Joe Powell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 May 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  As others have said, 14,000 babies are at immediate risk of starvation—this could not be a more serious moment. I welcome the suspension of trade negotiations and the expansion of sanctions. However, with other sanctions designations—on human rights and corruption; on Russia, Georgia, Belarus and others—we have taken them to the political level. Will the Foreign Secretary consider extending the sanctions regime to the political decision makers advocating for ethnic cleansing and the takeover of Gaza?

• 13 May 2025 · Official Development Assistance Budget · Hansard source

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  The reduction to 0.3% will require painful decisions, but there are innovative financing mechanisms on which Britain could lead—for example, increasing special drawing rights, using the exchange equalisation account, guarantees and debt relief. Can the Minister commit to working with the Treasury to look at all these non-ODA instruments in which Britain could show leadership and fund our development programmes?

• 12 May 2025 · Education, Employment and Training: Kensington and Bayswater · Hansard source

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  I recently visited the North Kensington jobcentre to learn about its support for young people and discuss the potential for working more closely with our brilliant local college, the North Kensington Centre for Skills, so that people can access opportunities in industries such as trades and housing. Will the Minister outline what more the Department is doing to bring together colleges and jobcentres for young people?

• 12 May 2025 · Education, Employment and Training: Kensington and Bayswater · Hansard source

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  7. What steps she is taking to support young people into employment, education or training in Kensington and Bayswater constituency.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. As we approach the eighth anniversary of Grenfell, there is still no justice for the bereaved and survivors, but we do now have a Government response to the national inquiry. Grenfell campaigners have been clear with me that they want to see the promised changes implemented, but they are sceptical, given previous failures of the state to learn the lessons from past disasters. Does the Minister agree that as part of, or alongside, the very welcome commitment to a Hillsborough law, there should be a national oversight mechanism to ensure that when inquiries are set up, they lead to meaningful change?

• 24 Apr 2025 · EU Trading Relationship · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this debate, and all the Ministers who are working flat out on the European reset. As others have said, the instability and conflict on European soil has changed the context in our continent, but the context has also changed globally, with long-held assumptions about globalisation, trade and economic certainty breaking down rapidly. The case for strong partnerships with like-minded countries based on free and frictionless trade, shared values and political trust has never been clearer, as the Chancellor set out in Washington this week. I was elected last July to be the MP for Kensington and Bayswater, the most international constituency in the country, and I stood on a clear promise to those residents that I would be a pro-European voice in Parliament and advocate for a closer, more pragmatic UK-EU relationship, after years of chaos under the Conservatives. The global businesses, the world-class institutions such as Imperial, the international trade hubs and, most importantly, the blended families from all over the world all say the same thing to me: uncertainty and red tape from the current shambolic deal have hurt investment, jobs, growth and family relationships, and have hit our economy to the tune of £100 billion. My constituents voted not for more trade barriers and bureaucracy, but for co-operation, opportunity and a shared future with Europe. First, we need to go further on security, deepening defence co-operation between the UK and the EU, to stand firm against Putin’s aggression. Whenever I meet my Ukrainian community at our social club, the embassy or our school, I am reminded of exactly what is at stake in the EU-UK defence pact. Going further on procurement, on intelligence sharing—as we have done with Germany—and on stopping people smuggling shows what we can achieve together. Secondly, we must open doors for our young people, not keep them closed. I have met so many young people who dream of studying, working and living in Europe. We should negotiate a bespoke youth mobility scheme for UK and EU citizens under 30, as we have with other countries, including Australia and Canada, not to return to free moment, but to create time-limited opportunities that benefit the next generation. We should embrace that as a positive step, not something to be feared or talked down. Thirdly, we need to embrace the practical steps on trade that others have talked about, which would make a real difference for British businesses. This is a critical few weeks for our trading relationship with Europe, from von der Leyen’s visit today to the summit on 19 May. It is time for maximum ambition, and the Government have my full support.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Horizon Redress and Post Office Update · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss the directly managed branch on Kensington high street in my constituency of Kensington and Bayswater. More than 1,000 residents joined my campaign to save the services at the branch. Today’s news is welcome for them, but can the Minister give us some reassurance on when the transition will take place from the current system to a franchise model, and what guarantees he has on continuing service levels?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Israel: Refusal of Entry for UK Parliamentarians · Hansard source

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  The power of bearing witness, as my hon. Friends were attempting to do, was shown at its most extreme in recent days by the paramedic Refat Radwan, who filmed the recent attack on 15 aid workers by the IDF before losing his own life. Does the Minister agree that in this case there must be accountability and not a cover-up?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  More than half my constituency casework consists of substandard repairs, poor quality communications from social landlords, and damp and mould. That is why this week I am launching a new safe and healthy homes campaign in Kensington and Bayswater. Will the Minister outline how the Government will work with councils and housing associations, ahead of changes in the law and policy frameworks such as Awaab’s law, to improve standards for social tenants, including in my constituency?

