Gideon Amos MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 19 Dec 2024 · Electronic Waste · Hansard source

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  Mr Speaker, I wish you and all a merry Christmas. We know that electronic and similar goods in landfill can leach into our waterways and affect water quality. Will Ministers reintroduce water restoration funding, as part of the package of measures they were talking about earlier, so that the River Tone and bathing stations elsewhere across the country can benefit from cleaner water?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Hospice Funding · Hansard source

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  I place on record my thanks to all those in my constituency who will be caring for others over Christmas, whether they are unpaid family carers or paid care providers. That includes the registered nurses and registered care providers who have written to me to say that there will be an extra cost of £615 per employee as a result of the changes in the Budget. I will not attempt to ask whether the money announced today will cover national insurance contributions, but I will ask what the Government will do to help registered care providers. Where will the money come from to enable them to meet their increased national insurance contributions?

• 17 Dec 2024 · Old Oak Common Station · Hansard source

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  My apologies for joining late, Mr Efford. I attempted to explain that to you through the Doorkeeper at the beginning of the meeting; I apologise if there was some mix-up. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) on securing this important debate. The wide range of constituencies represented in the debate and in other discussions on the subject shows just how many parts of the country are affected negatively by this proposal, and why it needs to be thought through again. The proposals underlying the original HS2 Bill were very different from what we have ended up with. I think we can all understand why parties across the House supported the original HS2, but they did not expect it to mean that almost every journey to almost every station in the west of England would be delayed, with a long period of diversions as well. Taunton and Wellington sits at a transport fulcrum, 99 minutes from Paddington and 33 minutes from Bristol Temple Meads. Although we are further from London than Bristol, we are actually closer in terms of journey time. Decisions taken by businesses and by people deciding where to live are changed by differences of a few minutes’ journey time and the distances that they need to travel, so the Old Oak Common project would have a major negative effect on our local economy in Taunton. One of the biggest factors in our local economy is the connections at the fantastic railway station, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, in the heart of the town. As hon. Members across the west country have said, these decisions are important to all our local economies. As well as the six-year diversion, which seems totally unnecessary, the key point that I hope the Minister will address is why it should be necessary for every single train to stop at Old Oak Common. I have been told in meetings that even if not every train stops, the journey time will be increased by trains having to slow down as they go through the station. I have stood on many station platforms, and I am absolutely certain that trains have not slowed down a jot as they have sped through, leaving the wind blowing across the platform. I do not understand why all trains need to be slowed down. We are undermining the strength of the Great Western line, and the speed to stations across the whole of the west of England. It seems totally unnecessary, and it is totally unacceptable to me and my constituents. The history has been well described by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) as a misadventure in rail planning over recent years, and the inadequacy of current services exacerbates the problem. Sunday services are treated like a voluntary sector operation, in which passengers might get a driver if they are really lucky. A catalogue of cancelled trains on Sundays is a certainty. That has to change. It is totally unacceptable in the 21st century. I also reiterate the comments of hon. Members about the lack of wi-fi, the shortage of carriages, the shortness of trains, and the fact that it is normal for passengers to sit on the floor outside the toilets when they may have paid more £200 for a ticket. How can that possibly be justified? I am grateful that the Minister for Rail in the other place has met with hon. Members. I know he is concerned, and I hope that the Government will continue to strive as hard as they can to mitigate some of those effects. Somerset has not been blessed with enormous amounts of investment in transport in recent months. We have had the cancellation of the A303 and the A358, which has reduced investment in the area by £2 billion, so it really is time that we saw some transport investment coming into Somerset, not being taken out. My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth wants to see the Cullompton and Wellington stations project go ahead, which is also my dream. With a benefit-cost ratio of 3.67, we believe that it is the most economically important station reopening project in the country. Let us see some compensation for that project, and let us ensure that not every single train to the entire west country has to be slowed down. I urge the Government to think very hard before disadvantaging such a huge region of England and Wales.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that the water companies need to be regulated, to protect not profits but the environment? Does he also believe that bathing waters, like the wonderful Tone bathing water in which I was swimming the day before yesterday, should not automatically be de-designated?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Few of the natural features of the Taunton and Wellington constituency in Somerset are as valued as the River Tone, which goes through the constituency. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), I welcome this Bill but wish it would go further. In particular, we need a much stronger regulator. As long as Ofwat has a duty to protect profits and returns for shareholders but not to protect the environment, it will be more of a tame kitten than a watchdog. When it comes to managing the quality of our water and our waterways, profiteering surely has no place in the equation, which is why we want to see privatised water companies replaced with not-for-profit companies, which work very effectively in Denmark. Water companies also need to be held to account for longer when it comes to investing in the infrastructure that is needed. From preparing and submitting its bathing water status application—with a lot of support from the hard-working volunteers of the Friends of French Weir Park—I know how much goes into designating a bathing water such as the Tone in Taunton. I therefore urge the Minister, in the context of the ongoing parallel bathing water consultation—to completely end automatic de-designation after five years. Wessex Water and the Environment Agency have made it clear that we can get improvements in water quality in the Tone in five years—and who would disagree with improving the tone, Madam Deputy Speaker?—but they are unlikely to be enough to protect its designation unless more time is available. We in Taunton also strongly disagree with making new designations dependent on already having sufficiently clean bathing water quality. The whole reason that communities are seeking to get their designations is to stimulate that improvement. As Surfers Against Sewage has pointed out, making quality a prerequisite rather than the goal to be established would have prevented almost all the current inland bathing waters from being designated. Also, we would oppose allowing bathing seasons to be curtailed. I hope the Minister will also say something about bringing in water restoration grants, which would have the dual advantages of supporting the drive to eliminate phosphates from the Somerset levels and moors and improving river and bathing water quality. Having canvassed the views of my fellow swimmers the other day, I know how much people want to see the river improved. We therefore need to give rural communities the support they need for water restoration. We need to establish a tough regulator bound by legal duties to protect the environment, not just profits, and give bathing waters enough time to be brought up to standard without the threat of de-designation and being pushed into the “too difficult” pile. Our rivers and our environment—

