Gareth Snell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 Oct 2025 · Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy · Hansard source

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  I should draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a governor of a sixth-form college in Stoke-on-Trent and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on sixth form education. The V-levels provide an exciting opportunity for vocational qualifications, and the Secretary of State is right to praise colleges, but she will know that those same colleges are deeply worried about the defunding of BTECs and what that means for student choice in the 2026-27 academic year. Will she give a commitment from the Dispatch Box that BTEC funding will continue until V-levels are in place, and if she cannot, can she explain what young people accessing further education next year will be able to look to before they are in place?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban · Hansard source

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  It was reported over the weekend that, in August, a legal observer to one of the protests was arrested simply for wearing a Star of David because it was considered to be antagonising. Now, with the decision to ban the Maccabi fans from coming to the UK, there is a genuine cumulative effect on what it means for Jewish people in this country, and the effect on the families of Jewish people in this country who watch their friends and family being tortured about whether or not they have a role in this country any more. We should all be significantly aware of that. If this ban is allowed to go ahead, there will be this challenge. The game after the Maccabi game is with the Swiss-based Young Boys, whose fans have been involved in two riots, including hospitalisations. If their away team is not banned, the question should be: what is different between the Maccabi fans and the Young Boys fans, and what is it that we want to talk about?

• 16 Oct 2025 · British-made Ceramics · Hansard source

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  May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your leadership on this? The exquisite Speaker’s House collection that you personally commissioned is made proudly in Stoke-on-Trent by Duchess China. I am sure that the House will be pleased to know that it is in stock, reasonably priced and available in time for Christmas. This place is a great showcase for British talent and skills. Although I accept my hon. Friend’s answer, there is more that we can do. Through him, I encourage the Commission to ensure that whenever a tender is offered for crockery, giftware or tableware in this place, it looks not just at value for money but at the social value of supporting British manufacturers wherever possible.

• 16 Oct 2025 · British-made Ceramics · Hansard source

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  5. What steps the Commission is taking to increase the use of British-made ceramics by the House of Commons.

• 16 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The streets around Birches Head and Sneyd Green have become an impenetrable labyrinth of road closures, diversions and blockades while Severn Trent Water digs up the roads to replace important infrastructure, causing great disruption to local people. The New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 and the Traffic Management Act 2004 should give local authorities the ability to co-ordinate some of those works, but in this case it simply is not happening, and those Acts now seem deficient in doing what they are meant to do. Could the Leader of the House arrange for either a statement or a debate in Government time on how we can ensure the co-ordination of those works to reduce the impact on local people?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 · Hansard source

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  8. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Net Zero: Impact on Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Minister on his well-deserved elevation to the Front Bench. He has worked quite hard with the ceramic sector on this issue. Energy-intensive industries, such as ceramics, are at the mercy of an international gas market over which very few countries have direct control, but one of the things that could help is looking at electricity costs. May I therefore encourage the Minister, in his new role, to consider expanding eligibility for the supercharger scheme so that energy-intensive industries, such as ceramics, can benefit from the support available until the supercharger scheme comes online in 2027?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Net Zero: Impact on Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  8. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his Department’s net zero policies on the manufacturing industry.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister is reading out a series of crimes that are reprehensible, and no one in this House would want to see the individuals who commit such crimes having anything but the book thrown at them. In the spirit and tone in which he has read that list out, his Government oversaw a 2.6% charge rate for people who were arrested for rape. Does he want to say anything to the House about that particular damning figure? There are people today who have not been let out of prison early, because they never even got there in the first place. What does he say to that?

