John Milne MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

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

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  I shall speak to Lords amendments 6 and 333, regarding fly-tipping and vape shop closures respectively. On the face of it, those are very different issues, but they share a common thread, which is that communities are being undermined by people who think that rules do not apply to them, and the victims are being left to shoulder the burden. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for rural business and the rural powerhouse, and as the MP for Horsham, which is a largely rural area, I hear constantly about rural crime, including theft, livestock worrying and machinery break-ins, but one topic keeps coming up, and that is fly-tipping. The Country Land and Business Association reports that a single incident can routinely cost a farmer over £10,000 to clear. How bizarre is that? Let us imagine ourselves in the position of the farmer. A criminal dumps a lorryload of waste on our field. We call the authorities and we have to foot the bill. That is offensive to anyone’s sense of natural justice. In my own area, I give credit to Horsham district council for working constructively with farmers to deal with dumping incidents, but even the best councils have to operate within a law that is highly dysfunctional as it stands. The National Farmers Union, the Countryside Alliance, the Environmental Services Association and Suez Recycling and Recovery all say the same thing: waste crime is spiralling. An astonishing one fifth of England’s waste—that is 38 million tonnes—is thought to be being disposed of illegally. This is a big issue, and successive Governments have failed to rise to the challenge. The cost to the economy is estimated to be between £1 billion and £2 billion a year. The cost to individual landowners is even higher, from their point of view. Lords amendment 6 would go some way to mitigating this situation. It would make clearing fly-tipped waste a duty of the local authority, not the landowner. It would ensure that the criminal—the tipper—paid, rather than the victim. It would strengthen collaboration between police, councils and the Environment Agency so that offenders could not slip between jurisdictions. In turn, councils would need to be funded by Government for their increased role in enforcement and to protect them against unrecoverable costs. Clearly, this would be an extra spending pressure on the Government, but perhaps that would serve to focus their mind on a problem that has been scandalously overlooked for many years. Rural crime more broadly needs more focus. In my farmer surveys and surgeries, I hear that farmers are struggling with crimes such as sheep worrying, which has resulted in dead lambs, injured ewes and even the loss of an alpaca. Too often operators on the 101 line simply do not understand why this matters. We need better training, better data collection and a better grasp of rural realities. The same logic applies to Lords amendment 333 on vape shops and closure notices: enforcement must be effective and swift. Under the current rules, a closure notice can shut an illegal shop for only 48 hours. Many police and crime commissioners have said that that is simply not long enough to prepare their case. Some shops open up again almost immediately, continuing to sell illegal vapes or trading as fronts for criminal gangs. As it stands, illegal traders are undermining the health of the entire high street. Lords amendment 333 offers a practical fix. It increases closure notices from 48 hours to seven days, giving police and councils the crucial time to build a proper case. It allows courts to impose closure orders for up to 12 months instead of the current three months, and makes them renewable. It gives local authorities more realistic powers to act against shops that they already know are selling illicit vapes or targeting children. Public faith in the justice system is being undermined because people feel that justice is either too slow or that the authorities lack sufficient powers to deal with modern crime. Sadly, the criminals are innovating much more swiftly than the justice system. The two amendments have a common principle at their heart: victims should not pay for crimes committed against them, and the authorities must be equipped to act decisively when they know that wrongdoing is taking place. The amendments would go some way to help with that, so I urge the Government to support them.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Pride in Place: Community Spaces · Hansard source

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  There are real concerns that Pride in Place is just another example of this Government’s blind spot on rural areas. Groups such as the Rural Services Network and Plunkett UK warn that villages are being left behind. Key rural assets are disappearing fast, and Plunkett is calling for a targeted £10 million rural community ownership fund to help. What are the Government doing to ensure that rural communities are not left out again?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Financial Abuse · Hansard source

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  Following on from the previous question, financial abuse between couples sadly does not always end in separation, and many women struggle to access child maintenance safely. Is the Home Office working with DWP colleagues to strengthen income assessments, such as by using His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs data, and to remove the 2% collect and pay surcharge so survivors can secure child support without direct contact with their abuser?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Rural Roads · Hansard source

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  In the last 20 years, traffic on locally managed major roads has fallen by around 5%, yet damage has never been worse. Why? Because rural routes are carrying traffic they were never designed for. Heavy goods vehicles are increasingly using villages such as Cowfold, Colgate and Lower Beeding in my constituency as rat runs. In the past five years, the A272 corridor, which has surprisingly been classified as a “primary route” despite slicing through a tiny, narrow village, has seen 79 casualties. What should happen? First, the coming fair funding settlement will penalise rural councils for making the mistake of being rural, and we need to change that. Secondly, villages need greater freedom to set their own speed limits, reflecting the risks on narrow rural lanes for pedestrians, riders and drivers. Thirdly, the Government must intervene to ensure that commercial HGV satnavs follow the best routes, not simply the shortest ones.