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrats support the provision of new homes. Somerset West and Taunton district council in my constituency, under Liberal Democrat control since 2019, has approved thousands of new homes to the extent that the town is now one of the fastest-growing in the UK, with 9% population growth to 2021, partly because it is such a wonderful place to live. Somerset is now pioneering the first new council houses in a generation in parts of the county, many of them zero carbon. We welcome the policy change on renewable energy and the extension in the transitional arrangements, although I urge the Minister to consider, in exceptional circumstances, a six-month transition rather than three months. I know that Members on several Benches wish to see that on behalf of their authorities. Trust in the planning system, like trust in politics, is not where it should be. As with bypassing planning committees, imposing housing numbers on councils takes decision out of the hands of elected councillors and local people, which is undemocratic. We would reverse that. Trust in planning demands that people know that our most precious green spaces are fully protected. Every authority should have the same level of green belt protection, plus precious green wedges and green spaces in their areas. Rather than Whitehall diktat, plans for new homes should be led by communities and our councils, and those homes should be genuinely affordable to local people. Councils such as Eastleigh have shown that where those new homes come with jobs, schools and public transport, community consent follows. We will not solve the crisis in care, for example, unless we have the homes for older and vulnerable people, supported by the GP surgeries and care services they require. If any target is to be mandatory, therefore, it should be our country’s need for 150,000 new social homes per year and for low-cost home ownership through options such as rent to buy to give people a real foot on the ladder. That should be funded from capital borrowing, just as Labour Governments and, historically, Liberal Governments funded our stock of council houses in the past, including the use of compulsory purchase, before Conservative Governments sold them off hand over fist until soon there will be almost none left. Top-down planning diktats risk a surge in speculative greenfield permissions of the kind that the Minister is concerned about, for homes that are out of people’s reach. Instead, let us fund, incentivise and focus on the social and affordable homes that we need: zero-carbon homes that tread lightly on the land, restoring nature and in doing so restoring trust in local people and the councillors whom they elect to take the decisions that most affect them and their communities.

