Jim Shannon MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Apr 2026 · Young Adult Carers: Education and Training · Hansard source

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  Not to interfere with the flow of the Minister’s reply—he is saying positive stuff, and I thank him for that—but perhaps the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) should be at that meeting and the follow-up, if that would be agreeable. The hon. Member could feed back to us, as participants in this debate, on how it went, if that is okay with the Minister.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Synthetic Chemicals · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Select Committee and all members of the Committee for their hard work and endeavours on synthetic chemicals and for highlighting the dangers to us all as citizens and to the environment. Environmental issues are a devolved matter, so what discussions or inquiries did the Select Committee and the Chair have with the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and perhaps the Health Minister at the Northern Ireland Assembly? Regulations are a necessity, and they will have an impact not just here, but in Northern Ireland. I ask that question to be helpful, and I hope the Chair can give us an answer.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Public Procurement · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for his answers and for his endeavours to try to do better. The Minister and this House must recognise that public confidence is incredibly low due to repeated failures by the Government, I say respectfully, to do the right thing. How can the Government and the Minister ensure that changes take effect that restore confidence and remove any shade from areas of government? We have an obligation as elected representatives to openness and transparency.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Gambling Advertising · Hansard source

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  I spoke to the hon. Member about this beforehand, but problem gambling is a critical issue for us in Northern Ireland, where rate is 3%, compared with 2.7% here on the mainland. A recent survey found that 65% of adults in Northern Ireland felt there were “too many gambling advertisements”, 71% supported a watershed for gambling advertising and 42% said gambling advertising should be banned altogether. Does the hon. Member not agree that this House can and must work with the Northern Ireland Assembly back home to ensure that immediate protections are enshrined in law?

• 23 Apr 2026 · Gambling Advertising · Hansard source

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  I have already apologised to you, Mrs Harris, to the hon. Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) and to the Minister for the fact that, because of the strikes, I need to take a taxi to catch my plane, so I cannot, unfortunately, be here for the whole debate. However, I spoke to the hon. Member for Halesowen before the debate about Northern Ireland’s gambling laws, and although I think he is already aware of this, I would like to put on record that those laws predate the internet, meaning that remote or online gambling is completely unregulated in Northern Ireland. Gambling operators can advertise in Northern Ireland if they hold a licence from the Gambling Commission. However, it is notable that the Gambling Commission does not have jurisdiction in Northern Ireland, meaning that the Advertising Standards Authority cannot refer operators that commit multiple breaches of its codes there to the Gambling Commission. Does the hon. Member agree that that lack of regulation must be rectified urgently? I suppose that that is also a question for the Minister to respond to at the end.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Housing Conditions in Temporary Accommodation · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for a truly excellent report and for highlighting the issues of temporary housing. In Northern Ireland, the pressure for housing is critical, and temporary accommodation has therefore become more important and sought after. The hon. Lady is to be congratulated on this report. Will she also share it with the Northern Ireland Minister for Communities, my colleague Gordon Lyons? It has highlighted some matters that are very important to my people back home, and it is so important that when we learn something, we share it.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Junior Doctors’ Foundation Programme · Hansard source

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  From this morning’s papers—perhaps the hon. Member will wish to refer to this—it seems that the Health Secretary had engaged with the British Medical Association and had an agreement with its leader. Does the hon. Member share my disappointment that even with that agreement, it went ahead with the strikes? When it had agreed a wage packet for doctors that could be anything from £50,000 as a starting wage to £100,000, it seemed that we had the recipe for an agreement, yet it was all thrown away by, it seems, the BMA.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Junior Doctors’ Foundation Programme · Hansard source

