Freddie van Mierlo MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Mar 2026 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. Bill, as amended, to be reported.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for his reassurances on the ongoing review of the Computer Misuse Act. On that basis, I would like to say that I will withdraw the new clause.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  New clause 18 would place a duty on the Government to review within 12 months whether our over-30-year-old Computer Misuse Act is holding back the very cyber-resilience that the Bill seeks to build. The Government’s own impact assessment for the Bill identifies a key market failure: imperfect information. It states that businesses lack awareness of their own cyber-risks, leading to under-investment in security. We must ask why that information is imperfect. We believe that it is partly because the Computer Misuse Act 1990 prevents cyber-security professionals from undertaking legitimate public interest activity to identify those risks, so ethical hackers cannot provide the necessary information. New clause 18 ties the review specifically to the security and resilience of network and information systems regulated by the Bill. It asks a simple question: does the Computer Misuse Act 1990 help or hinder the resilience of our critical infrastructure? For that reason, I wish to seek a vote on new clause 18.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The thresholds have been set out in the new clause. Australia already provides support for small businesses during and after attacks. The clause would simply bring the UK up to speed with international partners, ensuring our businesses are not at a competitive disadvantage on cyber-security support. If Australia can support its SMEs, why can we not? It is only fair that if we are increasing the regulatory burden, the Government provide the support required to navigate it. I will press the new clause to a vote.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to new clauses 13 and 15, standing in my name. New clause 13 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within 12 months, a comprehensive statement on how the Government intend to manage the risks of foreign interference in our critical systems. It calls for steps to be taken to assess the need for a digital sovereignty strategy. We need to know not just how we will fight cyber-threats but whose technology we will rely on to do it. The new clause would force the Government to set out a plan to explicitly assess risks in hardware, software and supply chains. We should ask what is being done to support UK tech and home-grown cyber-security. We cannot claim to be serious about national resilience if the very infrastructure protecting our critical systems is outsourced abroad to vendors we cannot fully trust. New clause 13 would require the Government to explain how they intend to mitigate the risks associated with reliance on foreign technologies. It would also require the Government to assess the need to encourage and support the use of domestic technologies. That would turn cyber-security into an engine for growth. By identifying high-risk foreign vendors, and pivoting to trusted, home-grown alternatives, we could improve our security and create high-skilled jobs here in the UK. For those reasons, I will press new clause 13 to a vote. I now turn to new clause 15. How can we be serious about national resilience when the very infrastructure protecting our critical systems could be entirely outsourced abroad? New clause 15 would ensure transparency and force the Government to look at the threat of foreign ownership. The threat to British democracy from foreign interference is clear and present. From Russian money flooding into politics, and Chinese surveillance and intimidation, to foreign oligarchs buying influence, our democratic institutions are under sustained attack. The previous Conservative Government failed the UK. They failed to take the threat posed by Russia seriously, they weakened the Electoral Commission and they allowed foreign money to distort our politics. They withdrew from international commitments at precisely the wrong moment. This Government have made some welcome moves, but they do not go far enough. Over the last few years, we have seen a rise in cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure. Across the country, schools have closed, airports have been shut, local councils have been hacked and retail stores have been crippled. New clause 15 would require the Government to review the security risks posed by critical suppliers and essential service providers, and to flag which of those are linked to foreign states. It would also push the Government to evaluate whether current powers are sufficient to address these threats. I intend to push new clause 15 to a vote.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to establish a support service dedicated to improving the resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises and, crucially, to provide them with assistance when the worst happens. SMEs are the backbone of our economy. Their growth and continue operation are essential to a strong economy. We heard evidence that even large corporations find it hard to justify the investment in cyber-security and resilience when faced with competing priorities and investment needs. It forms the rationale of the Bill putting this need on a statutory footing, but small and medium-sized businesses undoubtedly find it even harder to make the investments required in cyber-security. I know from having worked in SMEs at the start of my career that companies experience growing pains and need support in navigating complex statutory requirements. It is not just support for SMEs before an attack takes place that the clause would provide for, but also after. For SMEs, a cyber-attack is not just a disruption; it can be an existential threat to their existence. The clause would ensure that when an SME is hit, they have access to the support they need.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Menopause Diagnosis: London · Hansard source