• 11 Dec 2024 · Responsibilities of Housing Developers · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Responsibilities of Housing Developers · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) on securing this important debate, and my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), for Wokingham (Clive Jones), for Newbury (Mr Dillon) and for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) on their contributions. Too often, in my constituency of Taunton and Wellington, big housing developments are not completed as they should be and fail to come with the infrastructure that is needed. In one close in Taunton—a development substantially completed over a decade ago—the developer still has not finished the road surfacing, making the adoption of the close by the local authority impossible and meaning that there are no streetlights there. Liberal Democrats support the construction of more homes. About 5,800 homes in Taunton, and about 1,000 in Wellington, have been approved or constructed since 2012, but we believe that the focus and priority should be the 150,000 social homes a year that the country needs. It would therefore surely be right for private developers to be given “use it or lose it” permissions—losing them, for example, when they have not completed developments to the required standard and with the required infrastructure. A “use it or lose it” system might mean ensuring that developers that do not comply are not able to avail themselves of subsequent permissions. Despite the construction of over 6,000 new homes in Taunton and Wellington, no new doctor’s surgery has been provided. Although local councillors are working hard to secure land and buildings for a surgery, there is a real worry that no doctors will be available to fill it; the Blackdown GP practice in my constituency is closing in the afternoons to save money in the face of higher national insurance and staffing costs. As we have heard, estate management agencies often charge large sums to freeholders for the upkeep of shared areas or assets. Such arrangements are often referred to as fleeceholds, given that the charge paid to the management company is so high and it is effectively a form of leasehold arrangement. Liberal Democrats are therefore calling for it to be the norm for shared assets in freehold estates to be adopted by the local authority, rather than by housing developers or estate management companies. If an estate has been constructed by a rogue or cowboy developer, freeholders can often pay extortionate fees for the upkeep of infrastructure that has not been properly completed or is not even fully in place. In addition, residents do not receive any reduction in the council tax that they are expected to pay to account for the estate charge or to reflect the specific services offered, because of course council tax is collected to deliver a broad range of services. As we have heard, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 received Royal Assent in May, with the aim of strengthening the regulation of the housing sector. Will the Minister give us a clear date when the relevant sections will be commenced to give residents the powers of redress that they urgently need? Liberal Democrats have called for further regulation of management companies such as FirstPort, including to ensure that they respond to all correspondence and hold regular AGMs. If they fail to do so, we have called for residents to be given the power to take ownership for themselves. Liberal Democrats have often called for zero-carbon homes and better standards. We welcome the decent homes standard proposed in the Renters’ Rights Bill, but we want it extended to military service family accommodation. Why should those people be excluded? We also want to see local authorities better funded to enforce those planning conditions that can be enforced. Somerset council has been handed what the outgoing Conservative leader of the county council has called a “ticking timebomb” of social care costs—which are falling on local authorities across the country. According to the National Audit Office and the BBC, the promised £1 billion of funding for social care was taken away exactly 12 months ago, leaving many councils, especially Somerset—with its historically low council tax base—having to make massive savings and often heartbreaking decisions. Finally, it is important that we do not leave the provision of homes just to the private sector. It has a role to play, of course, but housing need will not be met unless we build 150,000 homes for social rent per year. That is the Liberal Democrat focus: genuinely affordable homes for local people, with properly funded local authorities to look after the infrastructure that needs to come with them. Unless Government support is provided for social housing and social care around the country, councils will be unable to cope with the need to properly regulate housing developers and ensure that they meet the obligations placed on them.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Crown Court Backlog · Hansard source

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  The Minister referred to court chaos. A tribunal judge and a court worker from my Taunton and Wellington constituency wrote to me. The tribunal judge said: “tribunals are being cancelled every day as they say there are not enough judges to cover the cases. This is absolutely not the case,” and “People are waiting months for their benefit appeals in appalling poverty and again we cannot deal with the cases because of this limit” on sitting days. What will the Minister do to increase sitting days in Taunton and Somerset courts?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Planning Committees: Reform · Hansard source