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  It certainly is. To be fair, I do not know of any doctors who have made the journey, but I know that they are certainly aware of the bigger wage packets available in, for instance, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, where they can go for two or three years. The problem is that if they go away for two or three years, they may never come back. It is not just a matter of going to earn big money to pay off student fees and move forward—it is more than that. It is a critical issue, so the hon. Member is right to mention it. I wonder whether the Minister would consider in his response the option of having student doctors sign a retainer that would keep them in the NHS, and consider providing a bursary for their fees. I understand that Wales does that; I know it is a regional matter for us in Northern Ireland, but if Wales can do it, there are certainly points for us to consider. I have constituents who have gone to Wales from Northern Ireland for the purpose of going away for two or three years—I think of one young lady in particular whose family I know well. She went to Wales and completed her full studies there at university and in the hospitals. Then, of course, what happens? She meets a young Welsh guy and he sweeps her off her feet and the next thing we know, she is engaged, she is married—she is never coming home. We will not have the advantage of that young lady’s expertise, but Wales will. I am very pleased that Wales will have that expertise, because she is an excellent student and person. I am sure there are many other people for whom the same thing has happened, because love is a funny thing, is it not? When it gets you, you cannot get off it. You are caught forever. From my point of view, my wife has stuck with me for 39 years—my goodness, she needs a medal. I have spoken at length about intelligent, capable young people who feel overworked and underappreciated but who, most importantly, feel overwhelmed. That can change with support—support that must echo from here not with words, but with appropriate pay and staffing. If we do that, we will retain the best of the best within the NHS. I do not doubt that that is the desire of the Minister and this Government, and of every hon. Member here.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Junior Doctors’ Foundation Programme · Hansard source

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  As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for setting the scene incredibly well. We all appreciate his in-depth portrayal of the issues. I thank him for his 40 years, as I understand, of service to the NHS. It probably does not seem that long but, on paper and statistically, it clearly is. The hon. Member has forgotten more than I will ever know about the procedures, as I speak from a layman’s point of view. I can, however, outline what young doctors have told me, which certainly bears repeating. They work through their F1 and F2 years in fight-or-flight response. They work unsociable hours without a support network. They make life and death decisions, then return home from that night or day on duty and wonder whether they made the right decision. They wonder whether they missed something and they worry about their patients. Doctors are empathic with their patients, they are compassionate and they understand the issues incredibly well. They follow shift patterns that on paper look like a different week but, in reality, they are working 80 hours over seven days. Off days on call keep them on tenterhooks waiting to know if they will be called in to do more work, which they will respond to out of duty and compassion. They are scheduled to finish work at 8 o’clock and on a regular basis they only leave at 9.30 pm. They start work before 8 am and take their first break at 2.45 pm, and that is not a one-off on a busy day—every day is a busy day. It is almost like “Groundhog Day”—that film where the alarm goes off at 6 am, he gets up, he does all the things, he goes back to bed and the next day starts the same—but for doctors, it is life and death. When I asked how they function on that lack of sleep and sustenance, one 23-year-old doctor told me: “I keep sweets in my pocket and pray for guidance.” It needs to be more than that. I carry sweets in my pocket because, as a diabetic, if I feel myself going down, I have a chew on one and it brings me back up again, but for them, it is to ensure their concentration. Christians always pray for guidance in everything they do. They need wisdom in all the work that they do. When I asked that 23-year-old doctor what was next for her in life, what she wanted to specialise in and what her hopes were for the future, she said: “I am so exhausted that I don’t think anything is next.” The exhaustion takes over. The workload is overwhelming. Put simply, she is burnt out and feels unsupported and uncertain—not because she is not a confident person, but because the workload and all that she has done have overtaken her. That is replicated numerous times, in too many doctors for us to attribute it to personality. It is not her personality, because she is a lovely young lady; it is the current procedure. I am very pleased to see the Minister in his place. He has empathy and understanding of what we need for our doctors. I am confident that his reply will encourage and hearten us. Hopefully, it will also help with the expectations on young doctors from families and with the paperwork—that has never been more onerous, yet there is no time for them to set aside to do it because they are overwhelmed by the workload in wards and A&E and surgical work supporting doctors. If their placement is in a smaller hospital, they do not have the support of house doctors or consultants during evening shifts, and the pressure is immense. I said earlier that it is overwhelming, and it is, to the extent that they sometimes just say to themselves, “My goodness me, how am I going to keep going?” We all understand that medicine, by its very nature, is highly pressured and that skills are learned not only in books, but in practice. For the junior doctors I met back home, it is a physical practice—they learn by what happens in the ward. Home-grown students are not being retained, however, so changes to the system must take place, and take place soon. In his introduction, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket referred to one doctor who went from Norwich to Belfast and another who went from Belfast to Norwich. It is unreal, and it seems idiotic—I use that word in a very gentle way—that that should take place. Training a doctor in the UK costs the taxpayer roughly £230,000 to £327,000 per student from medical school through foundation training. That is a big sum of money, but we are training someone on whom we depend to be the best in a critical situation in hospital. Who of us, when we have a chat with our doctor and ask for their opinion, will not accept what the doctor tells us as gospel? We trust that we can depend on that doctor’s diagnosis of the disease, so that money must result in qualified, capable doctors and not just young people who could have made a difference if they had been given the support and reasonable working hours with reasonable pay to make all the on-calls and missed sleeping patterns worth it.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Junior Doctors’ Foundation Programme · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for that comprehensive response to the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan). So near and yet so far—that is the way I see it. I have always supported the Secretary of State in his endeavours to secure a deal, and it is incredibly frustrating to get so close to one and for it then to fall down. I am probably reiterating what the Minister said, but although the deal fell and we did not secure what we all hoped for, does the Department intend to continue engaging with the BMA and the junior doctors to secure a deal? We have got so close that we must be able to get this over the line.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy · Hansard source

