Joe Robertson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Hard-working men and women in the coastguard, such as Bembridge resident Martin Groom, do vital work securing our borders, including, in some cases, intercepting small boats. The coastguard treats them as volunteers, but the Court of Appeal has disagreed and said that they are workers. Will the Government do the right thing and afford them all the rights, protections and fair payment that their worker status entails? The security of our nation relies on them.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Economic Impact of Government Policies · Hansard source

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  The Government are giving a 50% reduction to the emissions trading scheme levy on ferries crossing between Northern Ireland and Great Britain in an apparent effort not to negatively impact the economy there. Scottish islands are getting a 100% reduction, yet the Isle of Wight is getting no reduction. What economic assessment has been done to arrive at those figures, or are they simply plucked out of thin air?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Economic Impact of Government Policies · Hansard source

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  2. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of Government policies on the economy in Northern Ireland.

• 5 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I note the Minister’s assertion that there is no intention to squeeze out other operators, but given the way in which the Bill and the clause are drafted, that surely is an inevitability regardless of whether he intends for that to happen. It is the outcome that matters. If it will not enable open access and competition, that is in itself a problem, notwithstanding he might not intend that to be the case.

• 5 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  This question is possibly better directed at the Minister, but does my hon. Friend think that the clause might be so restrictive because, in truth, the Government do not really want open access, despite what they say?

• 5 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Channel your inner Jerome!

