Gareth Snell MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  My hon. Friend’s point about lost moments of childhood is often missed. It is all well and good to talk about the impact on parents and on the economy, but having grown up in poverty, I remember walking to school with a hole in my shoe, and not being able to ask my grandparents for anything because they could not afford it. I remember feigning not wanting to go on school trips because I knew that they could not afford it. I remember making sure that the holes in my jumper were hidden when I got home because I knew that they could not afford to replace it. Those memories stick with people throughout their lives and continue to have an effect on them once they have grown up. This is not just about the economics of the here and now; it is about the real-life impact on young people today and in the future. I thank my hon. Friend for ensuring that those voices are heard.

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

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  On the point of doing the right thing, the data suggests that in the shadow Minister’s own constituency there are 1,160 children living in a household that does not currently receive universal credit support for the additional children. Some of them will be listening this evening, and some will be teenagers. What would she say to them? Would she tell them that she could do something this evening, but she is choosing not to? What is her justification to those children?

• 2 Feb 2026 · China and Japan · Hansard source

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  Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), the anti-dumping measures that we impose on Chinese goods coming into this country protect hundreds of jobs in Stoke-on-Trent, whether in the ceramic tableware manufacturing sector or in the retreading of tyres at the Michelin factory. Can the Prime Minister give a guarantee that as the economic work with China continues, those measures will not be junked? The anti-dumping measures are not abstract: they protect hundreds of jobs in the part of the country that most needs them.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Local Authority Children’s Services · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I commend the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) for the compassionate way that he spoke, and the dignity that he brought to Sara’s memory. When we have to speak about horrific cases in this place, it can go one of two ways, and I think that he did justice to the young woman today. Stoke-on-Trent city council is often at the top of league tables that councils would wish to be at the bottom of, and at the bottom of league tables that they would wish to be at the top of. That is a structural failing that we have had for many years, and our children’s services are no different. Although they were rated inadequate in 2019, they now require improvement to be good, and that is partly because of the leadership that has been shown since the 2013 local elections. It is normally us and Hartlepool that are No. 1 in terms of the number of children in care as an absolute number, but also per capita—per 10,000. It is a financial drain on our council, which the Minister has been made aware of, not least because I have told him. This year, one in three pounds that the council spends will be spent on children’s services. Compared with our statistical neighbours, 1,086 children in care is a phenomenally large number. It is an anomaly that we cannot get to the bottom of. At this point, I want to commend the work of our chief executive at the council, Jon Rouse, who has worked nationally on these issues and has deployed as many techniques as we can muster to get that number down, but it has remained stubbornly high. It fluctuates around 1,000, but that just means that we are spending millions of pounds on children in care at a time when money is tight. The Government have helped; since the 2023-34 budget—if the Government sign off on this year’s request—the council will have received around £70 million of exceptional financial support to balance the budget, to deal with the overspend driven exclusively by the demand in children’s services. We cannot work out why so many young people are being put into the care system. Our city does have poverty—a lot of places have poverty—and social capital is not high. We are not that dissimilar to our statistical neighbours, and yet our numbers are significant and not coming down at the rate that we want. The Minister is not immune to the challenges that places such as Stoke face. He knows that there have been complex issues with small local authorities in densely populated urban areas where there are underlying socioeconomic factors, but that should not be a reason to accept these high numbers. It is bad for the city, but also for the young people in care; we all know that care-experienced young people tend to have lower social capital and lower opportunities, and their life chances are disproportionately impacted by the fact that they go into care. We need to work out a solution to that. I have raised my asks to the Minister privately, but I want to put them on the record today. Can we look at a rigorous partnership working board for Stoke-on-Trent that brings together Government, local authorities and the expertise we have heard about from Members today, to get to the root cause of the problem in Stoke-on-Trent? I will be taking up the offer from my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) to speak to her officials about how they have made their remarkable progress, because if we can learn from that, we absolutely will. Are the Government willing to look at a rigorous, potentially academic-led investigation into the drivers of social care need in Stoke-on-Trent, so that we can get to the cause, as well as the solution? Can we talk about Ofsted? The city council was doing remarkably well, and then the Ofsted judgment came in and said that we were managing too much risk, so we instantly had to go back to a risk-averse situation that has driven those numbers up. Those are my three asks, and I thank Members for their time and attention.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  On the point that the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness made, the natural extrapolation to what I believe the Conservatives are suggesting is that the way to incentivise that employer would be to allow them to pay less than the minimum wage or indeed cut the minimum wage rate for young people. I would oppose that. Would the Minister?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  The shadow Secretary of State is obviously well known for speaking clearly and candidly, which is refreshing. Can she clearly and candidly answer these questions? Which rights does she think young people should be denied in order to get into work? By how much would she cut the minimum wage to facilitate those young people getting back into work? Unfortunately, she cannot have it both ways. She has just made the point that those rights are hindering business, so what would she do to cut them? Will she make a clear commitment at the Dispatch Box?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  The Federation of Small Businesses will be looking for answers to those policy challenges that it is rightly putting to this place. What would the hon. Member’s answer be? By how much should young people’s pay be reduced in order to strike the balance that so many Opposition Members have talked about? By how much should the minimum wage be reduced for young people so that they can be guaranteed a job?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I want to make a couple of quick remarks, partly in relation to the ceramics industry—I am a one-trick pony at these events. The sector is very grateful that it is not included in CBAM, for some of the reasons that have already been discussed. The current arrangements in the sector are quite challenging. I know the Minister is acutely aware of that, and has been a steadfast ally in some of our work to seek long-term support for a sector that is very difficult to decarbonise—it is incredibly difficult to improve on the technology because of the way in which it is set up—but is also producing things that are integral to the Government’s missions, whether that be house bricks for our house building programme or advanced ceramics to support our defence industry, our growing exports, our pharmaceuticals or the factories that we need, because we cannot make steel in this country without ceramics. Let me put a couple of questions to the Minister. The first is on the allocation of free allowances. I recognise that CBAM will reduce the free allowance allocations that are put to those sectors that will be a part of it. Would it be possible to consider a reallocation of those free allowances to a sector that is not in CBAM and does not necessarily want to be, but for which the decarbonisation programme is most difficult—namely, the ceramics sector? We are still at huge risk of carbon leakage. We work in an unfair market at the moment, not least because of the way in which non-market economy status countries import into this country. The Trade Remedies Authority, which was set up by the previous Government, does not necessarily have the teeth to levy the import tariffs necessary to create a level playing field for consumers. Secondly, where does the Minister see the cap going in future years? I am aware that a consultation was started by, I believe, the right hon. Member for East Surrey when she was the Secretary of State in the last Government, on how we could incentivise decarbonisation through raising taxation on the most polluting sectors. The Minister will be aware that the ceramics sector is desperately trying to do all that it can to reduce its output of greenhouse gases, but that is really difficult when it has to run a kiln at several hundred degrees for many hours to do the bisque and the glaze firing, and run refractories for 12 to 14 hours at 1,500°C. Electrification is not available to many of those businesses at the moment, because the capital to invest in those sorts of kilns is simply not available; the profit margins on their products do not allow for it. Hydrogen is not a technology that is yet proven to be viable because of the chemistry that necessarily takes place inside a kiln. We are wedded to gas for the foreseeable future, and therefore wedded to being one of the country’s last remaining polluting industries. What the sector fears is that, as we move at pace to meet some of the decarbonisation agendas and reduce the overall cap through the emissions trading scheme, that will mean that the free allowances also have to come down, which will push the ceramics sector into having to buy many more free allowances. That cost will then simply be passed on to consumers, or—

