Ellie Chowns MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. I thank the Minister for ensuring the release of the diffuse water pollution plan for the River Wye catchment. The plan specifies that an 85% reduction in phosphate is needed. It also says that full implementation of all existing measures will not get anywhere close to that, yet it fails to evaluate the option of a water protection zone. Will the Minister urgently meet me and other cross-party Wye catchment MPs to discuss how we can progress the solution of a water protection zone?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I always like to start on a positive note, so let me add to the cross-party Christmas cheer by welcoming the shift to multi-year funding settlements. I agree with the Minister: local authority funding was decimated under the Conservatives for 14 years and local leaders were asked to do more with less. But I am worried that that might continue for some authorities like mine. North Herefordshire and Herefordshire council have been facing millions of pounds of funding reductions under the proposals put forward by the Government. We must recognise that a fair funding settlement has to mean fair recognition that providing services in rural areas incurs extra costs, and not just for social care—there needs to be a remoteness adjustment for all the services that we provide. Will the Minister go away, consider that and come back with proposals that fairly recognise the needs of rural authorities like Herefordshire?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Planning Reform · Hansard source

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  The Minister’s statement pins the blame for the housing crisis on the planning system, but we all know that there are many challenges facing the building sector: cost inflation, staff shortages made worse by Brexit, issues with housing association funding, and the problem of land banking, with all these planning permissions not being built out. Instead of the Minister pitting nature protection against house building—if he really wants to increase housing availability, affordability and quality, as he said in the statement that he does—will he set a social housing target, invest far more in directly supporting social housing and ensure that all building meets nature protection and climate crisis challenge goals?

• 11 Dec 2025 · Fairtrade Certification · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) for presenting the case for Fairtrade, and for fairer trade practices overall, so compellingly. I also pay tribute to everybody who has been part of the Fairtrade campaign for many decades. I have been involved in it for at least 30 years, and it is a fantastic example of a widely supported public campaign that has, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, found its way into our schools and communities, and also into our supermarkets, making it easy for people to choose Fairtrade products. That is fantastic and to be celebrated. This is not just about individual shopping choices, important though they are; it is also about ensuring a level playing field for all producers, so that good environmental, human rights and workers’ rights practices are not an optional add-on but fundamental to the way we do business. That is why I warmly welcome the Brew it Fair campaign and the petition handed in at Downing Street yesterday. I was involved in the delivery of a similar petition a few months ago with the Corporate Justice Coalition. Again, that had well over 100,000 signatures from citizens across the country calling for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. We have to ensure that the positive practice encapsulated by Fairtrade is not just an optional extra, but how business is done. More than 80 MPs have signed an early-day motion in support of the Fairtrade tea campaign and mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. The reasons for supporting such legislation are clear. Introducing that horizontal legislation that obliges all UK businesses to take steps to prevent human rights and environmental risks in their supply chains, all the way down to smallholder farmers and workers, is the single most cost-effective measure we could take to support sustainability in the food system and to improve the UK’s international reputation for action to create a climate- compatible, sustainable, rights-supporting economy. We have some legislation on supply chain transparency, but it is insufficient and riddled with loopholes. Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires companies to report on their operations, but not to take reasonable steps to address and prevent the problem—and prevention must be central to this. Schedule 17 to the Environment Act 2021 applies only to commodities identified as key drivers of the UK’s deforestation footprint, such as cattle products excluding dairy and cocoa, palm oil and soy. That is important, but it is narrow in scope. Human rights and environmental due diligence should not be addressed in silos, where businesses often face the challenge of potentially trading off one sort of risk against another. If we had mandatory requirements on human rights and environmental due diligence, that would provide the consistency and level playing field that businesses need. Businesses that already source their food responsibly—whether voluntarily or because they are covered by the direct scope of the European corporate sustainability due diligence directive—would not be put at a competitive disadvantage by mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation in the UK. If the legislation were designed correctly, it would reduce the risk of abuses or poor practices in supply chains, put farmers and workers on track to earn a decent livelihood to keep their families’ heads above water, and help end issues such as gendered, racial and pay discrimination, forced labour, child labour, undignified and unsafe working conditions, the denial of workers’ rights to freely associate, and lack of care and consideration for water sources and biodiversity. All those problems could be better prevented if we made such a change in the law. I warmly welcome the Department for Business and Trade’s responsible business conduct review. It is a critical opportunity to introduce comprehensive, inclusive and enforceable legislation on human rights, labour rights and environmental protection in supply chains, and it is crucial that we take it forward. Finally, I want to echo a point that a couple of other Members have made. We need to ensure that trade is fair. We need to ensure that these fundamental rights are built into the normal way of doing business. The UK’s foreign aid budget is a crucial element in supporting this work. It is vital that we restore it, so that we play our part in supporting and enforcing human rights globally. Will the Minister tell us whether the responsible business conduct review will include mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation, and will he respond to my point on the aid budget?

