Gareth Snell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Feb 2026 · Draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  The explanatory notes suggest that the increases are linked in part to the consumer prices index rate of 3.5%, plus a 6.5% tariff to compensate for other areas. But according to the figures in the statutory instrument, the range for some increases is as low as 1%; for others, it is 25%. Can the Minister set out why there is such variation in the percentage increase, and why there is a deviation from the explanatory notes, and the CPI 3.5% plus 6.5%, in the order?

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

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  I agree with the hon. Lady on this point. The other problem is that the motion caps the amount of debate at four hours—two hours for Second Reading, and then two hours for Committee and Third Reading. This will presumably have to be a meaty, multi-clause Bill to deal with an issue as complex as internet governance regulation, and it will be unamendable by this place because of the timescales available. It will not have the line-by-line scrutiny that would normally happen in Committee, and most of the amendments that get tabled will fall because there will not be time for Members to propose them. This is not a solution that brings consensus; this is the Lib Dems railroading through policies on a really complex issue that they cannot get through in conventional manners.

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

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  I thank the shadow Minister for giving way again; she is being very generous. I confess that I have not made my mind up on this. Let us suppose that there was a blanket ban preventing anyone under 16 from accessing material of this kind. How does the Minister envisage that being enforced? Will enforcement sit with the parents ultimately, and if they are not able to carry out that enforcement, what will be their criminal liability? There are genuine challenges when it comes to what children can access, and who is made ultimately responsible for enforcing a simple approach that could be quite complex to implement.

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

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  I agree with my hon. Friend; however, I would not say that it is undemocratic. I will be clear: I do not like the principles of Opposition parties taking over the Order Paper. I did not like it or vote for it when my party tried to do it when we were in opposition during the Brexit years, so I will not support it now. I will say that the next time a Minister stands up and says that we are moving at pace, I might pull my hair out—or what is left of it. What we need are some actual timescales for when things will happen. Otherwise, we will find ourselves talking in circles. Today, we have been able to establish the core principles, which we would agree on. That is a good thing. I hope that when the Minister winds up, he can give a little flavour as to when the consultation will start and how we can all get involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) and I will be doing events across our two constituencies with our colleges. That way, we can try and make sure that those views are harvested and fed in, and that a complex and nuanced issue gets the hearing it deserves so that we get the legislation right first time.

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

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  I am sympathetic to all the hon. Lady’s arguments. However, it appears that we are about to have a Second Reading debate on an as yet unpublished Bill, when the motion on the Order Paper is about whether we have a day for that Second Reading debate. I am conscious, because I have been to the Vote Office, that the Bill is not available yet. What are we debating this afternoon? If we were to vote with the hon. Lady this evening, what Bill would we be asked to look at on that future day?

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

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  I will constrain my comments to three themes, and I want to start with policy. This has been a very interesting and wide-ranging debate. We have heard from many speakers across the House who have articulated the heartfelt and thoughtful concerns that all of us have about the pervasive way in which social media can influence our children, our friends, our families and young people in our society. I am the parent of a 15-year-old. I know what that battle is like—hearing the chirp of Snapchat going off every few seconds, it sounds like, some weekends, as my daughter and her friends communicate in the modern way, and trying to understand what she is doing on Roblox, the games she is playing, who she might be interacting with and the other platforms that, frankly, are alien to me, as someone who is past the age when that stuff makes much sense or is of interest. The simple answer is to say, “We should ban it all—just lock them all away until they’re 16, and it will all be fine.” I worry about my daughter walking down the street—I worry about who she is going to meet when she is walking to school and her interactions in the physical world—but simply saying, “Right, you’re staying in your bedroom until you’re 35”, which we discuss on occasion, is not a solution to those real-world problems. Part of it is about how we help young people to understand the misinformation and disinformation that they are coming across, and it is also about the way in which we regulate the content that platforms share. The part that has been missed today, in the many wonderful contributions from Members across the House, is that this is about not just the platforms that share the content but the creators who make that content in the first place—the people who go online to sow the seeds of hate and division: the homophobic content, the Islamophobic content, the antisemitic content that all too often is passed off as criticism of the Israeli Government, and the many far-right commentators in this country who put out toxic masculine culture commentary as though it is a reasoned point of debate. I understand what Conservative Members say about free speech, but we have always been a country and a society where it is not consequence-free speech—there are consequences to the things we say and the actions we take, and that is how we come to understand what the social norms are. We seem to have abdicated our responsibility for that in the online world. I turn to my second point. The 15-year-old I mentioned in an intervention earlier was, in fact, my daughter, who has now given me permission to out her in that sense. The facilities that I enjoyed when I was in my teens simply do not exist any more. My daughter’s world is as much her online friends and sphere of activity as it is the physical world in which we live. Disconnecting people from that because we think it is unsafe does a disservice to them. I am also slightly worried about the impact of the fact that we are soon to legislate, I understand and hope, on giving 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote—a policy that I think will mainly get cross-party support. I like to think that the political literature that I push through letterboxes in my constituency is of such compelling interest that every young person will snatch it from the letterbox, read it and think, “That is why I am going to vote for Gareth at the next election.” I am sure that the Liberal Democrats’ Focus leaflets have the same impact on young people in their constituencies. The reality is, however, that young people do not read the direct mail that we send out. They do not read our leaflets, or at least not as much as they should. Many young people derive their information, news and views from social media. If we say, “You know what? We are going to cut it off”, where will we force those young people to go?