• 27 Jan 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I will not, I am afraid. That will not then allow the sector to put in the investment needed to bring down the factories’ outputs through new technology. When the Minister sums up, will he address those two points? The sector—I think I am meeting them later today—will be glad to hear him do so.

• 26 Jan 2026 · NHS Urgent Care: Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  I want briefly to highlight the fact that one of the perverse things in Staffordshire is that my constituency is serviced by the Royal Stoke hospital, as is Stafford. Its headquarters are within the ICB that funds it. Some of the places that the Minister has mentioned this evening include Cannock, Burton and Tamworth. Their hospitals are smaller and are linked to a much larger acute hospital in a trust that is headquartered outside the ICB. That is a perversity for cross-border invoicing, and it sometimes make us wonder what the incentive is for some of the trusts. Could a group of us MPs meet the Minister to discuss that?

• 26 Jan 2026 · NHS Urgent Care: Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  Royal Stoke hospital is in my constituency, and one of the things its staff tell me is that if it were not for the Haywood walk-in unit up in Stoke-on-Trent, Leek Moorland hospital or Stafford MIU, the A&E would simply fall over. Naturally, people in Staffordshire gravitate to the A&E when they want help, and the fact that my hon. Friend’s constituency is without an urgent treatment centre has a ripple effect across the county. Will he join me in asking the Minister to say when she winds up whether she has any data demonstrating the impact that the lack of a facility in Cannock is having on neighbouring hospitals, and therefore on the services that are experienced by my constituents and those in constituencies across the county?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  The litany of failures under the Conservatives of Staffordshire police is too long to mention in the short time that I have for this question. The Home Secretary mentioned local accountability being done through mayors and police and crime boards. Where we will have mayors in areas smaller than those of the likely police forces, can she say more about how she anticipates that accountability working? Can she also say what accountability there will be for local policing areas? In Stoke-on-Trent, we have a really good police service that works well with local partners, but that accountability could be lost if it is moved to big, regional figureheads.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Government Insourcing · Hansard source

