Jodie Gosling MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2026 · High Street Shops: Illicit Activity · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for securing this very important debate. This weekend, Nuneaton celebrated the 800th anniversary of its royal market charter, first awarded by King Henry III. It was an absolutely fantastic day, with live local music and our teenage, independent and normal Saturday markets all coming together to celebrate our rich history and culture and the talent of my town. I was immensely proud to be part of that, and I was delighted to see such an increase in footfall for our traders. But my town, like so many others, has been battered by years of austerity and under-investment. Transformation plans were delayed again and again, while £1.25 million was cut from our trading standards between 2011 and 2015, creating a culture of looking the other way while dodgy shop after dodgy shop moved in. In the past two years, our Labour council has begun to turn things around. Our long-promised transformation plans are finally coming to fruition with the opening of Saints, the demolition approvals for and landscaping of long-empty sites, and now new investment in Grayson Place, welcoming the UK’s first championship padel courts and the brilliant North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire college to our town. Our council and its officers have worked tirelessly to diversify our town, bringing in homes, services, hospitality and leisure. An empty Debenhams has become luxury apartments, and an old nightclub has become Saints—thriving community assets. Footfall is rising again, up more than 24,000 in the final quarter, with 2 million visits to my town centre this year. Businesses are returning and confidence is growing. We are on track to restore our once-vibrant town centre. However, that progress is at risk if we cannot turn the tide on crime and dodgy shops, which threaten the very survival of historical towns such as mine. Dodgy shops undercut honest tax-paying traders by selling counterfeit and illegal goods. Worse still, they undermine public confidence in our country’s ability to enforce the law. People see illegal vape shops, drugs and counterfeit products being openly sold, and suspected money laundering and organised crime, and ask how that is allowed to happen. For far too long, that question has gone unanswered. I welcome the Government’s new funding for trading standards, and the National Crime Agency’s new powers to strengthen enforcement between the Home Office, HMRC, trading standards and the police, but that funding and those powers must reach into towns such as mine. We cannot simply force problems out of larger cities and into smaller towns without providing the resources to tackle them. We need to prevent them from arising in the first place. While out door-knocking recently, I was told by residents about cars driving at all hours of the day, including 4 am visits, with whole streets being disturbed. I raised that with our local teams, and raids took place this week. Illegal goods were seized, and we now await closure orders. However, that is all too often not the outcome. As we have heard, the endless whack-a-mole situation prevents people from closing such places down permanently. If our towns are to make progress and we are to protect what we have, we must be able to close them down permanently and never allow them to open again.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Town and City Centre Safety · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this debate. Nuneaton town centre, like many of our town centres, used to be a source of pride. Our vibrant markets stretched all the way through town, down Queens Road, through market square and back down Abbey Street. Every shop was full, bustling with shoppers. Over the past decade, like many of our town centres, it has taken a hammering and has suffered significant decline. Shops have been boarded up, and the market has been reduced to an echo of its former self. Crime—shoplifting, serious organised crime, drugs and antisocial behaviour—has become commonplace. A few years ago, my teenager—like many parents’ teenagers—was in town on a Saturday, and a Facebook post popped up showing police cordons around the town centre, with a flippant comment, “Nunny got a bit stabby”. It culminated in the tragic and fatal stabbing of one of our local lads, a gentle giant, Tom Ellis, in June 2024. Since my election, I have been driven to change the future of Nuneaton town centre, alongside the ambitious Labour council, and we are progressing rapidly with transformation work. The market is growing back, and in March our transformation project, Grayson Place, will be completed. We await the opening of food halls, college campuses, event spaces and the first championship padel centre. I have made it my priority to meet senior officers from our local safer neighbourhoods team, walk the town, and talk to businesses, market stall traders and shoppers. I welcome the return of our designated town centre officer. I also welcome the investment of £1.5 million from the Government’s Pride in Place impact fund for our town centre, alongside £1.4 million in neighbourhood funding. We are working together with organisations such as the police, the business improvement district, our town centre wardens and our brilliant councillors, such as Councillor Nicky King, to co-ordinate the approach and rescue our town centre.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend. It is symptomatic of just a disregard and a whitewashing of issues in my communities. Rural communities agree with this Government’s aims to make farming more profitable, to reduce rural crime and to tackle the barriers to their prospering and thriving. If we are to achieve those aims, we need to continue listening hard to our farming communities and embed that into MPs’ communications, to make sure those communities’ views are heard. We need to make sure that the safer streets mission benefits everyone and take firm action to stop hunting, once and for all, and them acting with impunity.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  First, I welcome the changes to inheritance tax, to agricultural property relief and to business property relief. Farming is essential to our rural economies, and with new investment I will continue to work with colleagues to champion food security, sustainability and the key challenges around the sector, which are a result of serious decline over the past decade. I thank Ministers for their time to discuss these important issues and for listening to my views and of those of my constituents. As an MP of a semi-rural area, I am aware of the challenges faced by living in a rural community, which include connectivity, access to work, services and education. I am aware of the impact that the cuts to bus services and outreach services such as Sure Start had on my community and our ability to thrive. Further cuts are now proposed by Warwickshire’s Reform county council to our school transport, potentially making children walk down unlit, unrestricted roads on their way home from school for a proposed 5 miles, which is simply dangerous. I want to focus in particular on crime. I am proud to see a cross-departmental approach to addressing rural crime, ensuring that the Government’s safer streets mission benefits every member of our community. Local farmers have repeatedly raised concerns about the level of rural crime with me, so I was pleased to see that over £12.7 million-worth of stolen machinery was recovered last year, including £800,000 from abroad. Theft of machinery is not the only criminality that our farmers face. One of my local farmers reported on the day a number of dogs from the local hunt broke away from the pack and ended up on his land, filled with sheep. Although none of the ewes was killed, two later aborted, losing two rare-breed lambs and thousands of pounds in stock and vet’s fees, before even considering the emotional damage. That farmer’s story is not isolated. Residents across Nuneaton regularly contact me concerned about the activities of our local hunts and matters such as missing pets and damage to gardens. There are still many serious questions over Warwickshire police’s handling of those offences; indeed, they were forced to release details of a secret protocol signed in 2022. In spite of a subsequent review, residents tell me that the deal seems to have only emboldened Warwickshire hunt. Of the 5,000 reports of criminal activity, only 75 prosecutions against 58 individuals were successful between 2004 and 2024.