John Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right about that tendency, but it does not have to be like that. We can either build a society that is about personal interactions and familiarity, or we can allow a society of the kind she describes to develop, which will destroy the tapestry of those interactions that make up the wellbeing of each of us and all of us.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The Minister says that they are, but they should be subject to exactly the same restrictions as those who print and broadcast.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  We should not be naive about this, because the tech companies have form. All of their pedigree suggests that they cannot be trusted to do the right thing—to manage their affairs, or to protect either the public interest or the interests of the creative industries—so I hope that the Government will take exactly the robust approach that the hon. Gentleman has described. Perhaps one way in which they could do so, given that copyright has been introduced into these considerations via the amendments, is to extend existing copyright to the internet, so that people who publish online are subject to the same restrictions—

• 11 Feb 2025 · Cost of Energy · Hansard source

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  I apologise for arriving at the debate rather late, Mr Western. Needless to say, as a former Energy Minister, I take an interest in these matters. Anyone who shares that interest will understand that we need a mix of energy between renewables and non-renewables. Renewable energy has to be tested on the basis of whether it is cost-effective. Some renewables are and some are not; it is as simple as that.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Cost of Energy · Hansard source

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  I understand the Minister’s desire to create more economic resilience by ensuring energy independence. By the way, I should refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in respect of this contribution and the previous one. The key thing is transmission and distribution costs, which make up 15% of every energy bill. No Government have looked at that seriously. If we distribute energy production to small solar plants spread right across the kingdom, we will maximise the costs and damage the resilience that the Minister seeks. Will he focus on the concentration of energy production and bring it as close to consumption as possible?

• 5 Feb 2025 · Gambling Harms · Hansard source

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  I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for arriving a little late to his opening remarks. The point is that the occasional flutter on the Grand National or a game of bingo, such as my mother played, is a world away from the gambling that he describes. A statutory levy has been announced; will he ask the Minister perhaps to talk about how it will operate? It must not be controlled by the very people who are doing the harm.

• 5 Feb 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way, and I appreciate much of what he has already said on the difficulties and challenges local government faces, and the Government’s recognition of that. Part of the consultation feedback he will have had is on the local authorities that have to fund drainage, such as South Holland, in my constituency, and many others. There is a real problem here, because drainage is not adequately funded through the system; it does require an extra grant, in my judgment, to those local authorities. Will he look at this issue, and will he meet me and others to discuss it further, should that be helpful?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Accessibility of Radiotherapy · Hansard source

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  I ask the Minister to leave a few moments for Mr Farron to say a final word of wind-up, and Mr Farron, in turn, to leave me a few moments to put the question.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Accessibility of Radiotherapy · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to be able to call the Front-Bench spokesmen early, although that does not necessarily mean that they have to go on at immense length. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Accessibility of Radiotherapy · Hansard source

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  This is a short debate. I intend to call the first Front-Bench speaker at 5.08 pm.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Accessibility of Radiotherapy · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Helen; as you predicted, your speech was pointed and not too long. I now call the shadow Minister.

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members for their brevity. I am determined to ensure that those who want to speak get the opportunity to do so. Thank you for your co-operation this afternoon. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  Three minutes each now. I call Iqbal Mohamed.

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  Order. First, I will call Members who bob, so please could those who wish to be called make sure to bob? Secondly, I remind Members that they should be here for the start of a debate if they want to contribute, but I will try to be generous. Thirdly, so that all who want to can speak, let us try to work on the basis of about four minutes each. That is informal at this stage, but as we continue, we will look at it again.

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  I call the shadow Minister.

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  Members can see that we have about 11 minutes left for Back-Bench speakers, so let us divide it between the three remaining Back-Bench speakers.

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  Before I call the Minister, I ask that he finishes a couple of minutes before 4 pm to give Mr Cooper a chance to wind up the debate.