• 3 Apr 2025 · Gambling Harms · Hansard source

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  I recently met the family of Luke, a devoted husband and father of two and a passionate Leicester City fan. Luke developed a gambling addiction in 2018, and although he self-excluded and repaid debts with his wife’s support, he relapsed during the pandemic and tragically took his own life in 2021, with the inquest finding that his gambling disorder contributed to his death and that Betfair failed to act, and issuing a prevention of future deaths report to Betfair, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Gambling Commission. In the light of that tragic case and of calls today from more than 30 local government and council leaders for reform on betting shops, will the Secretary of State set out what action the Government are taking to restrict gambling advertising and to better protect people like Luke from gambling harms?

• 3 Apr 2025 · Gambling Harms · Hansard source

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  3. What steps her Department is taking to reduce gambling harms.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Government Finances: London · Hansard source

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  On the specific challenges for central London, does my hon. Friend agree that Westminster council is making the right decision to make use of the new council tax powers to implement a premium for second home owners? Will she join me in encouraging Kensington and Chelsea council to look at doing the same? That could raise £11 million a year, but is not currently the council’s position.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  Under the Conservative party, the asylum budget ballooned to over £4 billion, taking 28% of our overseas development assistance for in-country refugee costs—mainly hotels—against an OECD average of 13.8%, making us a big outlier internationally. I welcome the commitments to speed up processing and reduce hotel use, but with the aid budget being reduced to 0.3% from 2027, can the Minister reassure me that an ever-increasing chunk of a smaller aid budget will not be spent in-country, instead of on supporting vital poverty alleviation work internationally?