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  First, I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate forward. I spoke to him beforehand and, like the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), I am here to represent my constituents and those who are affected by this issue in Northern Ireland. SUDEP affects one in 1,000 people with epilepsy annually, which includes many cases in Northern Ireland, yet many families say that they are unaware of the dangers of these night-time tonic-clonic seizures. Does the hon. Member not agree, as he to what the Government need to do, that more must be done to educate patients and family members to ensure that the information is known and that precautions can thereby be taken?

• 22 Apr 2026 · Army Reserve · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the right hon. Member on securing this debate. I declare an interest as a former reservist for 11 and a half years. I used to have hair then—that is how long ago it was. He will be aware that as of 1 January 2026, the trained strength of the UK Army Reserve was some 23,740, a decrease compared with 1 January 2025, and its total trained strength has continued to decline over the years. I always try to be constructive and helpful to the Minister and the right hon. Member who secured this debate. Does the right hon. Member agree that we need to invest in the cadet forces, particularly those attached to schools across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and encourage our young people to train as reservists while still pursuing their career choices?

• 22 Apr 2026 · Army Reserve · Hansard source

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  On the comments by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), I recall my time in the Royal Artillery during the Falklands war. This relates to the issue of whether a person can retain their job should they be sent to the front. We were not going to go to the Falklands, we were going to go to Germany, and the frontline troops were going to go to the Falklands—but that did not happen, because the numbers were there on the ground to make sure that it did not. I remember going to my boss—I worked at Henry Denny at the time—and saying, “Mr McCluskey, it looks like we might be called up, and I’ve been told to let you know. The reason I am telling you is because I understand that you have to retain my job, so that when I come back, I will get my job back.” In the society we live in, it is important for employers to understand that they have an obligation to their employees.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his answers on the statement—no one doubts his commitment to try to find a solution. The statement outlined some 1,500 complaints from MPs about their constituents’ pensions being withheld, and a number of those complaints are mine. He highlighted the availability, for people awaiting their pensions, of an interest-free loan of £5,000, or more in exceptional circumstances. Those who have been waiting 16 months for their pensions and are more than £5,000 behind on their mortgage are in a precarious situation, so will the Minister uplift the amount of the interest-free loans and make payments available immediately?

• 22 Apr 2026 · Mountain Rescue · Hansard source

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  First of all, I thank the Minister for those suggestions and for the direct help from Government. I know that this is not in the Minister’s remit, but I ask her to ringfence the moneys being sent to Northern Ireland in Barnett consequentials, because if they are ringfenced, they go to where they should be.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Mountain Rescue · Hansard source