• 4 Feb 2025 · UK-US Bilateral Relationship · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to colleagues for their co-operation. Six Members are standing, and I will call the Front Benchers at 3.28 pm, so brevity would be appreciated. Three to four minutes would be brilliant.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for her ongoing discussions about drainage and local authorities and other water-related matters. On the issue of water poverty, can she confirm that, either as part of the Bill or as an adjunct to it, when water companies fail to deliver an adequate service in new build situations—where new houses are built, but the water infrastructure is insufficient to furnish those new houses with the proper supply of water—the Bill and the regulatory environment that she has just described will allow customers to get their entitlement and to free themselves from water poverty, as she put it?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Grooming Gangs: Sentencing · Hansard source

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  15. What steps her Department is taking to ensure that people convicted of charges related to grooming gangs receive adequate sentences.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Grooming Gangs: Sentencing · Hansard source

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  As in Bradford last week, where more of the grooming gangsters, largely of Pakistani origin, who raped white girls there and elsewhere were sentenced, the paucity of the Home Secretary’s audit, whereby authorities mark their own homework, was made clear. Will the Justice Secretary agree to a wide-ranging review of these matters with statutory powers? Surely those whose lives have been ruined, and those whose lives may yet be ruined, deserve more than the weak reticence of people with power who refuse to face the facts.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Public Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  This is the second useful contribution the hon. Member has made to our affairs this afternoon. I have two points that he might want to take on board in the considerations he is offering us. First, public funding formulas should be sensitive to the particularities of rural areas such as Lincolnshire and his constituency, and at the moment they are not. The local government funding formula and the police funding formula, for example, are skewed towards urban areas. Secondly, and pertinent to the hon. Gentleman’s point about transport, we need to re-dignify small towns and rural places by ensuring that the footprint of government in those places is felt. Over my time as a Member of Parliament, we have closed magistrates courts and removed tax offices. Driving test centres have been centralised, and cottage hospitals have reduced in number. When the dignity is taken out of rural places, it obliges people to travel much further to access what they need and it changes the character of those communities.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Public Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is being incredibly generous in giving way, and I thank him for giving me a second bite of the cherry—I know he is moving on to his exciting peroration. GPs seem less and less keen to meet people face to face and still less keen to visit them in their homes, as they once did routinely, by the way, in my lifetime. Would he agree that, rather than their distribution, the centralisation of services, which seems to have been the order of the day under successive Governments on the grounds of rationalisation, is particularly bad for rural areas and for least advantaged people?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Money) · Hansard source

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  I will in a second. On the judicial point, I simply say to the hon. Lady that the establishment of a judicial competence to deal with this system will be resource-hungry. To offer her a parallel example, when I took the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 through the House, we established what was then described as a double lock—it became a triple lock—which required a whole new judicial function to make it happen. It may well be that the same applies in this case, with immense cost and immense pressure on an already overstretched judiciary. Therefore, in considering those precise matters—not the ethics of the Bill, which are an entirely different consideration, and highly questionable—it is absolutely right and pertinent to ask what this will cost, when, and how it will be delivered. Those questions have not been answered. I scanned the hon. Lady’s speech on Second Reading, and it contained no mention of scale or cost. That is why I am immensely sceptical about what we have before us. While I accept that the money resolution is not unprecedented, it is certainly not desirable.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Money) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) is right that this is not unprecedented; in fact, it is the normal procedure for a money resolution relating to a private Member’s Bill to be debated ahead of Report. That is not true of Government Bills, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker. However, it is really important that we examine the detail of what we are presented with today, which is an open-ended commitment. The wording makes it absolutely clear that “any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State, and…any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under or by virtue of any other Act”, money is so provided. The hon. Lady says that this is not a blank cheque, but it cannot get much more blank than that. Essentially, any moneys associated with the Bill—if it becomes an Act—will be provided. Pertinent to this vote, we have to ask the question: where will that money come from? Presumably it can come only from existing resource, and one assumes palliative care; it will not come from A&E, surgical treatments or GPs, so it will presumably come from that source. One does not know, of course, but it is perfectly reasonable to ask that question.