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  As there are 8.5 million people in England with unmet housing need, the Liberal Democrats welcome the plans for further house building. For us, the priority has to be the delivery of social homes. We need 150,000 annually, and we need housing that local people can genuinely afford. On the topic of social housing, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Let us be clear: when Whitehall takes planning decisions out of the hands of local councillors, it is taking decisions out of the hands of local people. That is undemocratic, and we would reverse that. Instead, Government should unblock the thousands of permitted homes that are not being built—for example, through “use it or lose it” permissions, by having more than just one extra planning officer per local authority, and by allowing councils to set their fees and to ringfence that income for planning departments. Will the Minister allow councils to set their application fees, and ensure that that funding is ringfenced for planning departments?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Improving Public Transport · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) on her excellent maiden speech. When I was first elected, I thought it would be difficult to get to know my 71 Liberal Democrat colleagues, but I realise that the challenge is considerably bigger for those on the Labour Benches, so I wish her well with that. I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) on securing this important debate. I pay tribute to her and her colleagues on Somerset council for their work over recent years, in very difficult circumstances. The previous Government may have introduced the bus fare cap, but that did not go far enough to outweigh the decimation of public transport and bus services over decades in this country, both by central Government and Somerset county council, which cut services throughout Somerset. For example, in 2019, shortly before the Liberal Democrats took control of Somerset, the Conservative county council proposed closing the park and ride services in Taunton. Park and ride is vital to the whole system of integrated public transport, and was an innovation of the noughties, built by a Liberal Democrat council. Although there were plans for the closure of the park and ride service, my colleagues who run the district council stepped up and saved it. They restructured fares, and the service is now once again profitable and does not require a subsidy. That shows that with a commitment to public transport and political will, such services can be made viable and can be sustained. During these years of real challenge for local government, I give credit to Somerset council for bringing back night buses. I was delighted to meet the first night bus out of Taunton, which means we can now travel between Taunton and Wellington in my constituency until midnight every night on a weekday. I was out there with Mike driving his first night bus last year. It is a fantastic improvement. The fare cap in Taunton meant that tickets were reduced to £1, not just £2. Shockingly, following privatisation, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne), the companies closed the bus station in Taunton and sold it off. I am delighted that the council is bringing forward plans to have a transport hub once again in Taunton town centre, so that people do not have to stand shivering on pavements in the county town, getting rained on, to catch buses. I credit the Government for the £6 million in bus service improvement plan funding, which is genuinely welcome. We would obviously have liked more and it is disappointing to see the bus cap increase to £3. As the hon. Member for East Thanet rightly pointed out, no money was pledged to support that service by the last Government. I understand the challenges, but we would have taxed big banks and big energy companies more, as my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) pointed out, so that we could fund some of these things to a higher level. Before I leave bus services, I must mention that in my constituency of Taunton and Wellington, there is one part of Somerset where young people—students—get no discount at all on their bus fare. If they want to attend college as a sixth-former in my part of Somerset, they have to pay £900 per year just to get there and back. That is a prohibitively high bus fare to pay to get to college. I am working closely with councillors on Somerset council and I hope it will be possible to bring forward a discount scheme for students in our part of Somerset, like those that exist in other parts of Somerset and other parts of the country. I will move on to the vital importance of rail in Taunton and Wellington and my part of Somerset. We have the fantastic West Somerset steam railway, which I invite all hon. Members to come and visit. It takes us from Bishops Lydeard, just outside Taunton, down to Minehead and the famous Butlin’s—I know that all Members will want to go there, and they can enjoy the steam journey over to it. A strategic outline business case has recently been submitted by West Somerset Railway to the Department for Transport to connect that railway with Taunton station so that it would have a mainline station connection, providing both a commuter service to Bishops Lydeard on the edge of Taunton and direct access to one of the best heritage railways in the country. Perhaps more important than any of those things is the Wellington and Cullompton stations project. I recognise that there are station opening projects across the country that Members across the House will be championing as their favourite, but I must say that my understanding of the Wellington and Cullompton stations project is that, because it is a two-station project that would deliver two stations in one, it has the best benefit-cost ratio of any railway station reopening project in the country at 3.67. I said that like I understand Treasury benefit-cost ratio numbers; I only wish that were true. I am reliably informed, however, that anything above one is a really high benefit-cost ratio. On that ground alone, the project should qualify for funding, and it would bring £3.3 million of benefit to the local economy. After all, growth is vital to the whole country, and reopening Wellington station would unlock thousands of homes around Wellington. We have a town council that wants Wellington to thrive and grow. The project to bring that railway station was very close to getting shovels in the ground. In July, the project had reached its final business case. The detailed design was ongoing—there was just a small amount of money needed to complete it—and then the Government froze the whole programme. However, I was assured by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Budget debate that the station would go ahead. We are still waiting to hear why the most financially beneficial station reopening project in the country has not yet got the go-ahead. I am very grateful to Lord Hendy, the Minister for Rail, for the two meetings we have had. I know that the Government are supportive and sympathetic, but we need this project to get back on track—I am sorry, but it is impossible to avoid railway puns in this debate. The station is so ready to be built. We have a lot of third-party funding coming in. The access road and the car park are funded by a third-party developer. Cullompton, in the neighbouring constituency, is putting in similar third-party funding. We urgently need that project to go ahead. We wish to secure the economic growth that Somerset needs, but we have lost £2 billion-worth of transport projects over the past few months. The A303 and the A358 have been cancelled. We desperately need a bypass for the villages of Thornfalcon and Henlade, which that A358 project would have completed. With all these projects being taken away, surely it is time that we received the funding for the new stations project at Wellington and Cullompton, with all its excellent economic growth impacts.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Improving Public Transport · Hansard source