• 17 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T10. My constituent Lucinda Ritchie is a disabled woman with full mental capacity. Until recently, she was living in her own home in Horsham, with NHS support. Against her express wishes, she has been moved into a nursing home an hour away from her family, and denied the right to return. Will the Minister look into Lucinda’s case, and will he work with counterparts in the Departments for Work and Pensions and for Health and Social Care to ensure that people’s basic human rights are protected in medical decision making?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  The Government want to cut funding for level 7 apprenticeships and redirect resources to younger groups, but bodies such as the Royal Institute of British Architects tell me that young people are unlikely to enter professional training in the construction sector, because funding will be withdrawn at the later, more expensive stages of their training pipeline. Does the Secretary of State accept that a one-size-fits-all, generalised cut-off point for 22-year-olds just does not work for industries that have a longer training period?

• 11 Mar 2026 · Disability Equipment Provision · Hansard source

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  Last year saw the first fall in Access to Work approvals in more than a decade, including a 16% drop in approvals for aids and equipment, despite the alleged surge in disability claims overall. That suggests that, behind the scenes, the Government have instructed the DWP to get tougher on approval criteria, but without announcing any formal change to policy in public. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a strange way to go about improving employment prospects for the disabled?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. Even while sitting here, I have had word from a constituent whose heating oil cost has risen, in one go, to 129.9p plus VAT per litre. I recognise that the Chancellor has been pressed by a number of Members on this. Can she assure us of immediate action, as vulnerable residents are in immediate crisis?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Support for NEET Young People · Hansard source

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  A recent report from Adzuna, a large job search agency, shows youth unemployment at an 11-year high and vacancies plummeting. Jobseekers urgently need the new “jobcentre in your pocket” digital service. Given that current timeframes suggest that it will not be ready until 2028, will the Secretary of State assure us that all options are on the table to accelerate delivery—including leveraging the private sector and technology—so that we can support jobseekers now, rather than years down the line?