• 5 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I have a short point to make. The Minister seems to be saying that it is important to restrict an appeals process to the judicial review principles, which is a more restrictive set of criteria by which a body or company can appeal. Otherwise, that might lead to “incoherent decision making”—I think those were his words. That sentiment and assertion undermines the entire court system of the United Kingdom—save for judicial review applications—which is based on disputes being had in, for example, the county court or the High Court, or another court making a decision, and the possibility of an appeal going upwards all the way to the Supreme Court, depending on the issue. However, nobody would suggest that that leads to an incoherent society or to incoherent contracts, family law, employment law, decision making or anything else. For some reason, Great British Railways has this special carve-out, such that it can be challenged only through judicial review, because of some notion of incoherence. It seems to me that the entire purpose of that restriction is to prop up Great British Railways and allow it to act in a way that is not really comparable to anything else in the way we deliver public transport in this country. It gives me considerable concern.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a powerful, wide-ranging speech, and I am sure that more details will come out. Does it not come down to the fact that the Prime Minister appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite knowing that he had had a long-standing friendship with a prolific convicted paedophile, to the extent that he had stayed in that paedophile’s house while he was serving prison time? That in itself is sickening and shocking. Not only should people not be defending Peter Mandelson—and they are not—but nobody should be defending the Prime Minister for his sickening conduct.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  Perhaps I can rephrase the question asked by the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley). How was the Prime Minister to know that the famous serial liar Peter Mandelson would lie to him?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  Is it not shocking that the Prime Minister not only appointed Peter Mandelson knowing his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, but today has sought to deflect, cover up and table an amendment so as not to have to answer questions that he must now answer?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister says Great British Railways, not the Department for Transport, will run the railways. He says that is different from the set-up for the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. Was that not exactly the reason NHS England was set up, albeit not by his Government: to run the NHS so that the Department did not have to? I do not see the conceptual difference here at all; what I do is see the inconsistency in the Government getting rid of NHS England because that model does not work and bringing in GBR in the context of transport.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  I welcome the offer to meet, and I wish to take the Minister up on it. As he will know, the hybrid vessel he refers to that travels across the Solent has electric capability, but it cannot be used because there is no grid capacity at Portsmouth. The Solent is one of the busiest shipping areas in Europe and the vast majority of pollution will be from large container ships going in and out of Southampton—and, of course, the Royal Navy operates out of Portsmouth. Putting any cost on a boat travelling to the Isle of Wight to allow to people to go to and from home fails to meet any sort of reasonableness test, but I thank the Minister for the offer of a meeting.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I associate myself with all the wide-ranging arguments made by my hon. Friend the shadow Minister about this piece of legislation, but I wish to focus on something more specific: the impact on ferries and the cost of travelling to UK islands. The Government know that this legislation will increase the cost of travel to islands. They know it will have an adverse impact on UK islands, which is why they exempted travel to Scottish islands from this punitive levy. What they have not done is extend that exemption to all UK islands, which means my constituents on the Isle of Wight now face additional cost in getting to and from home. There is no way to travel to the Isle of Wight other than by ferry. There is no other way of getting goods to the Isle of Wight, and when I say goods, I do not just mean things like building materials. I mean bread, butter, eggs—our supermarkets are stocked with produce that comes across only by ferry because there is noother way to get anything to or from the Isle of Wight. Just last year, in response to a question from me, the Prime Minister said from the Dispatch Box that he knows that Isle of Wight ferries have not been good enough—that is in the context of price and frequency. Indeed, the maritime Minister has set up a series of meetings, led by an independent chair, to explore ways to improve travel to the Isle of Wight, including its cost. Yet at the same time the Government are increasing the cost of travel to the island. We start from a position of disadvantage compared with Scottish islands. Our ferries are already more expensive than those that serve the Scottish islands. Our ferries do not have public subsidy, unlike those to the Scottish islands, and they are not ultimately publicly owned. In fact, they are owned by private equity interests, which fill the coffers of pension funds overseas. They are entirely unregulated, and Isle of Wight residents are entirely at their mercy, but while we seek support from the Government to ensure that the companies give us a fairer deal, the Government make our travel more expensive. I am not asking for anything special, or a special Isle of Wight exemption; I am asking for the exemption that the Government already give dozens of islands to include the island of which I represent a part. No impact assessment had been done on the effects on the economy of my constituency, or of other islands that are not covered by the exemption, but the Government do accept that this measure will increase costs. They have access to a report by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, which is general and not in direct relation to this order, and which ranked my constituency the second in England for having the most people in left-behind neighbourhoods—that is, second bottom on the pile. That ICON report is not some unusual or niche interest piece that has been put together; the Government themselves said they would base the delivery of their five missions on it. How has the ETS legislation fallen out of their five missions? Surely, the entire delivery of the Government’s programme is based on their five missions, yet they have set aside and ignored the report that they said they would rely on. Again, I am not making a parochial argument, representing some small, faraway place in the United Kingdom. I am basing my argument on the Independent Commission on Neighbour-hoods report that the Government say they are using and relying on to deliver a fair programme of government. The UK Chamber of Shipping has said that, given what has happened in Europe, the cost of tickets could go up by around 15%. Ultimately, global warming will not be solved by making it more expensive to travel to the Isle of Wight, or to any other island in the United Kingdom. I urge the Government to think again, and extend their exemption to all UK islands.