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  It is always a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I give a special thanks to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) for not only introducing the debate but doing so exceptionally well. I also thank the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for his thoughtful proposals, to which the Minister will hopefully give some response. In her introduction, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove spoke about the bravery and dedication of our mountain rescue teams, and I am sure the Minister—it is always a pleasure to see her in her place—will encourage us to support all mountain rescue teams across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We stand today at a crossroads in public safety. In the hills and valleys of Northern Ireland, from the granite peaks of the Mournes to the wild expanses of the Sperrin mountains, a silent, professional and entirely voluntary army is keeping us safe. However, while their dedication is limitless, their resources are not. I want to highlight what we do in Northern Ireland and some of the things we are involved with, and also to make a plea to the Minister. We have not only mountain rescue teams but a K9 search and rescue team; they do exceptional work in finding missing people, and their dedication is incredibly impressive. For decades, teams such as Mourne mountain rescue and North West mountain rescue have operated on the generosity of the general public. They are tasked by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and integrated into our emergency response, yet they remain charities, forced to shake buckets to pay for the fuel in their Land Rovers and the technology in their radios. We have been told about the Barnett consequential; it is not the Minsiter’s responsibility, but I want to mention it. It is the mechanism that ensures that Northern Ireland receives its fair share of UK-wide spending. When Westminster increases funding for emergency services or health in England, for which I am always grateful and thank the Minister and Government, Barnett consequentials go on to our block grant. The problem with the money that comes is that there is no direct link; although the money arrives at Stormont, it is not necessarily earmarked for the rescuers on the mountainside. That needs to be done centrally in Westminster. Currently, the Department of Justice back home provides roughly £100,000 to be shared among nine different search and rescue groups. To put that into perspective, a single new rescue base for the Mourne mountains has spiralled in cost to over £1 million, so that money does not even scrape the scab—if I can use that word—of what is needed. As in the case of the rest of the United Kingdom, we are not simply asking for a handout—it is not about that. We are asking for strategic investment, and we need to have it, especially when we look at the cost of the Mourne mountain rescue base that is being put together. We need a dedicated, ringfenced portion of Barnett-derived funding that is specifically allocated to Northern Ireland search and rescue. My request to the Minister is, when it comes to the allocation of money through the Barnett consequential, can she ensure through discussion with the relevant Minister that money is specifically earmarked for mountain rescue back home? Volunteers should be training to save lives, not spending their weekends writing grant applications or worrying about whether they can afford to replace an aging ambulance. We have seen the Scottish Government provide significant, reliable annual grants for their teams, which the hon. Member for Hazel Grove referred to in her introduction. It is time that rescue teams throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were put on that solid footing, and not the slippery slope of making do with what they are currently clinging on to. When someone is lost in the dark, or injured on a cliff edge, they do not ask about the funding model of the person coming to save them; they just want help. Our volunteers provide that help without hesitation, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is time that our Minister and Government showed the same level of commitment. I am not saying that commitment has not been given, but we need to step up strategically in relation to where we are. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove set that out incredibly well in her introduction. Let us use the resources we have to ensure that those who save others do not have to save themselves from financial ruin.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Osteoporosis and Bone Health · Hansard source

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  I commend the hon. Lady and thank her for the work that she did on this before she came to this place. We are very much indebted to her. Does she agree that the fact that this condition affects one in two women and one in four men over the age of 50 means that there should be greater awareness? The fact that there are some 72,000 people living with osteoporosis in Northern Ireland alone highlights the need to ensure that people know that they can do some things themselves, and that calcium and vitamin D could make such a difference to their quality of life as they age—I speak as one who is ageing quickly.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Government Procurement Strategy · Hansard source

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  I want to ask the Minister a very specific question about Northern Ireland. In light of the recent Public Accounts Committee report that has highlighted the fragmented nature of procurement in Northern Ireland, with nine separate centres of procurement expertise, what steps can he take to ensure that SMEs, which he mentioned earlier, are not further disadvantaged by conflicting administrative requirements across those bodies? How will the promised Tell Us Once digital platform be successfully integrated with Northern Ireland’s existing eTendersNI system to prevent duplication of the bureaucratic burden on small firms that are struggling?