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for that point. The housing target for London is 88,000. She will know well that the previous target was never remotely close to being hit under the previous Government. With targets not being hit, we are interested in net new dwellings: affordable and social housing for the people I am most concerned about in my constituency. That is what the Bill will help to achieve. I am delighted that we finally have a Government who have the ambition to tackle the problem. On energy, I am pleased that the Bill will deliver faster and more certain planning consent for critical infrastructure, including upgrading our electricity networks and maximising new clean energy sources. The Bill will move us on decisively from the era of the onshore wind ban, plummeting investment, and reliance on Putin and his fossil fuel oligarchs. If we are serious about speeding up delivery, however, we must address the capacity crisis in planning departments, so it is welcome that the Government have committed to 300 new planners. What assessment has been made of the total need for planners across the country to get to the level of approvals we need to meet our housing targets? Can the planning fee reform in the Bill support that recruitment through full cost recovery? We know that planning reform must be matched by the people and resources needed to make it work.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that local people will still have a role in developing local plans and in many of the more complicated planning applications? Some of what we have heard today around local input has been scaremongering.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  Nothing symbolises the drift and decline of the past 14 years more than the appalling state of planning and infrastructure in Britain: a housing crisis that has forced children to live in overcrowded and unsafe homes; an energy crisis that has left us dangerously exposed to shocks in the global energy market; and a litany of infrastructure failures. It is not just the reservoirs or the £120 million spent on the Tory bat tunnel for HS2, but the promised 40 new hospitals by 2030—a claim now exposed as fiction with funds not allocated, many schemes not new hospitals, and a tiny fraction due to complete on time. I can see in my constituency the direct impact that that failure, especially on housing, has on my residents. I admire the commitment of the shadow Minister, who has just left his place, to the spreadsheet that he has been quoting from throughout the debate. He seems to have missed the line in the spreadsheet that states the number of times the previous Government hit their housing target—precisely zero. There are nearly 3,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and more than 2,000 in temporary accommodation. Behind those numbers are stories of daily struggle, like Sansha and her five children who live next to Grenfell Tower. Her son is in a wheelchair and awaiting open-heart surgery for his life-limiting condition. They live on the top floor, and the lift frequently breaks. There is no heating, no reliable hot water and just one working bathroom. They have been waiting more than three years for a move to a suitable property. Then there is Lacey, whose six-year-old daughter has autism—and has tried to jump out of a window twice. Despite repeated safeguarding warnings, the family remains in overcrowded and unsafe housing. Then there is another resident I met recently who spent more than 15 years out of the borough with her children before moving back. There are more than 164,000 children living in temporary accommodation in England, the highest number on record. Instead of tackling the root causes, as the Bill seeks to do, we poured money into managing the problem.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more. That is why the devolution of fee setting is so important. It should enable an improvement in the capacity of planning departments and the training for councillors on planning committees to make those decisions effectively. I also thank all the resident associations in my constituency who put time and effort into engaging in the planning system and who are passionate about making it work for our community. Their role will continue in the local plan and in applications that rise to the planning committee, contrary to some of the scaremongering we have heard in the debate. The Bill sits alongside other crucial housing measures that the Government are taking, including the biggest investment in social and affordable housing in a generation, leasehold reform, stronger protection for renters, a new decent homes standard and the implementation of Awaab’s law. If we are serious about tackling the housing crisis, this ambition must also be reflected in the comprehensive spending review—this is not just day-to-day spending, but long-term public investment. That is exactly why the Chancellor took the bold decisions in the Budget to increase the capital available for investment and reverse more than a decade of under-investment and short-termism. I would therefore welcome any clarification from the Minister on the total investment in the CSR needed to meet our housing targets, in particular on the affordable and social component. Advancing the Bill alongside new investment in the CSR could be transformative. We owe it to the constituents I mentioned earlier—to Sansha, Lacey and the thousands of children trapped in unsuitable and unsafe housing—to get this right. It will be a landmark legacy of this Labour Government to finally get Britain building again.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Rare Cancers Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for the powerful way in which he is introducing the Bill. Will he recognise the work of pioneering teams such as the one at Charing Cross hospital, under Imperial College healthcare NHS trust, where Professor Michael Seckl is leading the way in groundbreaking treatment for and research on gestational trophoblastic disease and germ cell tumours? Does he agree that those centres need support to expand and share their research findings with the rest of the NHS?

• 13 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  During the holy month of Ramadan, will my right hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the Almanaar Muslim cultural centre in north Kensington, which played such a pivotal role after Grenfell and throughout the pandemic, and which is now inspiring as a place of worship, a community kitchen, a nursery and so much more? Will she join me in wishing all Muslims in Britain Ramadan Mubarak?

• 7 Mar 2025 · Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill · Hansard source