• 16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I am enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s one-man show on why he should be leader of the Conservative party. He will get no argument from me on the fact that we need to reduce the number of foreign national offenders in our prisons—I agree that that is what we do need to do, as does my party. However, between 2019 and 2024 under his Government, the numbers increased by 12%. He knows that it is a difficult thing to achieve; he knows there is no simple answer, because if there was, his party would have done it when it was in government. Rather than offering simple magic-wand solutions, what is he actually suggesting that we do to deliver a reduction? If he knows the answer, why did he not do it when he was in government?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a member of Unison and the GMB, and during the election I received financial support from trade unions. One thing I found when I was a trade union official was that it was not necessarily people who were not confident in asserting their own rights. A number of workers simply did not know what their rights were. Oddly enough, employers were not running around handing out little laminated cards saying, “Here are all the rights you can ask me for.” If employers are not made to tell them their rights, how else are employees meant to find out?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes good points in some parts of her speech, but not in others. The point of a trade union representative—or any representative who goes with an individual to a disciplinary process—is not to advise on the particulars of the worker’s skillset, but to ensure that processes are followed and the worker’s rights are protected. I fully understand what she says about accountancy, but are there people in her professional organisation who can give her employment rights advice? Disciplinaries relate to employees’ rights, not their professional skillsets.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Well, that wouldn’t be the Tory party, would it, Madam Deputy Speaker? What the shadow Secretary of State seems not to understand is that workers cannot turn up to a trade union and go, “I’ve got a problem. Can I join and get representation, please?”. Almost every union in this country requires a qualifying period to get the representation he talks about—the idea that this is a closed shop is just nonsense.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees that when Conservative Members oppose day one rights, they are not really worried about the day on which the rights start; they are actually opposed to the rights. That is why many of them cannot muster an argument that is about more than, as he says, spreadsheet efficiency.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Housing: North Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I commend to the Minister the draft local plan in Stoke-on-Trent, which is very bold. It recognises that there is an acute waiting list for housing in Stoke-on-Trent, and that we need to build the houses that we need for local people, so that generations of families can live there. The council is taking some tough decisions and building on pieces of land that residents would not ordinarily want built on, but that is one of the trade-offs for having a growing city. The Minister and I spoke about an urban development corporation covering Hanley, in Stoke-on-Trent, to allow land assembly in order to bring derelict brownfield sites back into use and build the homes that we need. Is that a conversation that we can pick up again? The opportunity is there with the local plan, but it just might need a shove from the centre to help get it over the line.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Housing: North Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 9 Sept 2025 · Housing: North Staffordshire · Hansard source

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  While the Minister is talking about green-belt land, I want to talk about the Stoke-on-Trent local plan. Berryhill Fields in my constituency has been given a reprieve from previous Conservative plans to build. Other green spaces in Stoke-on-Trent could be protected if there was a way of passporting the Homes England compulsory purchase powers to local authorities so that they could do land assembly in built-up urban areas where landowners who have no interest in building houses in the city are sitting on great swathes of land, which are just causing nuisance and antisocial behaviour. That would help with housebuilding, but also with urban and economic regeneration. If the Minister looked at that, Stoke-on-Trent would probably be up for being a pilot area and seeing what could be done.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Accessibility of Railway Stations: Dulwich and West Norwood · Hansard source

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  If one of my hon. Friend’s constituents in Dulwich or West Norwood were to get a train to my constituency in Longton—there is a tenuous connection—they would also find that station to be entirely inaccessible. Unlike her case, funding was allocated to Longton train station through the transforming cities fund, but the local authority then decided to reallocate that funding to block paving outside one of the town halls for public realm improvements. Perhaps when she is successful in getting the funding that her station deserves, she will support a campaign to ringfence that funding and protect it so that it cannot be siphoned off for other local projects that often do not support the accessibility for which the funding was designed.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Accessibility of Railway Stations: Dulwich and West Norwood · Hansard source

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  While the Minister has his diary out, I wonder whether he could facilitate a similar meeting for me with the Rail Minister regarding Longton train station.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My constituents—like yours, I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker—want to have ready access to cash and banking facilities, but when the Lloyds bank in Stoke town closes its doors later this year, the town will have no banking facilities. The Link assessment has determined that the three sub-post offices just under a mile from the town centre are sufficient to provide services. May we have a debate in Government time, or a statement from the relevant Minister, on the criteria for access to banking hubs so that, as the Government roll out more, we can ensure that they hit urban communities as well as rural ones?

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the shadow Minister for giving way to me for a third time. I presume what he is suggesting is more about the title and the style than about a seat in the legislature. He will know that under the 2011 royal warrant that granted the justices of the Supreme Court the style and title of Lord, that did not come with any connection whatsoever to the legislature. So there is a way of doing what he suggests that does not require the Lords amendment: it can be done via royal warrant through an Order in Council.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I draw attention to my interest on two fronts, in that my wife is a life peer in the House of Lords and a salaried Minister.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to intervene again, but this is an important point. Since the general election, there have been 21 nominees to the other place. That would have counted for half the entire hereditary peerage group of the Conservative party, had the Leader of the Opposition taken the opportunity to promote them to life peerages. By not doing so, the Conservatives have chosen to keep those hereditary peers out.