Darren Paffey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  A new report by the charity Become shows that personal advisers are in some cases supervising up to 46 young care leavers each. These are the people who can make the difference between young people setting out into adulthood well or feeling completely on their own. Will the Minister therefore commit not just to reviewing the support, but to a funded national strategy and a cap on caseloads, so that no care leaver in Southampton or anywhere in this country has to face adulthood alone?

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  As far as I am aware, Sir Jeremy, you do. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank the hundreds of Southampton Itchen constituents who signed the petition because they know that the current model is an abject failure. Trust is completely gone, and they are fed up with being ripped off. My constituents’ bills doubled last year. Southern Water has racked up £7 million-worth of fines just this year. It won a record—not a record it wanted—£90 million fine five years ago after sewage poured into the River Test, one of Hampshire’s chalk streams. The other chalk stream is the Itchen, from which my constituency takes its name. Rare Atlantic salmon come to spawn in the Itchen, but E. coli is rife for people trying to swim there and the stench of sewage is so vile that schools near the river and the treatment works often do not let the kids out on to the playground. The public agree that the model has failed, not just Labour voters—those of us with a history of being pro-nationalisation—but people across the political spectrum. Some 68% back nationalising water, and support keeps growing. More than three quarters of Conservative voters—though possibly not as many Conservative MPs—want water back in public hands. That is as close to a national consensus as we get, so I understand why so many have signed the petition. I part company from the petitioners on one point, which has been reflected by several hon. Members: although I agree with the destination, I am traumatised by previous referenda. People are making their voices heard and telling us what they want. We are a Government with a majority; instead of a referendum, we need a plan of the kind that this Government have already shown they can produce. We did it for rail: a phased, legally underpinned route back to public ownership, transferring operators as contracts expire under a single new body and with no compensation from the taxpayer. I welcome the Prime Minister’s vision for greater public control of essential services but reforming a broken model is not the same as ending it. The public see that, so I ask the Minister: please, let us just crack on with it and get water back into public hands.

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

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  I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on bringing the Bill forward. It is a manifesto commitment, and one that will matter enormously to communities such as mine in Southampton by prioritising the building of social homes and better protecting the stocks we already have. Although we are talking a lot about bricks and mortar, these measures speak directly to whether children have a stable place to grow up, whether survivors of abuse can live their lives in safety, and whether places such as Southampton can offer residents decent, affordable housing as a reality, not a pipe dream. Our city council manages about 18,000 homes, and there are another 2,500 leasehold and shared ownership properties. It is a huge and valuable asset, but it is an asset under strain, with more than 8,000 people on the waiting list. In that time, families live in overcrowded flats and temporary accommodation, and workers who come and contribute enormously to our city cannot afford a home that is genuinely affordable or secure. Those are the kinds of situations that come up in my surgeries and, I am sure, in those of other Members.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for making that very salient point. That is true in my patch as well, where tenants need homes with adaptations either for themselves or for disabled children, so I hope the Minister is able to speak to that. Those are all reasons why one of the most important and welcome aspects of the Bill is its central measure to protect existing social housing stock by reforming the right to buy. Since 1980, this country has sold more than 2 million social homes through right to buy and replaced only a fraction of them. I remember growing up in three council homes as a child with my family. I have great memories of the secure home that we had, but I often wonder whether they have been lost to the system. Southampton has felt that loss directly, and at the same time it is facing rising costs for emergency accommodation for homeless families. The measures in the Bill on extending the qualifying period, on tapering the discount and on exempting new social homes are sensible and proportionate changes. They preserve a genuine route into home ownership for long-standing tenants, while removing the perverse incentive that has, for decades, discouraged councils like mine from building. I welcome the new requirement for private registered providers to give notice before selling a home, so that the council or another provider has a chance to keep it in the social sector. That is a small but practical protection, and one that I will strongly encourage Southampton city council to use. I particularly welcome the provisions in part 3 relating to survivors of domestic abuse. As other Members have said, a home should be a place of safety, yet for many victims, housing insecurity is what stops them from escaping abuse. That is unforgivable and we must remove that barrier. The measures will make it easier for survivors to remain in safe accommodation. I hope Members across the House are able to unite behind that principle. Can I ask the Minister to address two questions when winding up? First, how will the Government ensure that the protections translate into a genuine long-term increase in social rented stock in high-demand areas such as Southampton, where waiting lists and temporary accommodation costs are already straining local services? Secondly, what support will be available to local authorities and housing associations to implement the Bill successfully? Legislative reform is essential, but councils need the financial and operational capacity to deliver the outcomes that we are all behind. Will the Department match the ambition of the Bill with the capital investment needed to ensure that authorities such as Southampton, which already carry a decent homes backlog on more than half its stock, can genuinely invest? As others have said, legislation alone will not solve every aspect of the housing crisis that faces Southampton and the rest of the country, but the Bill takes bold and meaningful steps in the right direction: protecting social housing and stopping the leaks in the bucket; protecting survivors of domestic abuse in their own homes; and giving councils the tools and the confidence to build again. For residents in Southampton and across the country who need a safe, affordable, secure home, that progress matters. That is why I will proudly vote for that progress today.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend to her place, and thank her for her answer. In Southampton Itchen, I have constituents who have been deprived of their pension for many months. One waited over a year even for an accurate quotation, another is yet to receive a penny after 40 years of service, and one with stage 4 cancer took three months to get any money—and even then, only after I had nagged a Minister to intervene. When I was a Southampton city councillor, we ended Capita’s contract and took those services back in-house. Is it not time for the Government to consider doing the same?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  7. What recent steps her Department has taken to tackle issues impacting the civil service pension scheme.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Online Safety · Hansard source