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  The Minister is trying to comprehensively address all the comments in the debate. I realise he cannot comment on individual projects, but will he undertake to inform the Secretary of State of the need to release funding for the most important restoring your railway projects?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that businesses such as Sheppy’s cider farm in my constituency, to which I invite all Members to come to enjoy a pint of cider, will be affected not just by the national insurance rises but by the change in business rates and the family farm tax?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Business Rates: High Street Retailers · Hansard source

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  Businesses like Mr Miles in Taunton High Street are being hit hard by the changes in taxes for hospitality businesses, including the increase in the wage bill and national insurance contributions, and the massive increase in business rates. That business is now considering reducing its opening hours, which would make our high street less vibrant than it should be. One challenge is the £50,000 rateable value limit for the discount, as many high street premises have a rateable value of more than £50,000. Will the Chancellor consider reviewing the limit placed on the business rates discount for small businesses?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry · Hansard source

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  Like Members across the House, Liberal Democrats stand firmly with the many bereaved and their immediate community of family, friends and neighbours as they mourn the 72, including children, who tragically lost their lives in June 2017. In this debate, surely one thing matters more than anything: that their memory must be respected. But, as Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s phase 2 report on the underlying cause of the fire graphically lays bare, they were cruelly let down by the systems, companies, Governments and government bodies that should have protected them. We welcome the Government’s commitment to address all the recommendations in the report, and the Prime Minister’s promise in response to the phase 2 report to take the necessary steps to speed up the rate at which unsafe cladding is removed from buildings and to ensure that tenants and their leaseholders can never again be ignored. However, the National Audit Office has said that the pace of remediation work is behind where it should be and called for the onus to be placed on developers to pay for the work. Although the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s figures show that works have begun in 44% of buildings with unsafe cladding, it is deeply worrying, seven years on, that 66% are waiting and that thousands of people in the UK are still living in buildings with dangerous cladding. I therefore welcome the Government’s announcements about accelerating progress. As the National Housing Federation has pointed out, 90% of Government funding for the work so far has been received by private building owners, but many have passed the costs of remediation work on to tenants and leaseholders, putting many, quite unfairly, in serious financial peril. Leaseholders have struggled under the cladding crisis, buying properties they believed met safety standards, which they realise now do not, and suffering from huge increases in insurance premiums, as we have heard. We therefore call for the removal of all such dangerous cladding as soon as possible without tenants and leaseholders—including non-qualifying leaseholders —having to pay. After all, they placed their trust in the private companies and regulatory bodies that let them down, so they should not have to pay a penny towards that work. As the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said, product manufacturers surely should be paying. The whole picture points to the need to create a legally enforceable order to remediate premises so that they are safe on pain of criminal sanction. I welcome what the Deputy Prime Minister said about that a few moments ago. Seven years on from this scandal, it is time for justice both for the victims and all those living with potentially unsafe cladding. The inquiry report clearly establishes lessons to be learned for every authority in the land. The “pathway to disaster”, as Sir Martin called it, is chilling. It is incumbent on all of us in the House and everyone connected with the built environment and fire safety, not least those in my own professions—as an architect and town planner, I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—to ensure that change happens and to take forward the report’s recommendations. The Architects Registration Board, working with the Royal Institute of British Architects, has a duty under the Building Safety Act 2022 to monitor the training and development that architects complete throughout their careers. The Liberal