Fred Thomas MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 15 Dec 2025 · Uncrewed Defence Systems · Hansard source

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  4. What steps his Department is taking to increase the speed of the development and adoption of uncrewed defence systems.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Uncrewed Defence Systems · Hansard source

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  Britain’s future security depends on developing, testing and, crucially, adopting uncrewed systems quickly and safely, but the regulation is immensely complex. It spans many Departments, including the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Transport and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The regulators include the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Military Aviation Authority, Ofcom and the Environment Agency. The list goes on—it is endless—and for the military, the police, the agencies and our innovators, the barriers are stifling. My hon. Friend will know that I have worked with stakeholders to develop proposals for reform, which he has seen, and I know that the MOD, the Department for Transport and even the Treasury are considering them, but to make real progress, we need coherence in this area. Will he now help me to convene a meeting of all the key regulators across the Departments to drive this forward?

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I want to place on the record my immense thanks to staff at Derriford hospital in Plymouth, who are working tirelessly to keep people safe during the busiest winter yet. I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to join me in giving those thanks. The south-west has seen a 93% increase on last year in the number of beds taken up by those with flu. Does the Secretary of State agree that the run-up to Christmas is a dangerous and reckless time for doctors to go on strike? What would he say to all the other staff at Derriford, who will have to take up that work on the frontline as we approach Christmas?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Ajax Armoured Vehicle · Hansard source

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  To scrap the Ajax programme completely would be a very bold move, considering that the UK has sunk over £6 billion into it and it is nine years late. The vehicle is still making soldiers ill every time they get in it, even though Ministers both current and former have been repeatedly briefed that it is good to go. It is not good to go, but to decide that it never will be would be very brave. Considering that this Labour Government are the first UK Government since the cold war to increase defence spending, that they have a very ambitious defence reform agenda, and that finally confidence in the armed forces and the morale of serving personnel are going back up—certainly compared with way before I was in the military—does the Minister think we have enough confidence to take a bold decision like that?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Rehabilitation: Unspent Convictions · Hansard source

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  In my first surgery as an MP in Plymouth, I met a constituent who had received an unspent conviction for a one-off crime committed 34 years ago when they were a child. Since then they have served their time, turned their life around and been a constructive member of society, in employment for 12 years. In 2022, they were suspended out of the blue for two years and eventually let go on account of an unspent conviction. They told me that being given an unspent conviction as a child is nothing short of being given a life sentence. This outdated practice is unfair. What plans do the Government have to reform the law around unspent convictions to ensure that young offenders are given a genuine opportunity to rehabilitate and rebuild their lives?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Rehabilitation: Unspent Convictions · Hansard source

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  12. What steps his Department is taking to help improve rehabilitation outcomes for people with unspent convictions.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  We have heard a lot of nonsense from the Conservatives; we have had a nursery rhyme and the claim from the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) that the first instance of welfare in this country was the monasteries under Henry VIII. But to take that example, when Thomas Cromwell came in to advise King Henry VIII, he realised that they were not working and needed reform. It was extremely difficult. That Government passed two very difficult Acts of Parliament to dissolve those monasteries and to get the wealth back out to people. Does my hon. Friend agree that the difficult act of Government is actually to reform these things, rather than just to complain about them retrospectively?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Alleged Spying Case: Home Office Involvement · Hansard source

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  Personally, I am very clear that China remains an active, persistent and everyday threat to our country and has done so for many years. In the light of this, what steps is the Minister taking on behalf of the Government to ensure that parliamentarians across this House are much better protected in the years to come from the kind of foreign interference that we saw—regularly, unfortunately—on the last Government’s watch?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate argument for the hospitality sector in our coastal communities. Plymouth has some of the best pubs in England, and I am convinced that beer tastes better in pubs in Plymouth than in any other place in the UK. I have a question for my hon. Friend: does he not think it is important to acknowledge that the previous Conservative Government’s catastrophic mismanagement of the hospitality sector during covid is still wreaking havoc?

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  Not quite yet. The bigger context is that the world is extremely insecure at the moment. We all hope and pray that this country never has to go to war again. Personally, I think we might have to in the foreseeable future. We hope that does not happen, but when and if it does we need the moral, legal and total legitimacy to go in with extreme force and do what needs to be done. If we pass laws, as we did a year and a half ago, that nibble away at our international reputation for having a lawful and professional military, we are going to struggle in years to come. That is the bigger context that we need to keep in mind.

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  To clarify, I said there are 500 veterans in Plymouth Moor View who signed the petition, so I am not sure that I can answer the hon. Member because I did not meet with them recently to talk about this issue. I do not think that anyone is suggesting that veterans themselves are naive.

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  I have just taken an intervention, so I will not. Context is king. We have had peace for a generation. Hon. Members have passionately laid out the wrongs, ills and evils of the IRA, going through operational detail, which I appreciate. No one is suggesting that any of those things were justified—that is not the argument that anyone is making—but we are discussing a piece of legislation that, in order to buy the protection of veterans, allows for the protection of terrorists. We are saying, “I don’t think that’s correct.” We need to be able to go after those terrorists. There is a bigger context, isn’t there?

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his service on those Bill Committees. I do not agree with what he said, but that is the nature of this debate, and I am willing to have it. To close, it has been alluded to that we are yet to see from the Government what the safeguards will be for veterans. I will say this openly: I need to see those. We all need to see those. I ask Opposition Members, and all hon. Members of the House, to bear in mind the big bits of context that I hope I have introduced: peace for a generation, a very threatening world picture, and the need for moral legitimacy.