• 11 Dec 2025 · Foreign Interference · Hansard source

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  That is not the Green party’s position. The Green party’s position, which I clarified in a point of order in this Chamber just last week, supports our membership of NATO at this time of extreme threat on Europe’s borders. It has long been known that the Kremlin seeks to interfere and undermine democratic politics in other countries, with online bots and cyber-disinformation. The need is urgent. In June 2025 the Government published a strategic defence review, which stated: “The UK is already under daily attack, with aggressive acts—from espionage to cyber-attack and information manipulation—causing harm to society and the economy.” Russia was called “an immediate and pressing threat”, including in key areas such as cyber-space and information operations. These concerns are not new. Credible evidence of Russian interference in UK elections was flagged in the Intelligence and Security Committee’s 2020 Russia report. In 2022, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office put out a press release that revealed that a Russian spy agency had targeted UK national infrastructure in a “calculated and dangerous” hacking campaign, and that Putin was sowing “division and confusion among allies.” The Foreign Secretary at the time was Liz Truss, who said that she would not tolerate it, yet she, and the moribund Conservative Government of which she was a part, did not open an investigation into the ISC’s Russia report on Kremlin-linked influence in the UK. Obviously, Liz Truss should never have been anywhere near the levers of high office, but why have this Government not acted as the US did? The 2017-19 Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was a criminal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. We need something similar here. The US report concluded that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election did occur in “sweeping and systematic fashion”, and that it “violated U.S. criminal law”. In 2016 we had the Brexit vote, which has so harmed and divided our country, and it is well known that the Kremlin wants a weakened, fractured EU, so where is our version of Mueller? The upcoming elections Bill will be critical in addressing the dodgy influence of foreign money in UK politics, not least via cryptocurrency, on which I agree with the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell). Reform UK is the first British political party to accept donations in crypto, despite UK National Crime Agency investigators recently saying that cryptocurrency has turbocharged money laundering. The NCA also points out that the cryptocurrency backed by the Reform donor is used for the Russian war effort. Reform UK’s record £9 million crypto donation is just the latest offering from abroad. Last Sunday, The Observer reported that two thirds of the funds given to that organisation in this Parliament have come from donors with overseas interests. That demonstrates why it is so urgent that the forthcoming elections Bill is robust in stopping dirty money. We have not yet seen the Bill, but as well as urgent controls to prevent big overseas donations, the Bill must, among other things, streamline national versus local spending limits with a per-seat cap on total spending, have a limit on major donations, give the Electoral Commission the power to prosecute and reinstate its independence. It is also crucial that we have rules requiring the submission of all online and offline advertisements to the Electoral Commission as soon as they are published, with data on who has sponsored the ad readily available to the public. As things stand, we get only partial transparency after an election has happened. That is too late. Today’s debate is crucial. As we have heard, it has many strands: the impact of foreign interference on security, trade and our democracy. I reiterate the critical point that defending our democracy must mean the UK Government finally investigating Russian interference in our elections. Not to do so is effectively to send a message of permission, and that is intolerable. The stakes could not be higher. I urge the Minister to tell us when we will get the long-overdue Mueller-style inquiry into Kremlin-linked interference in our democracy.

• 11 Dec 2025 · Foreign Interference · Hansard source

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  Before I start, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me assure you, in relation to the comments made by the previous occupant of the Chair, that I will be mentioning a Member of this House and I have given him advance notice that I will be doing so. Our democracy is under threat. We cannot and must not fail to defend it against the bad-faith actors who seek to attack it. Today I will concentrate the bulk of my remarks on Kremlin-linked Russian interference, starting with the long-time right-hand man of the habitually absent Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), Nathan Gill, who was at the very top of Reform UK in Wales. Mr Gill is now sitting in jail serving a sentence of 10 and a half years for taking Russian bribes from Putin’s operatives to parrot Kremlin propaganda about the war on Ukraine. The leader of Reform UK, the Member for Clacton, is desperately suggesting that Mr Gill was a bad apple, as he and his organisation scramble and evade following Gill’s bribery conviction, but that simply does not wash. Gill was not the only pro-Brexit politician in Europe spreading Kremlin talking points about Ukraine. Indeed, the Member for Clacton himself echoed Moscow’s narratives on the war in Ukraine, accusing the west of “provoking” the war. It is also worth remembering his frequent appearances on Putin’s propaganda TV channel, Russia Today, between 2010 and 2014, on which he made no criticisms of the lack of democracy in Russia or its position on Ukraine.

