Darren Paffey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2026 · Ports and Port Connectivity · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) for securing a debate on this important issue. Ports handle 95% of Britain’s physical trade; sea freight accounts for the majority of the UK’s international freight but, as we have heard, the grid and road and rail infrastructure outside the port gates are too often treated as an afterthought. If the Government are serious about economic growth, decarbonisation and national resilience—as I believe they are—we need to see changes in how we approach this. The port of Southampton, in my constituency, demonstrates why. It is Europe’s leading cruise turnaround port and the UK’s second-largest container terminal. Three million passengers come through each year, and it is an important gateway for vehicles, manufactured goods and international trade, dealing with more than £71 billion of value every year. It supports 45,000 jobs nationwide, and anchors a wider Solent maritime cluster, worth £10.6 billion. I know this debate is not a competition for the best port in the country, but Southampton would make a very strong case. In spite of all the strengths and benefits I have just listed, Southampton is not just a stereotypical rich south-eastern seat. Too many communities around the port experience severe deprivation and limited opportunity. Some recent More in Common research found that 58% of 18 to 34-year-olds coming into the workforce in coastal communities are considering moving away, most of them citing a lack of jobs. The investment we are asking for is not just about expanding ports for the sake of it; it is about redistributing that value back into the communities that generate it. That investment locally can be a catalyst for national growth. Southampton has been leading on this: we delivered the UK’s first commercial-scale cruise ship-to-shore power facility. That cut 5,000 tonnes of carbon and has generated £150 million in gross value added benefits in 2024 alone. Private investment in and around the port is moving ahead, but the constraint is often the public infrastructure outside its gates. I struggle with the fact that we have two ship-to-shore plug-in points, but we can use only one of them. If we plug the second one in, the lights in Southampton go out. If the one UK port that is already leading on shore power cannot fully utilise that potential for another decade—we have been told that the grid expansion will not come until 2036—how much later will the rest of Britain be? In the meantime, our European competitors will spend years investing in their infrastructure, getting greener shipping services and stealing a march on their competitors. There is an urgency to this. The case for road and rail investment is just as strong. DP World’s modal shift programme has increased proportion of containers leaving Southampton by rail from 21% to more than 30% in just three years. That is 200,000 lorry journeys off the roads, saving 45,000 tonnes of carbon. Again, we just need the scale to continue. I will close with three specific asks for the Minister. I am grateful for his engagement with me and the sector recently. First, can we bring forward the grid supply point upgrade at Southampton? A 2036 timeline is not compatible with our 2030 shore power obligations or our sector’s decarbonisation ambitions. Secondly, can we commit to ringfencing the maritime emissions trading scheme revenues for port and maritime decarbonisation infrastructure? Finally, can we get Great British Railways and National Highways to treat freight pass and port connectivity as first-order planning priorities? Let us match our ambition with urgency and a plan.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Building Safety Regulator · Hansard source

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  Tomorrow marks one year since the residents of Sundowner Court in Southampton were forced to leave their home because of serious fire safety defects. Two neighbouring blocks followed suit soon after, and no one expects to be back in their home for at least another year. The Government rightly prioritised speeding up remediation, and it is important that our regulator shares that sense of urgency, but the Building Safety Regulator is taking up to 40 weeks to approve some of the remediation plans. What improvements can the Minister promise that this Government will make to speed up those approvals and end the misery for my residents?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Building Safety Regulator · Hansard source

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  18. What progress his Department has made on reforming the Building Safety Regulator.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am proud to support the Bill and do so with the families of Southampton firmly in mind. Those are families who fell foul of the last Conservative Government’s mission to make Britain Dickensian again. Child deprivation in my city is among the worst in the country—worse than more than 83% of local authorities. Here, that is a potentially abstract statistic; there, it is reflected in the lived reality of my constituents. More than one in five working-age adults in Southampton are on universal credit. That rises to an average of one in three in our most deprived neighbourhoods. As colleagues have said, many of those people are working hard but are still falling short. What was the last Conservative Government’s answer to that? It was to count the children and punish the whole family. No doubt tonight Conservative Members will traipse through the Lobby and vote to keep a lid on the 450,000 children who are about to be released from poverty. The two-child limit simply did not work. If anything, it compounded the pressures on families—families who repeatedly tell me that the universal credit they receive barely covers the rent, let alone food, heating or school essentials. That is the Tory legacy, and that is the deeply entrenched poverty that this Labour Government are having to undo bit by bit. It is therefore no surprise that an estimated 10,000 children in Southampton still live in households with absolute low income and that 25% of children live in households with relative low income. These realities demand clear action, and this Bill is part of that action being led by the Labour Government.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Commonhold and Leasehold Reform · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on his statement and thank him for it. Like thousands of long-suffering leaseholders across Southampton Itchen, I warmly welcome this announcement. Residents of the Sapphire Court development have already been paying ground rent that is higher than the cap, and there is a plan to double it, but thanks to the action of this Labour Government that will not happen. How soon will Southampton’s leaseholders will get the rights, protections and securities that they have been waiting a long time for and that they deserve?

• 3 Nov 2025 · Care Leavers · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful point in this debate, which she has thankfully secured. Last week, a group of Southampton care leavers came to Parliament, and raised housing and accommodation as one of the most urgent issues they want us to tackle. I have heard her welcome, as I do, innovations like Staying Put and Staying Close, but supported lodgings are another family-based option for care leavers where the young person gets not only a place to live but the practical help and relational support that she is using those young people’s voices to talk about so powerfully. The early evidence is positive, but does she agree that with too many care leavers living in substandard accommodation and without that support, initiatives such as Home for Good’s supported lodgings are also worth Government attention, particularly in National Care Leavers Month?