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  Hormone replacement therapy is a godsend for many women experiencing menopause, but there is a dire shortage of HRT implants. These are unlicensed medicines, but they are absolutely essential for treatment, particularly for women for whom other treatments do not work. There are women in my constituency who are suffering very badly with poor mental and physical health impacts as a result. I have submitted a number of written questions and received responses from Ministers, in particular the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed). We really want to know when action will be taken on this, and when we can get the implants that these women so desperately need.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Local Transport: Planning Developments · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) for securing the debate. I have listened with great interest to many of the speeches given today, including from my near neighbours. It has been interesting to hear a run through of their constituencies and I will give a bit of a run through of some of the issues in my constituency as well. Many Members have spoken to the issues of bolt-on developments and so-called ribbon developments where we get additional speculative developments extending villages and towns beyond their infrastructure capacity. That is true for a village in my constituency called Chalgrove, which is at risk of becoming one of the longest villages in the country. If the developers get their way, it will eventually look a bit more like Chile when we look at it on the map. Developers are seeking to take advantage of the B480 without delivering any infrastructure alongside it. As a councillor, I have fought against developments that seek to do that. I also want to speak to badly planned development in particular. That is nowhere more true than in Chalgrove, which has an airfield that was sold by the Ministry of Defence back in, I think, 2001 to Homes England. Chalgrove is in the middle of nowhere and I do it no disservice by saying so—it is a lovely village in a rural setting. It has no mass transit system; there is no railway and there is a very limited bus service. It is a car-dependent community and there is no getting away from that; it is purely the geography of where it is. Yet Chalgrove has been assigned 3,500 new homes in the local plan that was forced through by the former Conservative Government and, indeed, by a Member who no longer sits on the Conservative Benches but sits with Reform UK. Residents are wholly opposed to that, as am I, because it requires massive road building to facilitate it. It requires bypasses at the villages of Chiselhampton, Stadhampton and Cuxham, even though Homes England is trying to row back from that. We will also get bottlenecks at Little Milton as residents try to move from that car-dependent, dormitory town to the M40 and onwards to London, Oxford or beyond for work. We need to move beyond car-dependent communities for the reasons that many, including my hon. Friends, have outlined. Elsewhere in my constituency, bypasses—so-called edge roads—are still required to facilitate developments, and I have been supportive of the Watlington relief road. That is an example of a community that has embraced development. It actively sought the development of new homes that it did not have to take on in the local plan. It put them into its neighbourhood plan so that it could get a relief road, because the historical nature of the town means it has a choke point that was previously used only by horse and cart, but is now used as the main through route to the M40. It has therefore been incredibly frustrating to see homes being built ahead of the relief road, to the point where we are now seeing intense difficulties navigating the town. Even where we have communities that embrace development, we are betraying them by not delivering the infrastructure alongside it. I want to see more investment in infrastructure for those communities that get new developments.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Local Transport: Planning Developments · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to point out that developers have armies of lawyers, and one of the most frustrating things for local authorities is when they come back again and again. Even when planning authorities reject an application, developers will take it to appeal, and even if the appeal is rejected, they will wait a short period and then come back again. They only have to win once, which is incredibly frustrating for the communities that face the threat.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  What the hon. Member has just said suggests that she might actually support the Liberal Democrat policy of age-rating social media platforms. That might lead to a new ecosystem of genuinely peer-to-peer, lower-harm products, which would be a good thing for young people.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  When I was growing up, social media was genuinely social—we would spend our time on it speaking to our peers and classmates. I remember MSN Messenger and Facebook when it first arrived. Social media has evolved to become this addictive, content-driven place where we are fed information. Does the hon. Member think we should perhaps differentiate between social media platforms that are genuinely for peer-to-peer interaction and help young people, and those that just feed content to them?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  I recognise the work that the hon. Lady has done on titles and holding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to account. She makes a good point about making sure that we do not have a court of public opinion, but I would like to give my thanks to the many media outlets—it does not matter which one you read or what its political slant—that have done tremendous work, trawling through hundreds of thousands of documents. Does she agree that we owe them a debt of gratitude for bringing to light many of the awful things that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is alleged to have been associated with?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is speaking to the fact that the title of prince has protected Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from greater scrutiny and inspection of his activities. What should we do to ensure that other titles, whether that is Prime Minister, Secretary of State or royal titles, do not protect powerful individuals?