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on introducing this important debate. I pay tribute to the strength of argument and strength of feeling that we have heard from hon. Members so far. I would like to put on record that no one in this Chamber wants to assist the IRA in any way to clean their record. I hope that this debate can be held with both sides of the House in firm agreement that no one here wants to do that. That is not what this is about; this is about one piece of legislation. It is not about an old piece of legislation, or some instrument that brought about the so far quite consistent peace that we have had in the UK for a generation; it is about something very new, passed about a year and a half ago. We have heard Opposition Members—many of whom served many years in this place without that piece of legislation, and without asking for or campaigning for it—say that they passionately support it. Since it came in a year and a half ago, some people are very much for it. There are problems on both sides with this legislation, and I would like to hear balance in this argument. On one side, we have the absolute desire to prosecute, go after and bring justice against IRA terrorists for what they have done. They should absolutely not be walking free. There are victims’ families in this country—British people—who cannot see justice because of this Act. On the other side of the argument, in the interests of balance, we need to protect our veterans. We have to do that. I have a personal interest in this issue because I represent Plymouth Moor View, where 500 people signed the petition. People do not need to organise a veterans’ coffee morning to meet a veteran in Plymouth; they can just go out of the house and have a chat with a neighbour. I served in the Royal Marines, where most of the men who trained me would do so by saying, “This is how we did it in Northern Ireland.” That memory lives very long.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Many new mothers in Plymouth are claiming maternity allowance, not because they are unemployed, but because they do not qualify for statutory maternity pay; they may be self-employed, have recently changed jobs or have had a pregnancy-related sickness. Many of them have contacted me with concerns that maternity allowance is treated as unearned income and is therefore subject to universal credit deductions, unlike statutory maternity pay. What steps is the Department taking to ensure financial security for women in Plymouth who are claiming maternity allowance?

• 11 Jun 2025 · NHS Funding: South-west · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member mentions patient outcomes, but in Plymouth we have patients awaiting assessments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder being left in limbo and unable to move forwards. Does she agree that the current refusal by some GPs to enter into shared care agreements is effectively blocking access to a diagnosis for adults pursuing ADHD assessments through the right to choose?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I represent over 20,000 pensioners in Plymouth—more than a quarter of my constituents. I have had hundreds of conversations over the past year, and I know that people understand that the winter fuel payment should not be given out to everyone in society. The richest in society do not need it, and I warmly welcome the policy announced by the Minister today. What economic measures have this Government taken to allow us to make this change now?

• 2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  I strongly welcome the Secretary of State’s support and his leadership in this time of increased threats. We saw over the weekend that Ukraine had managed to destroy, it says, as many as 40 Russian bombers deep inside Russia, with a value, it would say, of £5 billion. That is almost as much as we are raising the defence budget by. We have to get after innovation, and this SDR does that. In particular, I want to ask the Secretary of State about page 59, which talks about “rapid commercial exploitation”. It mentions the need to “pull latest technology into operations”, and to “unlock private equity and venture capital”. My question is this: do we need to change the commercial competition laws within the civil service to allow that to happen, or can it already happen?

• 14 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q9. The United Kingdom has rightly helped to arm Ukraine with modern, effective capability, and we are sending it some £4.5 billion this year. However, after decades of relying on the peace dividend, our own forces are ill-equipped for modern warfare. With colleagues interested in defence technology, I am developing a proposal for a joint UK-Ukraine production hub on British soil, which would support Ukraine while modernising our own forces at warfighting scale and creating the jobs and know-how needed to rearm and stay secure. Will the Prime Minister use his good offices to support this proposal?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Ukraine Update · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his leadership on this topic, and not just in the UK but in Europe. My question relates to tactics. Over the weekend, I spoke on LinkedIn with a British sniper who was formerly in the Army but is now fighting for the Ukrainians on the frontline. He told me about the tactical changes that he has had to make to how he operates, but those changes are not reflected in our own sniper training in the Army, the Royal Marines and the British forces. Therefore, if we are talking about a coalition of the willing and UK troops potentially being involved in defence, when will we update the training syllabus for our own forces to reflect the tactics currently in use in Ukraine?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Hansard source

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  The Sarajevo security conference is in a couple of months, and there will be a session on defence technology. I have been asked along to speak about it. NATO countries in Europe are rearming and spending increased defence budgets on investing in and developing defence technology. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that our friends in Bosnia and Herzegovina are also updating their capabilities? What message can I take to that conference?

• 28 Mar 2025 · Looked After Children (Distance Placements) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend not just for his passion in bringing forward this Bill, but for his service as a lawyer before entering this place. He brings that expertise from his previous profession here. Will he join me in acknowledging that in places such as Plymouth this problem can be even more acute? Plymouth is not particularly near other large cities, so the tendency is for children to be placed in care very far away—sometimes 50 or even 100 miles away, as he highlights. As he gets to the part of his speech where he highlights some statistics, will he just acknowledge—

• 24 Mar 2025 · European Union: UK Membership · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member talks about political leadership, and I understand that. While we can all agree that Brexit has been an almost unmitigated disaster, the Labour party manifesto said that we will not go back into the EU, the customs union or the single market. That is the manifesto that I and all of us on this side of the Chamber stood on. You talk about leadership; do you agree that it is important for politicians to honour the manifesto they stood on?

• 24 Mar 2025 · European Union: UK Membership · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 17 Mar 2025 · G7 · Hansard source

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  It was a big weekend for the Foreign Secretary in Canada representing our country, and a big weekend for the Royal Navy in Plymouth. The Foreign Secretary alluded to increased co-operation with our EU NATO allies in defence activity. In Plymouth this weekend the deputy French ambassador was down to unveil Ariadne—a new capability that the French and British Navies now hold. It is an unmanned, uncrewed, completely autonomous end-to-end, 12-metre-long underwater mine countermeasure vessel—a remarkable feat of technology. Will he join me in celebrating this feat of co-operation?