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  In the brief time available to me, I want to reinforce my tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) for his excellent work in leading the Bill, which I have been proud to sponsor. In the hearings over the past few months, it has been eye-opening to see parents and campaigners face to face with tech executives, regulators and others, who have been either unwilling or unable to act to tackle this problem head-on. I will pass on three messages to the Minister in the two minutes that I have. On health, at a recent event with local campaigners in Kensington and Bayswater, a doctor shocked the room when she said that the impact of excessive phone and social media use on children is now the main concern among her paediatrician peers—not pollution, not smoking, not diet. It is the issue we are debating today that most worries paediatricians. Although there will always be calls for more evidence of causality, it is time, as others have said, to flip that narrative. We should challenge those who want to go slow on this issue to come up with any plausible alternative cause of the recent mental health trends. Next week, the House will discuss the huge rise in incapacity benefit, including for people with mental health challenges. If we want to tackle that issue, we must tackle the root causes such as the one we are discussing today, which will fail not only our children, but our future prosperity. In the last 30 seconds of my speech, I want to give one story of hope from Andrew O’Neill, headmaster at All Saints Catholic college in north Kensington, who was recently awarded headteacher of the year. When he saw what had happened post-covid, with that toxic combination of isolation and smartphone addiction, he extended the school day, making it a voluntary 12-hour school day, with breakfast at 7 am and supervised study classes, cooking and extracurricular activities in the evening. He has managed to break that cycle—he is a pioneering head. I want that for every child in the country, not just those students. The final word goes to Zayneb, who attends school in my constituency, and who has been watching from the Gallery all day. She said to me: “You say you’re just going to check a message, but suddenly you’ve fallen into the black hole of posts, YouTube videos, and endless scrolling. Next thing you know, two hours have passed, and you’ve done nothing productive.” She asks whether this is truly the future we want for our children, or whether we will look back and regret it. Her message is that young people want control over their screens, not the other way around, and they need our help to make that happen now.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Political Finance Rules · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton), who plays an instrumental role in the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, for securing this important debate. I was really proud to stand on a manifesto commitment to strengthen the rules on donations to political parties, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to bring forward an elections Bill in due course. I hope today’s debate will help inform what is in that future Bill, because as others have said, restoring trust in our political system and ensuring that everyone has a voice in the decisions that affect their lives is absolutely crucial to British democracy. We know from international evidence the risk of allowing ever increasing amounts of money to dominate politics. I lived in Washington DC for almost 10 years and saw at first hand the impact of that system, including the world’s richest man spending a quarter of a billion dollars to bankroll the last election. When billionaires and corporate interests drown out the voices of everyone else, we should not be surprised that people lose faith in democracy working for them. It continues to amaze me that representatives of Reform, who unsurprisingly have not turned up for this debate, seem eager to take that approach to politics. They preach populism on the one hand, while courting foreign billionaires and their policy agendas on the other. That is not in keeping with British values. But this is also about places such as Moldova and other countries where we have seen Russian operatives shipping money in to buy elections. We should not be complacent. Other Members have covered the threat to the UK, and I would like to pay tribute to Transparency International UK, Spotlight on Corruption and all the other great organisations helping to shine a light on the issue. I will move on swiftly to some areas on which I hope the Minister will consider reforms: transparency, company donations, the Electoral Commission and a cap. On transparency, unincorporated associations, as we have heard, are particularly vulnerable to abuse. Since 2010, over £40 million has come through unincorporated associations and we have no idea where 95% of that money came from. As it stands, they are not required to check that those who donate to them are permissible, so they could be foreign donors. They are easy to set up, we do not know who are behind them and there are no transparency requirements in law for donations to candidates, as opposed to political parties or campaigners. I hope that in a future elections Bill, the Government will introduce reforms to clamp down on those loopholes, including provisions on identifying people responsible for unincorporated associations, permissibility checks for political donations and lower reporting thresholds. We have already heard that company donations are a big issue. I fully endorse the proposals made on the issue by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset. Thirdly, we need robust independent oversight and to restore the independence of the Electoral Commission. We need an urgent review of the requirement for the commission to submit a strategy and policy statement to the Government. I believe that was part of an entirely confected agenda on voter fraud in the Elections Act 2022. I hope we will repeal that as soon as possible. Finally, I believe it is now time to consider caps on political donations. The previous Government’s massive increase in spending limits and the increasing reliance on major donors has convinced me that a well-enforced cap would be healthy for our democracy. This is an issue that should unite us as a House. It is about the health of our democracy. There is a lot more we need to do: votes at 16, automatic voter registration, improving citizenship education, and ensuring citizens have a voice between elections and not just at them. But on this particular issue, with trust so low, it is vital that we act urgently.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Iranian State Threats · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his reference to money laundering. He will know full well the extent to which Iran uses illicit financial networks to evade sanctions and to fund hostile activities. Will the Minister update us on what the Government are doing to follow the money and disrupt those money laundering networks, particularly those used by proxies and enablers in the UK?

• 4 Mar 2025 · Hong Kong Democracy Activists · Hansard source

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  At the recent lunar new year celebrations, I met democracy activists who have had bounties placed on them. The fear in the room was palpable. People chose not to attend the event so that they would not be photographed with people who have a bounty on their head. I fear that that chilling effect is already very real. I thank the Minister for confirming that transnational repression is being looked at by the defending democracy taskforce, but could he give us a bit more detail on the practical measures that can be put in place now to better protect those in the UK with a bounty on their head, and their family members still in Hong Kong, for whom they are deeply concerned, given the possible knock-on effects for them?

• 27 Feb 2025 · Strategy and Policy Statement · Hansard source

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  The Elections Act 2022 passed by the previous Government imposed a strategy and policy statement on the Electoral Commission, undermining its independence for some confected agenda about voter fraud, and eroding trust and confidence in the commission. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the best course of action would be not to publish a further strategy and policy statement until such a time as the legislation can be reviewed?

• 27 Feb 2025 · Strategy and Policy Statement · Hansard source

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  10. What discussions he has had with the Electoral Commission on the arrangements for the publication of the first strategy and policy statement.