• 10 Dec 2025 · International Human Rights Day 2025 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours) for securing the debate. I declare an interest as an officer of the all-party parliamentary human rights group. I will start by highlighting the work of environmental human rights defenders and indigenous rights defenders, who are in need of our continued support. Their vital work protecting the land, health and livelihoods of their communities can be extremely dangerous. The 2025 Global Witness report documented the killing of 146 such defenders, the majority in Latin America, including 48 in Colombia, which has had the most killings globally for the past three years in a row, followed by Guatemala, where 20 defenders were killed last year. That is shocking. Two thirds of the cases are linked to land or land reform, and indigenous people are disproportionately targeted. To mention two emblematic cases, Berta Cáceres from Honduras, a celebrated indigenous Lenca leader and Goldman environmental prize winner, was murdered in 2016 for her resistance to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam. Her case became a major international warning about the risks faced by activists. Fikile Ntshangase, a South African activist, was shot dead in her home in 2020 for her leading role in a campaign against a coalmine. These women were incredibly brave—absolute icons and leading lights of international human rights work. There are so many other unsung heroes doing the same. Claudia Ignacio Álvarez, from Mexico, whom the all-party group recently hosted, has faced threats and forced displacement for her work defending rural and indigenous communities. In Indonesia, Dewi Anakoda, an indigenous Tobelo woman, has received death threats and been violently attacked for helping journalists to expose the destruction of the neighbouring uncontacted Hongana Manyawa people’s territory resulting from the mining of nickel for electric vehicles. It is vital that the renewable energy transition does not come at the expense of communities whose rights and environments are often very negatively affected by the mining of critical minerals. Co-ordinated global action is necessary to avoid replicating the terrible errors of the fossil fuel age in critical mineral mining. In that connection, I note concerns expressed by some non-governmental organisations about the UK’s recently published critical minerals strategy. The Government still have a window of opportunity, through the Department for Business and Trade’s review of responsible business conduct, to ensure that we stop environmental devastation and human rights abuse in critical mineral supply chains. I hope that that will recommend the adoption of mandatory supply chain due diligence to protect human rights and the environment, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that. There are many other human rights issues to mention. It is vital that we all work together to resist the push-back against women’s rights globally, as well as the horrific ongoing human rights abuses in Gaza and Sudan. It is so important that the UK Government step up to the plate and do their duty. I finish by asking the Minister the question that I did not manage to ask the PM today. Given that it is Human Rights Day, and given that the UN has made absolutely clear that the global cuts in foreign aid are having a severely detrimental effect on the protection of human rights around the world, will the Government restore the UK’s global aid budget to defend human rights?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  What action will the UK Government take as a consequence of Israel’s flagrant violation of international law in establishing and expanding settlements? The lack of action creates a culture of impunity in which Israel feels able to green light the expansion of the E1 settlement, creating division between the west bank and east Jerusalem and putting a nail in the coffin of the two-state solution. Will the Foreign Secretary ban trade with illegal settlements to show that violating international law has consequences?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Office for Budget Responsibility Forecasts · Hansard source