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  When the Government finally bring the in-sourcing process to fruition, they will have a lot more purchasing power over the services they buy and the goods they procure. Can the Minister give the House a categorical assurance that every penny of British taxpayers’ money spent using these new powers will be spent with British companies and British industries, so that we are supporting our own British economy?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  I really welcome today’s announcement. Stoke-on-Trent is routinely ranked at No. 1 in the country for fuel poverty. We have old, terraced housing, often with single glazing and small yards, so space for heat pumps and so on is a concern, but I am sure we will work that out. We are very fortunate that Fiona Miller and the Beat the Cold team, who recently met the Minister for energy consumers, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey), do a lot of work on the ground. The Secretary of State says that the plan will be run through local authorities. How can good partnerships in localities already doing the work be involved in the programme? My right hon. Friend also says that he is aware of the challenges that suppliers of the ECO scheme face, having lost contracts. In my constituency, that is lots of jobs that have now been lost. How soon will the information be available to them, so they can start workforce planning for the delivery of the programme and get people back into work delivering the upgrades we need?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Business Rates: Retail, Hospitality and Leisure · Hansard source

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  The Minister says that it is the job of MPs to help publicans and hospitality businesses understand the system. I gently say to him that they do understand it. Their frustration comes not from not understanding the help that is available, but from the system they are working in. Several things can be true at once. It is true that there is a permanently lower rate and that there is a £4 billion package to soften the blow for those with increased business rates, but it is also true that, when that goes away, breweries such as Titanic Brewery in Stoke-on-Trent will have an overall business rates increase of 130%, with some of its venues seeing a 400% increase. Can the Minister set out what specific support they can look forward to in the next three years, or can he give them clarity on what they need to budget for, because as a result of these changes some pubs around the country will close, and we need to avoid that?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Iran: Protests · Hansard source

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  The brutal regime in Iran is well known to be attacking its own people at home, but it also poses one of the largest credible threats to Jewish people here in the UK. As the regime is currently blaming Israelis, Jews and Zionists for being responsible for the protests, will the Minister set out what discussions are happening across Government to ensure that the proxies and agents that we know are in the UK are being monitored, to make sure that the Jewish population of the UK do not feel a backlash as a result of the protests in Iran?

• 19 Jan 2026 · A-level and T-level Enrolments · Hansard source

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  As the Minister will know, the uptake of T-levels is behind where we expected it to be and where many colleges would like it to be. At this point I should declare an interest, as a governor of my local sixth-form college. Given that the Government are still intending to defund BTECs during the current academic year, given that T-levels are not having the uptake that they should have and given that V-levels are not coming on track until 2027, is the Minister confident that every young person will have access to a relevant course this September, and if not, what can he do about it? Will he consider pausing the defunding of BTECs until such time as V-levels come on line?

• 19 Jan 2026 · A-level and T-level Enrolments · Hansard source

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  2. What estimate her Department has made of the number of young people enrolled on A-levels and T-levels in September 2026.

• 15 Jan 2026 · British Manufacturers · Hansard source

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  9. What steps the Commission is taking to increase the proportion of House of Commons purchasing from British manufacturers.

• 15 Jan 2026 · British Manufacturers · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his continued engagement with me on this important matter. The ceramic commemorative tankard on sale in the gift shop over Christmas was marked up as being decorated in Stoke-on-Trent, but what that means is that it was formed and fired overseas, imported into the UK, decorated and then sold. Under the rules of the House, that would be considered a British product, because it is based on where the last substantial transformation took place. May I encourage my hon. Friend to take back to the Commission the view that when we are buying things in this place and we want to label them as British—whether it be the food, the plates, the cutlery or any products we use here—they must be British from start to finish, so that we can showcase the best of British talent?

• 15 Jan 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  May I encourage the Leader of the House, in his roles on the restoration and renewal board and the House of Commons Commission, to ensure that when the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster takes place and there is a multibillion pound investment in the building, every penny and every pound is, wherever possible, put into a British industry, manufacturer, artisan or craftsman, starting with ensuring that we are using Stoke-on-Trent ceramics?

• 15 Jan 2026 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  I agree with the Minister that where we can digitise processes, it can release huge savings to the public purse —he has cited India’s £10 billion a year. The Government are now moving from a mandatory process to a voluntary process on the right to work, and everything was voluntary beforehand. Does the Department have any modelling that it can share—perhaps he can announce it today—on what the voluntary uptake will need to be in order to release the savings he cited against the projected cost of the service that he is putting together? He also says that although there will not be a mandatory element on digital ID for right-to-work checks, there will be a new digital right-to-work check. Can he say more about what that will be? Will that system be developed alongside the digital ID system or after it, once he is aware of the size of the market?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am!

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  He just read my notes!