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I do not wish to interrupt the shadow Minister mid-flow, but I hope the Government will take on board his amendments and new clause. If they do not, perhaps they might like to amend the name of the passengers’ council to the “disabled passengers’ council”, because, in effect, that is the work it will be doing, so why not name it appropriately?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Transport in the South-East · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) on introducing this important debate. I have a direct solution to her problem of traffic queueing up to access the wonderful beaches at the Witterings. There is an alternative: those road users could stay on the road to Southsea, jump on the hovercraft and visit the wonderful beaches in Ryde, Bembridge and Sandown on the Isle of Wight. She is welcome to put my offer to her constituents in her next newsletter. The south-east is a great economic engine of the UK. It is home to 7.6 million people and 368,000 businesses, and contributes £228 billion in gross added value to the UK economy. If the south-east slows down, Britain slows down. Its connectivity is therefore essential to supporting the economic growth that the country needs, which has been so lacking in recent months. As we have heard, the region hosts some of the most strategically vital transport infrastructure in the country: Heathrow, Gatwick, Southend, the M25, the M4, the Eurostar, the channel tunnel and the ports of Dover and Southampton. The Dover strait alone is the busiest shipping lane in the world, with more than 500 vessels passing through every single day. Responsible for more than 60% of the UK’s trade with Europe, the south-east’s geography makes it fundamental to the success of British trade, too. To ensure that we can maintain connectivity, the Government must reverse their approach of imposing ever increasing costs on our transport infrastructure. Those costs are inevitably passed on to passengers, like national insurance increases and business rates. Earlier today, a Delegated Legislation Committee approved the emissions trading scheme for the maritime sector, which will add costs to domestic ferry services to the Isle of Wight. Scottish islands will be exempted, but not our own island in the south-east of England. As we have heard, there has been a long-standing assumption that, because the south-east is perceived to be prosperous, it can somehow cope with less spending or, at least, tolerate greater disruption. That approach is misguided. As many Members from the south-east would acknowledge, that is often London-focused, ignoring the areas around Greater London. We know that east-west connectivity across the south-east remains weak. Productivity suffers when journeys are slower, freight is delayed and supply chains are less reliable. Spending decisions should not be judged on crude, per-capita formulas but on whether they reduce congestion, cut journey times, increase productivity, support net zero and strengthen economic resilience. Nowhere is that clearer than on our roads, yet our road network is being allowed to deteriorate. The one-off cost to clear the national road maintenance backlog is estimated to be £16.8 billion, and would take 12 years to complete. In 2024, the Department for Transport reported that 4% of local A roads, 7% of B and C roads, and 17% of unclassified roads that should have been maintained were not. New Road in Brading in my constituency is closed for one month, and buses will not visit the town, notwithstanding the fact that there is another road and viable route into it. That raises another issue many of our constituents experience: the frustration that when roads do get upgraded, closures are often badly planned and key transport, such as buses, which constituents, particularly those who need to access healthcare or have mobility issues, rely on, is not adequately catered for. Instead of fixing the roads we already have, the Government’s instinct appears to be to make driving more difficult. Only recently, plans were quietly published on the Government website that encourage narrower roads, under guidance from Active Travel England. Narrower roads risk slowing traffic, increasing congestion, making overtaking more dangerous, delaying emergency services and inflaming tensions between motorists and cyclists. That is not pragmatic transport policy, and it risks costing the economy billions of pounds. As Edmund King of the AA rightly said, UK roads “have evolved since Roman times” and they “require…give and take which can’t just be ironed out by regulations.” Those plans come on top of decisions such as the introduction of charges at the Blackwall tunnel after nearly 130 years of free use, which is yet another example of the Mayor of London making it more expensive and difficult to drive, particularly affecting those with no realistic alternative. Motorists already feel heavily taxed, heavily restricted and increasingly ignored. Turning to rail, East West Rail is a project that both Labour and the Conservative party have supported and funded in principle, but delivery has been painfully slow and deeply disappointing. Despite being completed in late 2024, services remain unused; East West Rail has admitted to the most basic of design failures. The Government have set out their support for East West Rail, but prospective passengers understandably want the service now. In October 2025, the answer the Department for Transport gave to a parliamentary question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) offered no clear timetable. Passenger services to Bedford are now not expected until 2030, with Oxford to Cambridge services delayed until the mid-2030s. That is not the progress that our constituents want and deserve. I will again touch briefly on maritime transport. The Government have proposed that they support my constituents to access cheaper, more reliable ferry travel by setting up a local group with an independent chair appointed by the Department for Transport, which is progress, and which I welcome. However, at the same time, the Government are putting cost on to the Isle of Wight through their emissions trading scheme. That is not an example of the mission-led Government they claim to be, nor an example of joined-up Government. They have exempted ferries to Scottish islands from the scheme, and that is an example of the pervasive view that the south-east will somehow cope, where other parts of the United Kingdom should have a special exemption. Ports and ferry routes in the south-east are critical national assets, yet ferry services remain uniquely under-regulated