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  I thank and commend the Secretary of State for the Government’s world-leading action. Does she agree that at some point in the future, we are going to look back and wonder how we let the tech companies get away with hijacking our children’s attention and safety for so long? She talks about closing loopholes, but will she say more about what is happening across Government and with the regulators—as well as internationally—to ensure that those who produce the devices and what goes on them all play their part in keeping our children safe?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  I welcome my right hon. Friend back to her role and thank her for her statement. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) is no longer in his place, because I wanted to assure him that, far from being swallowed up, his constituents would have had a warm welcome and excellent local public services as part of Southampton. I understand the difficult decision that the Secretary of State has had to make, but I must express disappointment that after all the hard work across councils and across parties, the five unitaries for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight will not be going ahead. Will she confirm that, after her rapid review, Southampton and the surrounding councils will still have the opportunity to reorganise if they so wish, or is this the last we will hear of LGR?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  My point is that in addressing amendments 69,70, 80, 120, 72 and 48, as I intend to, there is a context. Many of us believe that the world of two-party politics no longer exists, and we need a political system that supports what every other amendment and every other part of the Bill seeks to do.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the new Minister and wish her well in her role. I share the confidence of the House, as has been expressed, from her excellent role as the Chair of the Select Committee, and I know that she will do her best in this role, too. This Bill and the amendments we are discussing matter because they go to the heart of what all of us hear on the doorstep, which is that people simply do not trust in politics or in many of the people in it any more. Trust and turnout are regrettably at record lows. That is not an abstract complaint or something where it would be nicer if we had a bit more of it; it is corrosive to democracy itself, so this Bill is a significant and welcome step forward, to do things such as give young people a voice, iron out some of the inconsistencies in voter registration, and crack down on the money and abuse that too often poison our elections. Taken together, a number of the amendments before us are a genuine opportunity to further rebuild that trust by making our voting system fairer, getting big money and dodgy money out of politics, and ensuring that everyone can safely, confidently, independently, secretly and, one day—who knows?—enthusiastically be able to cast their vote. I want to make the broader point that I acknowledge and accept that there is a new clause that cannot be named which is no longer in scope, but I wish to express my regret that it is not. This Bill is an opportunity to go as far as possible in restoring trust. Many of us believe that that is now missing.