• 12 Feb 2026 · Healthy Relationships · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) for securing this debate. I know from the work we do together on the all-party parliamentary group on babies that she is a powerful advocate for babies in particular, and I am grateful for her input to the APPG for fatherhood, which I chair. I want to use my time to zoom in on three issues that put stress and strain on relationships that are otherwise very healthy: parenthood, in particular the role of the father; caring for a child with SEND needs; and couples experiencing challenges with fertility. First, on parenthood, there is no doubt that sleepless nights and the massive demand on time, energy and the emotional resilience that is required to raise a child leaves relationships on the back foot. All that is normal, of course, I am told, but the demands of modern life —the rising costs of living, the crippling costs of nursery and the need for couples to maintain two full-time jobs just to stay afloat—pile on the pressure and increase the scope for conflict. Couples can experience a loss of connection, becoming little more than roommates, and passing ships in the night. One thing that would help is better parental leave and pay. The UK paternity offer is the lowest in Europe. Two weeks is not enough. The lack of leave paid at a liveable level leaves men and birthing partners less connected to their child and less able to make an equal contribution to parenting. That can drive resentment and disconnection in relationships, bake in traditional gender roles from the start, and leave children with lower-quality relationships with their fathers. Research shows that fathers who take extended leave are more involved in their children’s lives long term, and that higher involvement improves cognitive and emotional outcomes for children. Higher paternal affection has been identified as the single biggest determinant from boyhood in preventing violence against women and girls. Paternity leave should increase to at least six weeks at 90% of earnings, and eligibility should be extended to self-employed parents. I welcome the parental leave and pay review; however, I am concerned by the pace at which it is moving. Families have already struggled so long under the existing offer, and they do not have time to wait further for the Government’s extended deliberation. I have already pressed the Minister for Employment Rights, the hon. Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), on the speed of the review, and will continue to do so. On caring for a child with SEND needs, I am sure that other Members will be familiar with the SEND crisis in their constituencies. The Government are not providing upper-tier authorities with enough funding for SEND care. In Oxfordshire, there is a lack of specialist places in schools, and mainstream schools are struggling to cope. The funding attached to education, health and care plans does not cover the cost of SEND provision, including teaching support. Small schools in rural areas are least able to cover the cost from elsewhere in their budgets. The whole system treats children as a burden to be managed and minimised. Parents must therefore fight with the system, often to tribunal, to get the support they need. Understandably, that places an immense burden on the parents’ relationship, which leads to higher rates of separation among parents with SEND children. Finally, let me turn to the strain on relationships caused by fertility issues. Under the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West integrated care board, in vitro fertilisation treatment is restricted to women under 35, and only one cycle of treatment is provided. Guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommend that women under 40 should be offered at least three cycles. Given that the average age at which a woman will begin IVF is 35, the current offer in my area is unreflective of demographic and scientific evidence. The ICB says that its decision is based on the unaffordability of providing IVF to patients over 35, but in what other area of health do we allow ICBs simply to ignore NICE guidelines because of affordability? The cost of going private places additional strain on relationships at a time when physical, mental and emotional burdens are high. It is often cited that at least 50% of marriages end in divorce, but are we setting up couples to succeed when they start families? Starting a family and raising a child is not for everyone, but it is in everyone’s interest to support those who want to do so. We should not place all the burden on individual couples to maintain healthy relationships when so many structural barriers lie in their way. Unhealthy relationships rarely exist in isolation. If we are serious about prevention, rather than simply picking up the pieces we must look honestly at the structural pressures and strains that families face, long before crisis ever surfaces. The relationships I really admire are those that endure through hardship by focusing on mutual support, empathy and understanding, but let us, in this place, give them a helping hand. I have spoken about what can be done to help couples to stay together, but ending unhealthy relationships that have broken down is just as important. The state has a role here, too, where marriage, property and children are involved. I hope the Minister will consider improvements in the areas I have outlined.