Democrats welcome the fact that this year it is mandatory for all architects to complete training in fire safety. But there is one factor that comes through in the fateful chain of events that led to the fire in 2017, and it is one that had a devastating effect on the lives of so many: the promotion of gaining commercial advantage at the expense of building and fire safety. The inquiry said that the Building Research Establishment—originally a public body but privatised in the ’90s—exhibited in its testing of dangerous cladding “a desire to accommodate existing customers and to retain its status within the industry at the expense of maintaining the rigour of its processes and considerations of public safety.” The inquiry reports says that the supplier companies “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market. In the case of the principal insulation product used on Grenfell Tower, Celotex RS5000, the Building Research Establishment…was complicit in that strategy.” Since the privatisation of building inspectors in the 1980s—a move with which even the most commercially minded partners at the practice I worked in a few years later strongly disagreed—they have also faltered as a result of commercial pressures, with a resultant unacceptable blurring of responsibilities. Sir Martin’s report concludes that the privatised inspector NHBC “failed to ensure that its building control function remained essentially regulatory and free of commercial pressures. It was unwilling to upset its…customers”. The report goes on: “We have concluded that the conflict between the regulatory function of building control and the pressures of commercial interests prevents a system of that kind from effectively serving the public interest.” It is also clear that NHBC practices exposed what remains of local authority building control to similarly unscrupulous competition, and has driven down standards there as a result.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so many times. Is it not the case that when you set profit-making companies against local authorities, you end up with a race to the bottom, across the board? Is that not the evidence from the inquiry? I had cause to look at the report of the original debate, in the 1980s, about bringing in private inspectors. A less than entirely left-wing organisation, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said that it was opposed to building control being taken away from local authorities.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I very much agree. It is clear from my time in the profession that the exposure of local authority building control to private competition, with which it is difficult to compete, has led to a race to the bottom. In fact, hon. Members should not take my word for it; expert witness Professor Luke Bisby summed it up: “A culture shift in building control had gradually occurred, from one of building control actors ‘policing’ developers to one of them ‘working with clients’ under commercial duress. This resulted in a ‘race to the bottom’”. Liberal Democrats therefore strongly support the recommendation for the Government to consider whether it is in the public interest for building control functions to be performed by those who have a commercial interest in the process. We would go further and say that the evidence to the inquiry is such that commercial interests cannot be in the public interest, and that both the Building Research Establishment and building inspectors should be brought back under public control. We also urge social housing providers to pay particular attention to their new requirements under the Social Housing Act (Regulation) 2023, and to the need for better inspection and timely remediation of defects. We also strongly endorse the need for a recognised profession of fire engineer. It is important, too, that our local fire services are properly funded. I was concerned about the reduction in the number of appliances at Taunton fire station, and I have written to the Treasury on behalf of the Devon and Somerset fire and rescue authority, asking the Government for flexibility in funding and tax-raising powers. It is vital that no further reduction of appliances at stations such as mine go ahead. We support all 58 recommendations in the report, whether for local authorities, the fire brigade, tenant management organisations or local authorities, or on personal emergency evacuation plans being put in place —it is good to see the Government establishing that today—or indeed for the Government themselves. Since what has turned out to be the fatal folly of promoting commercial interest above building and fire safety in the decades from the ’80s and ’90s, Governments of all persuasions have let down some of our most vulnerable citizens. The situation has been reviewed many times over the years by Governments of all stripes. It is now time to put safety once again before profit.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill · Hansard source