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  We have had plenty of disagreement today, but I think it is clear that there is consensus that truth and accountability matter. I draw the attention of the House to the campaign by Compassion in Politics for a targeted legal measure that would make it an offence for any politician or candidate to mislead the public deliberately on a matter of verifiable fact. This is being taken forward in Wales, and it has long-standing cross-party support in this House. Will the Government support those of us who are campaigning for a political truthfulness Bill to rebuild trust in politics?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In Herefordshire, families of children with special educational needs, and indeed Herefordshire council, have been waiting more than 18 months for an update on two crucial schools: a new free school, with specialist provision for children with autism spectrum disorder, and the rebuild of Westfield special school. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can make progress on ensuring that those vital school places are provided locally?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I will not, because many Members want to get in. Frankly, given that a typical energy bill in October 2025 was £478 a year higher than four years before, it is indefensible that this Budget does nothing to address the structural factors that keep costs high. In 2024, almost a quarter of the average energy bill went straight to the pre-tax profits of the major electricity generators, networks and household suppliers. If we are serious about tackling the cost of living crisis, we must stop private companies profiteering while ordinary people cannot afford life’s basics. Those basics should not be a luxury. We can have lower bills and more investment in affordable, warm homes, all while protecting our planet at the same time. In ordinary times, a Budget that tinkers at the edges might be acceptable, but after the financial crash, a decade of Conservative and Lib Dem austerity, the pandemic and the fuel price crisis, the country is at breaking point. This Budget needed to go further and be bolder. That is what a Green Budget would do.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  With sky-high bills, unaffordable, cold and mouldy homes, and one in three children growing up in poverty, our country is in crisis. Life has become unaffordable for millions of people, and years of devastating cuts to our public services, from hospitals and schools to social care, mean that those who most need support are too often unable to access it. Every day I hear from my constituents in North Herefordshire, who are living through this crisis and crying out for change. Instead of delivering change, this Government have repeatedly claimed that there is not enough money to go around. That simply is not true. Last year, billionaires saw their collective wealth increase by £35 million a day. Britain’s 50 richest families now hold more wealth than half the population combined. A wealth tax of 1% on assets over £10 million and 2% on assets over £1 billion could raise nearly £15 billion. If we also aligned rates of capital gains tax with income tax and introduced national insurance on investment income, so that wealth is taxed at the same rate as work, we could raise over £30 billion a year. This Budget needed to mark a turning point and an end to the politics of the past 18 months—a politics that has, sadly, scapegoated refugees and migrants while failing to tackle the inequality and the real issues that drive people into hardship. Of course, I welcome the long overdue scrapping of the cruel and counterproductive two-child benefit cap. That should have been done on day one after the general election. Instead of delivering a transformational Budget that confronts the cost of living crisis and taxes extreme wealth fairly, this Labour Government have, sadly, chosen to paper over the cracks —to tinker, not transform. For example, take the Chancellor’s decision to remove policy costs from energy bills. Nearly 3 million households in England were fuel poor in 2024—that figure could be more, depending on how it is calculated. This is a huge problem, especially in the west midlands and especially in my North Herefordshire constituency, where fuel poverty is particularly high because of the nature of our housing and low wages. It is therefore essential that we do everything in our power to cut bills. But the decision to lower bills by cutting vital funding for home insulation by a quarter is not a real solution; it is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Home insulation is one of the most effective ways to bring down bills: upgrading the average UK home to a decent standard saves households £210 a year. Analysis from the New Economics Foundation shows that, because of the Government’s decisions regarding the energy company obligation and the warm homes plan, the poorest households living in the coldest homes have now lost two thirds of the support they were due to receive for energy efficiency upgrades. When the UK has some of the worst-insulated homes in western Europe, we should be scaling home insulation up, not down, and using progressive taxation to pay for it. I am delighted that the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is back in his place to hear me make these arguments.

• 25 Nov 2025 · G20 and Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am deeply concerned that it appears that American negotiators have been listening more to the unreasonable demands of the Russian aggressors than to the security needs of the Ukrainians. Will the Prime Minister assure me that in his conversations with President Trump he has made absolutely clear that the voices of Ukrainians have to be front and centre in securing any just and lasting peace?

• 25 Nov 2025 · COP30 · Hansard source

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  We are at a pivotal moment in the climate crisis. COP30 showed us the fossil fuel industry and its political cheerleaders doing their very best to de-rail action. I thank the Secretary of State for his work. I have two questions on points he raised in his statement. First, he said that ambition must be matched with finance, yet the UK has not contributed to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility or the just transition mechanism. Is it not time for the UK to put its money where its mouth is on this? Secondly, on the point of transitioning away from fossil fuels, the UK faces a defining test: Rosebank. Will he reject the Rosebank oilfield and fully back the just transition that our country needs?

• 25 Nov 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Prime Minister said something that was inaccurate during his statement on the G20 summit and Ukraine, when he wrongly said: “The Green party…says that we should pull out of NATO”. That is not correct. Our party policy explicitly says that we recognise that NATO, while imperfect and in need of reform, has an important role in ensuring the ability of member states to respond to threats to their security. We support the principle of international solidarity, whereby nations support one another through mutual defence alliances and multilateral security frameworks. Madam Deputy Speaker, what advice can you provide on the Prime Minister correcting the record?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Funding for Deprived Areas · Hansard source

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  Rural counties like Herefordshire face additional costs in delivering services because of rurality. Extra cost pressures mean that we need another £35 million next year to provide the same services, but it looks like the fair funding review will reduce central Government funding for Herefordshire by £12 million. Does the Minister recognise the extra costs of rurality, and will she ensure that the fair funding review properly allocates the funding that rural communities need to deliver public services in a fair way?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister; I appreciate that. We have been talking about the desperate need for unfettered aid access into Gaza for desperate, starving civilians. At the same time, this country continues to provide completely unfettered trade access for settlement goods into the UK—proceeds of crime, literally. Is it not time for the British Government to ban trade in settlement goods? Might that not help to put a little pressure on the Israeli Government to allow aid into Gaza?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 20 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The UK is coming under intense scrutiny at COP30 for saying one thing in public but doing the opposite in private, by apparently blocking progress on the Belém action mechanism to secure fossil-free jobs, workers’ rights, communities and our planet, despite the Prime Minister saying in his statement to COP “that the UK is all in” on embracing opportunities. Can we please have an urgent debate on how a shift in the backroom position of the UK could unlock negotiations, rebuild trust and align the Government’s actions with their public commitments?