• 12 Feb 2026 · Pharmacy First: Withholding Payments · Hansard source

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  Last year, I visited a pharmacy in Benson in my constituency, where Vik Patel described to me how the pharmacy’s being rural disadvantages it in the Pharmacy First scheme. His pharmacy never meets the threshold to qualify for payment, and that threshold has gone up over and over again, from five patients a month in April last year to 30 in March 2025, so the pharmacy is effectively delivering a service for free. Vik is a lovely chap, and he is happy to do that, but it is not a sustainable business model. What will the Minister do to help rural pharmacies like mine in Benson?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  There are many questions on the behaviour of Mandelson that are unanswered and that need to be answered, but I welcome that the Government have promised to remove his peerage. That is right. However, does the hon. Gentleman agree that a Bill should also come before this House to remove Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of succession?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I shall be brief. One of the things we heard this morning is that, by its very nature, companies who require and also supply these kinds of digital services are not geographically bound. They are cross-border. How do you, as regulators in the UK, manage and understand the need to regulate companies that operate cross-border? Ian Hulme: Certainly from an ICO perspective, many IDSPs that we currently regulate are operating across boundaries. From our perspective, the focus is on the outcome. If they have operations in other jurisdictions that are providing services into the UK, our focus is on the outcome and getting to understand the UK side of things more than anything else. Natalie Black: This is a challenge for us every day. Many of the companies that we regulate have a footprint in the UK or multiple footprints around the world. The issue is in making sure that the UK requirements are as clear as possible to give them no excuse to argue exceptionalism. That is why we really welcome the opportunity to get into the detail through secondary legislation, which will be very important in holding all the companies to account that we think need to be held to account.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I have two questions: one to Jill and one to Dr Mehta. First, what is your view, Jill, on the relative strength of this legislation, compared to what is coming forward in the EU? Do you think that the fact that we are not following the EU will make it harder for your members to interact and trade with individuals and companies in Europe? Secondly, Dr Mehta, you spoke earlier about what is not in scope in this legislation. I am particularly interested in the fact that local government is not included in it, because it has a critical role in electoral services and in local and national democracy. What do you think are the threats from leaving local government out of scope? Jill Broom: I think that generally, our members would always call for alignment, where possible, in any kind of legislation that spans the geographies. But we understand that the Bill focuses on a particular sector—the critical national infrastructure in the UK—and we welcome the intent of it. Dr Sanjana Mehta: On sectoral scope, with the way that the Bill is currently drafted, there is obviously flexibility to introduce new sectors, and to bring in more provisions and guidance through secondary legislation and additional guidance. That being said, our recommendation is certainly to expand the sectoral scope at this stage by bringing in public administration. There are a number of key reasons for that. First, public administration needs to be role model of good cyber-security to the rest of the economy. I think it was the 2025 state of digital government review that pointed out that the risk of cyber-attacks on Government is critical. You mentioned local government, but there are also central Government Departments that hold and process vast amounts of personal and sensitive information; I think, for example, DWP administered £288 billion of benefits over the past year. More than 23 million people claimed some sort of benefits from DWP and, in responding to those claims, DWP must have processed huge amounts of very sensitive medical and financial information on individuals. We think it is an omission to leave it out, and we recommend that the Government consider bringing it into scope.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I want to ask about some of the points made by Matt and Ian about the complexity of the businesses that you are part of. Ultimately, who is responsible for understanding that? In this House and in Parliament, we are responsible for looking at UK security, and we can only have control over that. Do you think it is the responsibility of Government and Parliament to look at and understand how complex your businesses are, or is it the responsibility of those businesses to comply with the legislation of the countries that they want to operate in? Dr Ian Levy: In October 2025, we had an incident that had quite a widespread impact. We have engaged with regulators around the world, including multiple regulators in the UK, to explain what happened. We published, quite transparently, what had happened during the incident and afterwards. Explaining how the part of the organisation that had built that particular system works is very time-consuming. It is also almost certainly out of date by the time we have finished. In that particular case, it was something called a “race condition”, which is a well understood computer-science hard problem. No amount of regulation or legislation would have made a difference, because it was a race condition, and they are incredibly hard to find in software. I think that regulating outcomes is the right answer, and making sure that we are doing due diligence, and that our view of appropriate risk management is broadly the same as yours, without making us a national security entity. That is the challenge. How we run our business is not really relevant; it is the outcomes that matter. Matt Houlihan: It is increasingly important that businesses, parliamentarians and Government officials work together on these issues. As we said earlier, the pace of change in terms of the technology, and indeed the business environment—at both the UK and global levels—is moving very quickly. Having that exchange of information will be important. It is important—from an international business point of view—that regulation is as aligned as is practicable with the other jurisdictions that a lot of the companies here will be working in. That will not only benefit companies that are headquartered elsewhere and operate in the UK; it will benefit UK-headquartered companies that are looking to expand abroad. It must also be proportionate and targeted. I think that at the nub of your question, there is clearly a need, going forward, for strong co-operation and the sharing of expertise and experiences.