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  I absolutely do agree with my hon. Friend. I am also concerned about the influx of children going to local authorities to apply for EHCPs because they will now need them to get the discount, and about the massive effect that will have on already overstretched local authorities. I worry about how they are going to cope with those applications, over and above the SEN crisis at the moment. I am a great supporter of state schools, partly because of the record of the Liberal Democrats, who not only ringfenced the education budget in the first years of the coalition, but injected £1.25 billion by inventing the pupil premium, which now injects £3 billion— [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) shakes her head, but these are the facts.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who spoke for the official Opposition—he is no longer in his place—described the Conservative Government’s approach to supporting business. I was going to say that I listened to him with interest, but I think incredulity would be a better word. My hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard), who is no longer in his place, was rather harsh on the Conservatives. He said that they never followed up on their commitments on business and did not have a clear policy on business. The Conservatives had a very clear and pithily described policy on business: it began with f, had k in the middle and ended with the word “business”. And believe me, they delivered on that policy with their post-Brexit trade deal. In case the message had not been rammed home hard enough, they confirmed it with a Budget that played helter-skelter chaos with the economy. I therefore sympathise with the new Government’s approach in terms of the Budget they are trying to set and in terms of establishing stability. That is something I would want to support, but I am disappointed that I will not be able to vote for the Bill because of the effect it will have on towns like Wellington and Taunton, which will be hit by a triple whammy. Those towns support some great independent schools, which are charities: Taunton school, Wellington school, King’s College and Queen’s College. They sustain around 1,000 jobs in the constituency, many of which are now under threat. Many workers at those schools—cleaners and catering staff—are worried about what is going to happen. There are then the very serious effects of the rise in national insurance contributions on small businesses, particularly the many small businesses whose rateable value is over £51,000. That is quite typical for SMEs in a high street in this country—at the smaller end, I would suggest. The owner of Mr Miles Tea Room, a superb place to go in my constituency, has written to tell me about the combined effects of the Budget on his business: “Firstly, all my staff will now see a reduction in the hours they will be scheduled. As a result, no doubt, some will leave. Where many of my employees already earn over the current minimum wage, I will not be able to increase their pay rates by as much as I have done in the past. Secondly, any full-time employees who leave our employment will only be replaced by potentially 2 or 3 part-time employees. Thirdly, I will not be investing in any capital equipment in my kitchen or new decor in my restaurant. Fourthly, there is a serious potential for me to operate on shortened trading hours, thus reducing the vibrancy of the Town Centre.” He goes on: “I was cautiously optimistic that a new Labour Government couldn’t possibly be worse than the previous Tory one in terms of lack of support for SMEs. Sadly, in the space of 3 short months this Government has already proved my optimism was misplaced and there will be many casualties over the next 12 months as the new measures take effect.” I urge the Minister to reconsider both the effect on independent schools, and I am a great supporter of the state school system—

• 25 Nov 2024 · Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill · Hansard source

