years—indeed, going back all the way to that 2018 court case. We therefore understand that it will be some time before new legislation is implemented in the EU. However, that is a problem because this is a growing global sector and Europe is falling behind, so investment is going elsewhere—only 5% of venture capital investment in the sector currently comes to Europe. With the new regulations, we have the potential to be at the forefront across Europe and to be a major global competitor in this rapidly growing industry. We need to invest in this sector now, in order to realise the opportunities of precision breeding for tackling issues around climate change and food security. We do not have time to delay. Let me say a little about the devolved Governments. We recognise the valid concerns that people have raised about the issues of divergence within the UK—there was an intervention to that effect today—including the concern that farmers and businesses in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will miss out on the opportunities presented by the implementation of the 2023 Act for plants in England. That is why we continue to engage regularly with the devolved Administrations to discuss potential impacts. That engagement builds on regular monthly meetings with counterparts at official level and will support future ministerial engagement at the interministerial group. Input from the devolved Governments has been invaluable in shaping our approach and objectives to the agreement, ensuring that it will deliver tangible benefits for the whole of the UK. DEFRA has engaged closely with devolved Government officials and Ministers in the run-up to the UK-EU leaders summit, and will continue to do so as we prepare for detailed negotiations with the EU. The timing and format of negotiations will be subject to the outcome of further discussions, but we are committed to engaging closely throughout the negotiation phase to ensure access to timely and expert input from the devolved Governments. The right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire asked about the situation of animals in the 2023 Act, and many people are keen to know more about the Government’s plans and timelines. We are continuing the research that supports policy development of the animal welfare declaration. In keeping with the previous Government’s approach, which the right hon. Gentleman will remember from that time, while the research is continuing no decision has yet been made about bringing forward legislation to implement the 2023 Act in relation to animals. In conclusion, I again thank the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire for securing this debate. It is so important that we send out a powerful message to investors across the world that this is the place to come and invest. Harnessing innovation in precision breeding can help us to achieve several priorities, including bolstering food security and championing British farming, helping to mitigate and adapt to climate pressures, and driving the Government’s missions on growth and health. The growth potential of this industry is evident; we have the opportunity to be at the forefront of it. I am absolutely determined that that will be the case, and the Government strongly recognise the importance of precision breeding. Let me reiterate our commitment to that technology and to securing its success in our country. Question put and agreed to.