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

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady is making excellent points on the substance, but they bear no resemblance to the motion on the Order Paper. Are you able to give me guidance on what is up for debate this afternoon? Can the hon. Lady point me to where what she is debating sits in the motion?

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

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  I do not wish to make this a procedural debate, but the hon. Lady presented a Bill earlier for First Reading. We have been asked to consider that Bill for Second Reading on a future date. That Bill is not available. Although I absolutely respect her approach for a cross-party consensus to design the Bill, as I understand it the Bill is already written and we are being asked to give over Government time for that to be debated on Second Reading. Again, what are we debating today if the Bill is not available but has been written and we will not have a Second Reading debate until sometime in March?

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

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  rose—

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

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  I have listened to what the hon. Lady has said, but last week I talked to a 15-year-old, who said to me, “We have no youth clubs. We go on the street, and I don’t feel safe and I get told I’m a nuisance. So I come home, and I interact with my friends online. Now I’m told I can’t do that.” I am not sure what the right answer is, and I sometimes think that not knowing the answer is as good as having absolute certainty all the time about everything. What would she say to that 15-year-old about the outcome for her? She is asking what she can do and how can she stay in touch with her friends. We do not have an answer to that yet, so what are the Conservatives offering?

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

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  Absolutely. I understand that my hon. Friend was a teacher in a previous career. When I think of social media, I think of my Twitter account, which has been dormant for years; my Facebook account, which I use for the clips that all of us in this place are obliged to put out and then deal with the comments beneath them; and my WhatsApp, which it seems that every political party has to run with, because without it we would all stop talking to each other. My daughter would think of her Snapchat account. I too now have a Snapchat account with just one friend—her—and we use that to communicate when I am here and she is at home. It means that I get voice notes and little videos from her, and it is how we keep our weekend conversations going during the week. We must ask ourselves where we draw the line. Members have mentioned access to YouTube. My daughter will freely use YouTube to help her with her homework. She goes to an all-iPad school, so much of the homework is set on iPads. Apparently the subject of screentime will form part of the consultation, and that should be genuinely considered. Will young people be told, “You cannot use your phone—it is the worst possible thing to have—but here is an iPad to look at for six hours a day, and if you get stuck on question 6, go to YouTube video 4 and follow the methodology”? On one hand we are sending one message, and on the other is something that is inconsistent with that approach. Let us be honest: the first job that all the children and young people we are talking about will have is going to be based on the use of some form of AI assistance, such as Copilot, and will depend almost entirely on the use of technology. We are going to have to think about how we integrate that sort of future-proofing into whatever regulation we produce. My final point is about procedure. I am very sorry to return to that subject, because this has been an excellent debate. I went to the Public Bill Office—there is no Bill that is referenced in the motion. It is completely blank. I understand that the Liberal Democrats intend, if the motion is passed, to engage in a consensus-based process of writing a Bill in the next two weeks that we can debate and pass in one day. It is clear from what we have heard today—from the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers), who spoke so eloquently about the perils of eating disorders, from the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who talked about the ability to sell drugs online, and from those on the Government Benches, including my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), who talked about the way in which young people interact—that, as I said earlier, this will be a complex piece of legislation. The idea that we can complete a Second Reading debate in two hours and the full Committee and Third Reading stages in two hours, on a single day, which will include the discussion of amendments, is simply impractical. I genuinely hope that the content of today’s debate will lead to better legislation, as part of the national consultation that the Ministers are leading, but I think that doing this in such a truncated way, through a single motion and on a single day, will lead to bad legislation.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  I just wanted to say this before the right hon. Gentleman got into his speech. In 2010 the number of police officers in Staffordshire was about 1,000, and it only returned to that level this year. We have never had a police and crime commissioner who was not a Conservative, and we have only ever had a Conservative council and a Conservative Government during that period. Is the right hon. Gentleman able to tell me whom I should hold accountable for that decimation of neighbourhood policing under the last Government?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  One of the challenges that we have always had in Staffordshire is that, because of a manufacturing site in Tamworth and because of the politics of Stoke-on-Trent, we have often had to deal with complex national issues around far-right activism and Hizb ut-Tahrir activism. With the increases for police forces, and given their national responsibilities, how will the Minister ensure that the local specialisms that we have built up in Staffordshire will continue to be deployable there? Sometimes, our neighbourhood policing is the first barrier—the first way of dealing with problems that can escalate further down the line. How will that knowledge transfer carry on?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 9 Feb 2026 · UK-India Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  The UK is the single largest importer of Indian ceramics. The trade deal removes some of the tariffs that we apply to Indian imports. The removal of those tariffs, along with industrial energy pricing in India, means that those imports become incredibly competitive in comparison to our domestic market. In some cases, those imports are well below our own market production point. Bricks are also affected. We are the single largest importer of Indian bricks, yet our own brick kilns stand at two-thirds capacity. Can the Minister set out the protections in this trade deal to ensure that while we get the new markets for our exports, we do not undercut our domestic market with cheaper imports?