• 22 Apr 2026 · Car Insurance Industry: Fraud · Hansard source

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  It is again a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. We are going for a hat trick this afternoon, and we are on a roll. I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for allowing me to come and highlight the pressures my constituents are facing. I thank her for her incredibly detailed speech. I will give some stats for Northern Ireland—I always give a Northern Ireland perspective—so that hon. Members understand why the issue of fraud in the car insurance industry is so important to us. We are often told that the high cost of living in Northern Ireland is a product of global markets or unavoidable inflation, but there is a hidden tax on our driveways: a fraud premium that every honest motorist is forced to pay. Fraud is not a victimless, white collar crime; it is a systemic crisis that is pricing our citizens—especially our youth—off the road. Let us look at some of the cold, hard facts from Northern Ireland. The 2025 Police Service of Northern Ireland annual report showed that motor insurance was the single largest motoring offence group detected in the last year. We are talking about 6,453 detections—17%, or nearly a fifth, of all motoring offences in Northern Ireland, which gives hon. Members an idea of the problem. Behind that number are thousands of people who think it is acceptable to drive without valid cover or to lie on an application to save a few pounds, but saving a few pounds for the individual means a massive loss for the collective—for everyone else. Across the United Kingdom, motor insurance fraud is a staggering £576 million industry—that is massive. In practical terms, it adds roughly £50 to every single one of our premiums. That is £50 stolen from our pockets by ghost brokers on social media, those who front the policies and those who stage crash-for-cash scams. The situation in Northern Ireland is particularly dire. Although England and Wales have seen some reforms, we remain a litigious outlier. A shocking 40% of claims in Northern Ireland reach the courts, compared with just 3.5% here in the mainland. The environment of high legal costs and high settlements creates a perfect storm for fraud to thrive. The real victims are not the big insurance corporations, but our young people— people such as my grandchild, who is just starting to drive. As of January 2026, the average premium for a young driver in Northern Ireland is £1,470. That is for third party, fire and theft; fully comprehensive insurance is over £3,000, with a black box—a box in the car that tells the company if the person is doing something they should not be doing. If they do something they should not be doing, their insurance is withdrawn. Those are the second highest premiums in the whole of the United Kingdom, surpassed only by London. We are effectively telling our young people and students that mobility is a luxury that they can no longer afford, because we have not clamped down hard enough on the dishonest few. We cannot continue to treat insurance fraud as a victimless shortcut. It is not—the stats tell us that. In Northern Ireland, many young people want to drive but find that the premiums are too expensive, never mind the cost of the car. It does not matter how expensive the car is; if they get third party, fire and theft, the whole cost is in their insurance. That is a drain on our economy, a burden on our police and a direct tax on the honest driver. I believe, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire said, that it is time for stricter enforcement, better education and a refusal to accept that fraud is just part of the system. The Government must prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all those who have broken the law and who have driven up prices for law-abiding citizens. We must also stop the insurers from capitalising on this through higher premiums, but that is a debate for another day.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  In the papers today, there are pictures of six ladies who are going to be executed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is in charge in Iran, because they protested in the streets for liberty and freedom. For those six ladies whose lives are on the line and for the millions of people in Iran who want freedom, I think the Government should proscribe the IRGC, and they should not delay in doing so. I say respectfully to the Minister that it is time to face the realities we have in this world.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  Labour has done much to address child poverty, for example, but the issues with the price of heating oil, fuel and red diesel are the same in Wales as they are in Northern Ireland, and indeed across this great United Kingdom. The price of red diesel has increased for rural farmers and for the fishing sector, as has the price of diesel for heavy goods vehicles, so what is the Minister doing to help those three sectors and to ensure that the economy can survive? If the Government do that in Wales, they will have to do it in Northern Ireland as well.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Sex Trafficking: Scotland · Hansard source

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  I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this forward. This is never an easy subject to talk about, but she always illustrates things well. We have to talk about these important issues and find a way forward. Does she agree that the shocking reports into sex trafficking would break even the hardest of hearts, including mine and many of ours? Does she agree that we must give local authorities throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland the ability and, importantly, the resources to break these rings and prosecute the perpetrators, while supporting the victims, whose futures unfortunately look incredibly bleak?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Wind Farms: Protected Peatland · Hansard source