• 20 Nov 2025 · Unpaid Carers: Inequalities · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I warmly thank the hon. Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) for securing this vital debate to mark Carers Rights Day, and indeed everybody else who has spoken from the heart and made such important points. We all recognise that the care system is in crisis, and that unpaid carers play an essential role in supporting people who need care. I welcome the fact that the Casey Commission, which has been mentioned already, is working—although, I suggest, perhaps not as fast as it needs to be. I am deeply concerned by the Government’s proposal that it should not report for another few years, because resolving the care crisis is a matter of urgency and political will. I am honoured to be the Green party representative on the cross-party talks; I would like those talks to be convened more frequently and to operate much faster, but in the meantime I look forward to welcoming the Casey Commission to my constituency next month as part of its evidence-gathering process. I am currently engaged in a wide public consultation exercise, running a survey and holding listening exercises in my constituency. My team are visiting various care settings to gather people’s input. I will share the story of one constituent who contacted me a few days ago. She moved to North Herefordshire in 2022 from more than 100 miles away to care for her mother, who was elderly and declining. She left her entire life, moved in with her mum and got a part-time job at a much lower salary than she was used to in order to support her mother, who earlier this year was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia. My constituent was put in the position of going out to earn £12.21 per hour while paying £20 an hour for somebody to come and look after her mother. She put in an application in early April for carer’s allowance to support the costs of a paid carer, who enables her to keep doing her part-time job, but it was refused. She contacted the DWP in July: the Department said that a mistake might have been made and she was due a mandatory reconsideration. She chased the matter up again but, seven months after her initial request, she has still not had a response. She says that carer’s allowance is too little and takes too long, and that the criteria are far too limited—I could not agree more. I leave the Minister with my constituent’s words: “I don’t want to financially benefit from caring for my mum. I just don’t want to be pushed into poverty while I keep her out of hospital and out of a care home.” She cares for her mum 24/7. When worked out by the number of hours, carer’s allowance is about 55p per hour, because it covers nighttime care as well as daytime care. Surely the least that unpaid carers deserve from us is a benefit system—a carer’s allowance system—that supports, recognises and works with them, enabling them to provide the vital care that keeps those people who need it out of hospital and care homes.

• 20 Nov 2025 · Unpaid Carers: Inequalities · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) make very good points. I gently point out to the Government that it is not Baroness Casey’s job to convene cross-party talks. Political leadership is needed, and it should come from the Health Secretary himself. We do not need to wait for Baroness Casey to bring all the parties together—the Government need to do that.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Flooding: Monmouthshire · Hansard source

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  My heart goes out to the people of Monmouthshire, which is just downriver from my constituency. Terrible damage has also been done in South Herefordshire, with places such as Ewyas Harold very badly affected. We know that these things are happening more frequently and more severely. It is also tragic to see the huge amount of soil that is washed off the land at times like this. Does the Minister recognise the hugely important role that farmers play in managing floodwater and building resilience to these sorts of events? Will she invest more in nature-friendly farming—river-friendly farming—to help prevent these sorts of disasters, which do so much damage to people’s livelihoods?

• 18 Nov 2025 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman may have been reading my notes over my shoulder, because I was about to make exactly that point. We must keep the needs of the most vulnerable households front and centre. I was talking about the fuel poverty statistics. According to the Government’s own figures, 3 million households were fuel-poor in 2024, but using the definition that is still used in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, campaigners estimate that the number of UK households facing fuel poverty is nearly double that number—about 6 million households. We live in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and no one, but no one, should be struggling to keep their home warm. In the west midlands, where my lovely constituency is, we face the highest regional rate of fuel poverty in England. North Herefordshire far more badly affected than the national average. Adding to the strain in my constituency is the fact that rural homes are disproportionately affected by fuel poverty. They are more likely to be detached or built before 1919—that is certainly the case in North Herefordshire—and therefore harder to heat efficiently, and rural households face deep fuel poverty and high energy costs. Moreover, installers are known to avoid complicated homes, such as those in my constituency, because they are less profitable, which means that schemes such as the ECO often fail to reach rural locations.