and expensive. Rail and bus operators face obligations on pricing, performance and transparency, but ferry operators do not. Cross-Solent ferry operators are unregulated and controlled by private equity interests that fund overseas pension funds. That would not be acceptable in any other form of public transport, and it should not acceptable in ferry transport. That imbalance harms communities and undermines connectivity. Integration across road, rail and maritime transport is essential if we are serious about resilience and fairness, and I urge the Government to give the maximum possible powers to new mayoral combined authorities to ensure joined-up, integrated transport, regardless of whether that transport is currently regulated or not. The south-east does not need grand gestures or experiments in public transport. It needs practical spending and proper maintenance directed towards how people actually travel—fix the roads, stop penalising motorists, and deliver infrastructure properly, effectively and efficiently. That is how we will keep the south-east and the UK moving.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. Last year, the Government sold off our fishing rights in return for access to the EU’s Security Action for Europe defence fund, but they did not get a penny in return. The Prime Minister, who is in the Chamber, now says that he wants to renegotiate. Will the Secretary of State please explain what lessons he has learned from the failures in negotiations last year?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  When the Minister talks about wasting money on people being employed to argue with each other about who is to blame, I think of what his colleagues are doing in the Department of Health and Social Care with NHS England, by removing that culture and not having two state organisations delivering health. Does he envisage a problem here with the Department for Transport and GBR both having some responsibility for delivering rail and getting into a situation where they are doubling up on capacity and arguing about who is responsible for what?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  8. What steps his Department is taking to support the hospitality sector.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  What the Minister does not say is that the Government have also taxed those businesses and made it harder to employ people, which is why there are 100,000 fewer people working in hospitality since her Government came to power. Hospitality businesses in my constituency are hanging on to one thread of hope: the vague assertion that the Government will look again at valuations. Will the Minister look again right now, scrap business rates for hospitality and back our high streets?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I do. It is not difficult for me to agree and accept that the way Wightlink, which was part of British Rail, was dealt with was more than a missed opportunity; it was a bad decision. Locally, I work cross-party with the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on that. This Government have an opportunity. I thank the Minister for the work he is doing and I hope he will be prepared to intervene in a way no Government have done. There are clearly opportunities to make small improvements to the Bill, and accepting the amendments would do that not just in my constituency, but in others. I will leave the Minister with a question: if he does not support the amendments, how else might he use powers in the Bill, or would he be prepared to introduce amendments of his own, to improve connectivity for other modes of transport that do not have any formal regulation?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his apology, if that is what that was; it is accepted. My argument for integration between rail and all modes of transport, although I will use ferries as a particular example, is important. The Minister is also the Maritime Minister, and is well aware of the specific issues that my constituency faces. The two amendments seek to deliver integration through strategy. If we think back to the evidence given to this Committee last week by the future Prime Minister who is currently apprenticing as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, he said that integration is essential—and he would know, being in charge of a combined mayoral authority. We are due to get a combined authority for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and the amendments can be viewed as mirroring the strategic responsibilities put on combined mayors, who have responsibility for travel and the interoperability of transport connections in their areas. What the amendments—and particularly amendment 137 —seek to do is ensure that the Minister and the Government also have the responsibility to ensure co-operation. That is explicit in amendment 137, which calls for “co-operation with relevant local and regional transport authorities”. The amendments would end situations such as, for example, the one where, if I was to travel home on the 3.30 train from Waterloo down to Portsmouth Harbour station, the train would arrive five minutes after the ferry had departed. I imagine those are frustrations across pretty much every constituency in the land between trains and other forms of transport. If that situation is not addressed in the explicit way set out by the two amendments, it will continue to be a significant problem that will never get dealt with. Giving more attention and powers through the Bill will help to deliver improvements even for modes of transport, such as Isle of Wight ferries, that are not regulated by the Government and where they do not have explicit and express powers.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I want to speak in support of amendment 137, in the name of the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage, and amendment 261, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer). The two amendments attempt to deliver the same thing: better integration between rail and other modes of transport. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage is a man of great attention to detail, but it was perhaps a little sloppy of him on this occasion not to include in his list of trains, buses, trams and cycling the word “ferries”. Of course, ferries are fundamental in my constituency; we cannot get off the Isle of Wight without using them.

• 28 Jan 2026 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, which contains more detail than the Government’s contribution. In a nutshell, is the fundamental problem not that when we give away British sovereign territory to another nation, we are vulnerable in perpetuity—whatever agreement we have sitting around it—to that agreement being torn up, disagreed with and not implemented?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend talks about the differences between those on the two sides of the Chamber. As we have heard today, most of the Government’s answers are: “We have a Government programme for that.” Does he think that most young people would prefer a re-branded Government programme or a job?

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?