• 9 Feb 2026 · UK-India Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 9 Feb 2026 · Jimmy Lai: Prison Sentence · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her answers, but I think it is fair to say that when the sentence was handed down, the CCP baked in that our reaction would be to reiterate calls for Jimmy Lai’s release and put out warm words and demands regarding his wellbeing. Of course, there are now concerns that he may be transferred to a prison inside China, where access to legal representation will be even more difficult. What practical and tangible changes will be made today as a result of this shift in the relationship with China, now that it has sentenced a British citizen to 20 years, and is the Minister able to say a bit about what actions her Department is going to take in the weeks ahead to give practical support to Jimmy Lai, so that we do not have another statement or question in a few weeks’ time lamenting an appeal that was unsuccessful?

• 5 Feb 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My constituency has been well served for 35 years by the West Midlands Air Ambulance Service, but there is now the Stoke Air Ambulance. Yesterday, the fundraising regulator published a damning report about the new boy in town, because, despite raising hundreds of thousands of pounds, it does not have a helicopter, a paramedic, pilots, Care Quality Commission registration, or a launch pad. The West Midlands Ambulance Service has publicly said that it will not task the Stoke service with jobs. The Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry yesterday, but getting to that point was quite difficult. Will the Leader of the House bring forward two debates: one on the powers and resources of the Charity Commission, to make sure that it can tackle these charities; and another to celebrate the good work of the proper charities that look after our constituents across the country?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Draft Energy-Intensive Industry Electricity Support Payments and Levy (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I never miss an opportunity to talk about ceramics. When the hon. Gentleman listed the sectors that the scheme helps, he mentioned ceramics. Given that the supercharger scheme was set up by his Government, he will surely know that it does not cover the ceramics sector: the product standard industrial classification codes that were specifically listed when the scheme was set up excluded ceramics. Can the hon. Gentleman tell me why his Government decided that ceramics were not entitled to the level of support that they put in place for other energy-intensive industries?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Draft Energy-Intensive Industry Electricity Support Payments and Levy (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his engagement on the issue, particularly with the sector in Stoke-on-Trent and around the country. I talk about ceramics quite a lot, because the increasing cost of energy is a real impediment to us. I welcome the scheme, and I welcome the changes that will give greater relief to energy-intensive industries, but we face a perverse situation in which it is funded not by taxpayers’ money, in the traditional sense of the Government handing out a grant, but by a levy on licensed electrical suppliers that is used to compensate other sectors of energy-intensive industry. This is about consumers in one sector paying higher bills to subsidise the cost for others. From a redistributive perspective I can see why that would work, but the wording of the regulations means that the product SIC codes under which a sector or industry can access the supercharger scheme are incredibly narrow: they are restricted to steel, cement and other things that are foundational to successful manufacturing in this country. The perverse thing is that those who are not in the supercharger scheme are paying a slightly higher bill to help those who are in the scheme. Every month, those in energy-intensive industries such as ceramics have bills that are slightly higher than they would otherwise be, to allow other energy-intensive industries to have lower bills. That is an anomaly in the system that I do not think was intentional, but it means that places like Stoke-on-Trent are, essentially, subsidising steel mills in Scunthorpe and cement and brick manufacturers elsewhere. I hope that the Minister will take away the point that extending access to the scheme and lowering the threshold of deductions that can be made would be an incredibly useful and powerful way to demonstrate support for foundational manufacturing sectors such as ceramics, which are key to our national defence, our house building programme and our gift and tableware exports, which provide a balance of trade in favour of the UK because of what we produce and where we