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  The pupil premium was new money, and it went into the state school sector. It was £1.25 billion in the first year, and it is worth £3 billion now. It was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto and was delivered as part of our priority for state schools—but I do not believe in state schools just because of party policy. All four of my children attended great state schools in my constituency: Parkfield Primary School, Bishop Fox’s School, and the fantastic Richard Huish College. The idea that the only way to improve state schools is to level down independent schools shows a shocking lack of imagination and a very disappointing approach to education, and education should not be taxed. The Minister said earlier that those of us who were going for a different approach should be willing to make clear where we would raise the money, and he was right to make that point. The Liberal Democrats have made the same point, and they have made tough decisions in the past. In our manifesto was a very clear Budget spending plan to restore the tax on the big banks’ profits. It was slashed and then taken away in 2018, but simply restoring that single tax would raise £4.2 billion for the economy. I urge the Minister to adopt the principle that if the broadest shoulders should bear the biggest burden, that should apply in the business sector as much as anywhere else. The big companies, the big banks, the giant online retailers, should be bearing the burden of this Budget, not the small high street firms like Mr Miles in Taunton High Street and the other businesses we have heard about, so I urge the Minister to think further about this.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  The £6 million funding for Somerset is clearly welcome, although it is much less than was needed, considering that Somerset was rated as having the worst county bus service in the country. I particularly welcome the ending of the lottery that sets one community against another. Will the Secretary of State congratulate the Somerset bus partnership volunteers who, working with my Liberal Democrat colleagues now running Somerset council, prevented the previous Conservative county council from closing the park and ride, got night buses going and have begun a new transport hub since the bus station in Taunton was closed as a result of Conservative privatisation?

• 12 Nov 2024 · NHS Dentistry: South-west · Hansard source

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  Is the Minister able to say when the timeline for those negotiations will be available?

• 12 Nov 2024 · NHS Dentistry: South-west · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) on leading a genuinely important debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine), for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour), for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson), for Wokingham (Clive Jones) and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade)—to mention but a few. I also thank Government Members for their contributions to this important debate. Nearly three years ago, in 2022, long before I was a Member of Parliament, I launched a survey of dental provision for the NHS in my Taunton and Wellington constituency. It showed that fewer than half of people there had access to an NHS dentist. Nearly three years on things have, incredibly, got worse. There are 64,000 children in the county who did not see a dentist last year. That puts Somerset in the worst-hit 5% of local authorities in the country. As has been mentioned, access to NHS dentists in Somerset has fallen from more than half of people back in 2015 to less than a third—32%—this year. Over half the constituents who contacted me did have an NHS dentist but were then told it was going private, so they lost it. That decline has been consistent. My constituents are having to travel out of county and, as I said in the Chamber a couple of weeks ago, one of my constituents, a stage 3 cancer sufferer, is having to use her savings to pay for dental treatment that she is entitled to for free on the national health service. Taunton and Wellington has many of the same problems as other areas of the country, in particular the terrible state of the dental contract, which is at the root of much of this issue. I have met the BDA chair, as have Government Members, and it definitely wants a timescale for the negotiation of the new dental contract. I hope the Minister will give a clear timetable for the negotiations so that we can have a new contract, which is what is needed to unblock this situation. If we are to train and equip the profession for the future, which we need to do, we have to end the uncertainty that is exacerbating the drain from the profession and the retention crisis we have seen over the past few years. It is vital that that uncertainty comes to an end. Uncertainty hits in other ways as well. For example, we all want more housing built—certainly, those on the Liberal Democrat Benches do, and I know that Government Members do too—and we want new housing developments to be infrastructure-led, with GP surgeries and dental surgeries. Developers could contribute to those surgeries, but what would be the point in building them if they are to lie empty, unstaffed by the dentists we need? Will the Minister consider whether ICBs can be required to support the finding of dentists to staff those facilities, when they are provided? I put on the record the fact there was a huge £11 million underspend in Somerset last year. Children, pregnant women and cancer sufferers are all being denied free treatment and £11 million is sitting in the coffers—it is a scandal. I hope the Minister will consider ensuring that that money is ringfenced year on year, so that it is ultimately spent on the patients who need treatment. I urge the Minister both to give a timetable for the negotiation of the new contract and to safeguard the underspends so that the money can be used to help patients in Taunton and Wellington, in Somerset and in the south-west as a whole.