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I want to take a step back and ask a broader question about why this legislation is necessary. I think we agree that it is, but why are companies not already adhering to very high cyber-security standards? Surely it is in their commercial interests to do so; last year we saw the massive impact on JLR, M&S and the Co-op of failing to do so. Why might the state need to mandate companies to be cyber-secure and make them cyber-secure? Jen Ellis: You have covered a lot of territory there; I will try to break it down. If you look at the attacks last year, all the companies you mentioned were investing in cyber-security. There is a difficulty here, because there is no such thing as being bullet-proof or secure. You are always trying to raise the barriers as high as you can and make it harder for attackers to be successful. The three attacks you mentioned were highly targeted attacks. The example of Volt Typhoon in the US was also highly targeted. These are attackers who are highly motivated to go after specific entities and who will keep going until they get somewhere. It is really hard to defend against stuff like that. What you are trying to do is remove the chances of all the opportunistic stuff happening. So, first, we are not going to become secure as such, but we are trying to minimise the risk as much as possible. Secondly, it is really complex to do it; we saw last year the examples of companies that, even though they had invested, still missed some things. Even in the discussions that they had had around cyber-insurance, they had massively underestimated the cost of the level of disruption that they experienced. Part of it is that we are still trying to figure out how things will happen, what the impacts will be and what that will look like in the long term. There is also a long tail of companies that are not investing, or not investing enough. Hopefully, this legislation will help with that, but more importantly, you want to see regulators engaging on the issue, talking to the entities they cover and going on a journey with them to understand what the risks are and where they need to get to. If you are talking about critical providers and essential services, it is really hard for an organisation—in its own mind or in being answerable to its board or investors—to justify spend on cyber-security. If you are a hospital saying that you are putting money towards security programmes rather than beds or diagnostics, that is an incredibly difficult conversation to have. One of the good things about CSRB, hopefully, is that it will legitimise choices and conversations in which people say, “Investing time and resources into cyber-security is investing time and resources into providing a critical, essential service, and it is okay to make those pay-off choices—they have to be made.” Part of it is that when you are running an organisation, it is so hard to think about all the different elements. The problem with cyber-security—we need to be clear about this—is that with a lot of things that we ask organisations to do, you say, “You have to make this investment to get to this point,” and then you move on. So they might take a loan, the Government might help them in some way, or they might deprioritise other spending for a set period so that they can go and invest in something, get up to date on something or build out something; then they are done, and they can move back to a normal operating state. Security is not that. It is expensive, complex and multifaceted. We are asking organisations of all sizes in the UK, many of which are not large, to invest in perpetuity. We are asking them to increase investment over time and build maturity. That is not a small ask, so we need to understand that there are very reasonable dynamics at play here that mean that we are not where we need to be. At the same time, we need a lot more urgency and focus. It is really important to get the regulators engaged; get them to prioritise this; have them work with their sectors, bring their sectors along and build that maturity; and legitimise the investment of time and resources for critical infrastructure.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  A constituent of mine is studying medicine at Queen Mary University of London but at a campus in Malta. Students at the Malta campus complete the same General Medical Council-approved curriculum, assessments and licensed exams as London-based students, and graduates hold a UK primary qualification. He was given a formal guarantee that he would be at no disadvantage if he chose to study at the Malta campus. Can the Secretary of State reassure me that graduates like my constituent will be prioritised on the NHS foundation medical training programme?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Business Rates · Hansard source

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  When it comes to business rates, the Government have delivered a masterclass in giving with one hand and taking with the other, leaving pubs and hospitality businesses worse off, but businesses cannot be fooled. They are on top of their numbers, even if the Government are not. Will the Government consider again the Liberal Democrat proposal for an emergency 5% cut in VAT for hospitality, and can he give an answer that does not resort to political point scoring?

• 21 Jan 2026 · UK Wine Industry · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member join me in welcoming Hendred Vineyard to Westminster today, which has been exhibiting the best it has to offer at the “Taste of Oxfordshire” event? Does he agree that English sparkling wine is now better than champagne? Will he encourage MPs to purchase English sparkling wine rather than champagne?