send it. That would also support producers of advanced ceramics that are used in telecommunications and bioindustry, the refractories that are needed for glassmaking and ceramic making, and the emerging ceramic technologies that will be used in small modular reactors and for plating turbine blades at Rolls-Royce. There is a whole sector of industry that is not getting enough support. Will the Minister share any thoughts that he may have about extending the scheme? A further point is that to access the support, businesses have to demonstrate through the business level test that 20% of their gross value added is taken up by electricity. Some energy-intensive industries will never reach that, because gas is a component of their energy costs. The ceramics sector, for example, is massively energy-intensive but predominantly gas-based. I suggest to the Minister that he needs to change how he applies the energy cost calculation for GVA to access the scheme so that it includes both gas and electricity, even if the discount comes only on electricity. There are producers in the ceramics sector who would dearly love to move towards the electrification of kilns and other products that are currently gas-powered, but the disproportionately high cost of electricity makes that uneconomical. Even if they did so, they would still fall foul of the business level test, because so much gas would still be needed. They face a double whammy, with a higher electricity bill while they still have to pay for gas. As costs increase in a variety of other areas, not least the raw materials, I know that for some companies in the supercharger scheme the 20% threshold is getting closer and closer to 19%, because it is a proportion of the overall costs. In future amendments, will the Minister consider the 20% threshold to make sure that we do not inadvertently see companies falling out of the supercharger scheme as energy becomes a smaller proportion of their overall cost, not because their electricity costs have come down but because their other costs have grown? I understand that the Government will be using genuine public money to make up the difference between the 60% and the 90% threshold. If it transpires that the demand for the scheme is such that the money available does not cover the additional costs for companies with the new 90% reduction, is there any mechanism to stop electricity suppliers putting up their tariffs on other energy-intensive users to make up the difference between what they are receiving from the Government to compensate their loss and what they are passing on to their customers? We could end up with a perverse system in which a greater discount is being given to some energy-intensive suppliers, while ceramics companies in Stoke-on-Trent are paying an even larger electricity bill. Overall, the intention behind the draft regulations is good, but there are some nuances that we can work on. If the Minister is willing to extend the scheme to include the ceramics sector, there will be a lot of happy potters in Stoke-on-Trent.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  I remember the Humble Addresses that were tabled in this place during the Brexit years. The Minister will know that, in opposition, we never felt the need to put national security or international relations on the face of a motion itself, because that was an implied protection. Can I ask the Minister two things? First, he helpfully said that the ISC will be involved in scrutiny of the process. Does he mean the process by which the Cabinet Secretary looks at documents, or will the ISC itself be able to see documents? Secondly, I think we all understand what the Minister means by “national security”, but could he tell us what he means by “international relations”? It is quite a broad term, so I would welcome some clarity.

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

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

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

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  I am an hon. Friend, not right honourable, though I welcome the promotion. I have listened to this debate from outside the Chamber this afternoon and heard many Conservative Members talk about how the route out of poverty is through work. I absolutely and fundamentally agree with that, so I find it completely incongruous that whenever they have had the opportunity to vote for our make work pay Act, to increase stability in work and create well-paid jobs, they have voted against it. Indeed, only last week, the shadow Secretary of State made an argument for cutting the minimum wage for young people. How does my hon. Friend think that someone can argue, on the one hand, for work as a way out of poverty, but on the other, restrict the opportunities for work, push down pay and reduce the opportunities created for working people?