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  It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I say a big thank you to the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for his clear passion on this matter and for reaching out to all the political parties to try to engage them and bring them together in the way he always does through his politics in this place. I do hope he is successful in that; perhaps we have yet to find out whether that will be the case. I rise to speak on a matter that touches the very heart of the Northern Irish landscape. From the Sperrins to the Fermanagh lakelands, our peatlands are not just scenic backdrops but our greatest natural asset in the fight for good environmental space and to be good stewards of our land. We are given the task to look after what we have today; we are indeed the custodians for those who come after. What we do will have an impact on our children, grandchildren and generations to come. Peat removal has taken place over many years. At the turn of the 19th century in Northern Ireland, peat was the heat source for many cottages and houses, but in the last 60 years, there has been a change and a different focus. I adhere to and support what the hon. Member puts forward in relation to wind farm development on protected peatland. In Northern Ireland, we are currently working towards an ambitious goal of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2030. We understand that this is a mammoth task, one that the Northern Ireland Assembly recently debated. Regardless of where the target is set, we need renewable energy and a sensible way forward. There is a balance. We have to restore and hold on to the peatland—that is important. I refer Members to early-day motion 3168 on World Curlew Day tabled by the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff); if they look at the wording of it, they will see the importance of retaining that habitat. The peatlands are a breeding location for curlew, lapwing and snipe, critically important for their survival into the future. Wind farms, by their very nature, have the potential to kill many of the birds that fly. That happens to birds of prey, curlew and others when they are high in the sky—I am ever mindful that wind farms are tall. I know my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) will refer to Glenwherry grouse moor in his constituency; it is a shooting moor, but it is also a peatland moor. I am very keen and interested in shooting; I know the gamekeeper there and the project that has been going on over Glenwherry for years. There were once no grouse there, and a magnificent project, in partnership with the landowner, gamekeeper and the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, has ensured that Glenwherry is now a workable and harvestable grouse moor. That has happened because they have retained the peatlands and made the habitat suitable for all the bird life that is there—not just the grouse, but the curlew, lapwing, snipe and others. We must recognise, however, that 86% of our peatlands are currently degraded. When we build turbines on these sites we risk further damaging our soil carbon pool, which accounts for 53% of all carbon stored in Northern Ireland’s soil. We support what the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley is trying to achieve, because we understand the importance of ensuring that these things do not happen. We cannot afford to save the planet by destroying the very ecosystems that naturally sequester its carbon. Under the Northern Ireland peatland strategy to 2040, we have committed to restoring all semi-natural peatlands to functioning ecosystems, and that needs to be replicated throughout this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The hon. Member referred to the importance of ecosystems in his introduction, and I reiterate that and support it. We must find a balanced path that prioritises degraded industrial peat sites for energy development, rather than un-degraded, healthy blanket bogs, and that integrates restoration funding into wind farm projects. That will ensure that developers do not just build but actively help re-wet and recover the surrounding land. When we talk about the peatlands, we talk about their importance: they are historically and environmentally important, and we must do our best to ensure that developers do not have the upper hand when it comes to stretching out and taking over what we have responsibility for. Let us ensure that our wind farms are built in the right places, for the right reasons and with the utmost respect for the carbon vaults beneath our feat in the peatlands. We take a stand for those peatlands today.

• 21 Apr 2026 · SS Richard Montgomery: Masts · Hansard source

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  I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this debate. He has illustrated the issue and the concerns over the explosives, although the second and up-to-date assessment seemed to indicate that maybe the threat is not the same. I want to ask him about marine and maritime history and the three masts. Does he agree that the ultimate goal is to protect local maritime history by creating a lasting public display for locals and tourists alike? Does he not further agree that our maritime history—my constituency of Strangford has incredible maritime history—should be promoted in schools across the United Kingdom and that schools should be encouraged to visit these masts, as we do in Northern Ireland with the Titanic museum in Belfast, to gain a better understanding of our strong history? He should be congratulated on bringing this issue forward. None of us—not me—would have known about it but for his knowledge.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Alternative Measures to GDP · Hansard source

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  I commend the hon. Lady for a very commendable speech in setting out what we are trying to achieve. She rightly highlights that, while GDP measures the monetary value of goods and services, it fails to capture critical aspects of life, such as environmental sustainability, income distribution and health. However, it is also a well-established measurement. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government must ensure that we do not see a new measure that allows failures to be hidden by new definitions?