• 3 Mar 2026 · Environmental Protection and Biodiversity · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) for leading this debate. I would like to focus on the biodiversity net gain industry, or BNG, which has been threatened by changes in Government policy. BNG is one of the most effective tools we have for restoring nature at scale, and it is working. Projects like rewilding on the Knepp estate in my Horsham constituency show what can be achieved when landowners are empowered to invest in habitat restoration. They have built a thriving habitat bank and are supporting neighbouring farmers through major restoration projects. Crucially, all of that depends on a functioning BNG market. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests with regard to the Knepp estate. Across England, more than 5,160 hectares have already been restored thanks to mandatory BNG, generating jobs, investment and genuine ecological recovery. That is why proposals to exempt sites under 0.2 hectares are so deeply concerning; they could severely undermine the emerging nature markets just as they are beginning to deliver results. The industry wants to work with Government, and has recommended an exemption for sites under 0.1 hectares. Doubling that is a mistake that the Government should address. I say gently to Ministers that environmental protections are not barriers to growth; they are the foundations of long-term sustainable growth. Weakening BNG now would undermine nature recovery, destabilise green investment and damage the rural economies that depend on it. Nature-based solutions are not optional extras, but an essential part of our climate infrastructure. That is why we must defend BNG and empower rewilding and restoration projects across the country.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Power to Cancel Local Elections · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank people in my constituency and across the country for signing this petition in such numbers and with such great speed; that is very revealing of the distress that has been caused. The first question is how we got into this mess. This Government’s handling of the local government reorganisation process has been nothing short of shambolic. Councils across the country, including in my area of Sussex, have been forced to make complex and controversial decisions at breakneck speed. Local government reorganisation was not in the Labour manifesto. It is such a huge change, but it was not even mentioned. In Sussex, as in many places, it was obvious that councils operating under a rainbow of different political persuasions would struggle to find consensus over new boundaries and structures, but the Government insisted on going ahead anyway. The decision to allow councils to postpone their elections was even worse. It has become very apparent that the councils that asked for delays did not do so for practical, logistical reasons, but simply because they were afraid they would be dumped out of office. That is exactly the situation at my council, West Sussex county council, where the Conservative ruling group has known for some time that it would face oblivion at the next election. When offered the chance to save itself last year with what was described as an election postponement, it reached out and grabbed it. It probably could not believe its luck when it was given the opportunity to cancel elections again this year—at least until the Government’s handbrake U-turn in the face of probable legal embarrassment. Holding elections at such short notice places great strain on council officers, especially given the pressures of ongoing unitarisation—I really feel for them, given the pressure they are under. However, it is the right outcome, even if we have reached it in the worst possible way. Repeatedly denying residents the right to vote was wrong, wrong, wrong. By the time it had finished, the Conservative group in West Sussex would have retained control for seven years—far beyond the four years it was originally voted in for and for which it had a mandate. The Government’s U-turn, which means that elections are back on, is tough on councillors who were recently voted in in by-elections, which were called only because of the delay, and that includes two Lib Dems in my own constituency of Horsham. If the Government had let elections go ahead when they should have done last year, we would never have wasted money on by-elections that never needed to happen. Across the country, of the 30 councils that asked for a delay this year, 26 were Labour, three Conservative and one Lib Dem, which was in Cheltenham. In defence of Cheltenham, the position is unique because of recent ward boundary changes. All 40 councillors were only recently elected, in 2024, in what was a specially timetabled election. They are currently just two years into their normal four-year term, but will now be forced to hold another election halfway through. I am not surprised that the elections issue has caused such anger across the country—leading to this petition—because it is about something that is as fundamental as you can get: the right to vote. I fully support the petitioners in my own constituency, and I am glad they are going to get their chance to vote after all, even if it means I am going to have to spend a lot of my weekends until May knocking on doors, like everyone else here. I do not doubt that the Conservatives will be swept from power in West Sussex. In the last few years, the political map of Sussex has changed beyond recognition. In 2023, Horsham district council became Lib Dem for the first time this century, and in 2024 I had the honour of becoming the first non-Conservative MP for Horsham in 144 years. So I look forward to 7 May, when we can finally bring West Sussex county council kicking and screaming up to date. To conclude, this was a mess we did not need to get into, so I support the proposal in the petition to remove the Secretary of State’s right to cancel elections. We have only to look at recent events to be certain that such a right is wide open to political exploitation, as has just happened. I hope the Minister will consider amending the legislation, as proposed.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  A number of Members have drawn attention to manufacturers in their constituencies. I pay tribute to Chess Dynamics in my constituency of Horsham, which designs and builds world-leading tracking devices—they are absolutely state of the art. I too was in Ukraine last year and, in addition to our support, I was struck by the solidarity of the Ukrainian people and their commitment to the war—despite comments to the contrary. Does the Minister agree that, ironically, in trying to destroy Ukraine, Putin has achieved the building of a fantastic new national identity?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making lots of observations about the consultation that is going to go ahead—what is going to be in it, and how long it is going to take. What we do not know is when he will commit to bringing legislation before this House to act against social media.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  I understand the consultation, but what about actual legislation?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Firearms Licensing · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. We should be doing work to improve what we already have; we do not need a radical change. I question whether taking action that would overwhelm licensing units would actually enhance public safety. Can we seriously expect people to wait years for a licence? We run the risk of turbocharging the black-market demand for guns. Shooting contributes billions of pounds to the UK and supports tens of thousands of jobs. It underpins conservation work, supports game meat production, sustains rural tourism and hospitality, and provides income in areas where alternative economic activity can be limited. Setting higher barriers to certification will lead to lower participation. The proposed change would be the most significant since 1988, and, according to some estimates, could mean a reduction in the number of licence holders of up to a third. That would be difficult to absorb for farm businesses that are already dealing with rising costs. We should also bear in mind that the legal test of whether someone is fit to possess a firearm is the same, whether under section 1 or section 2. The background checks, character assessments and medical requirements are already rigorous, and recent reforms have aligned referee requirements. If the objective is public safety, as it should be, we should focus on improvements that would make the most difference—for example, introducing medical markers and consistent medical engagement. During a previous debate in this Chamber, my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) set out a more effective approach to identifying vulnerable or potentially dangerous individuals.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Firearms Licensing · Hansard source

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  I think a trip to Northern Ireland is on offer to the Minister, and I am sure that she would have an excellent host in the hon. Gentleman.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Firearms Licensing · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestion. I am a big game meat fan, so I am certainly ready for that. Moving to a centralised, fully digitised licensing body akin to the DVLA or the DBS, with real-time verification at the point of sale, would directly address weaknesses, improve consistency, reduce fraud and allow police forces to focus on law enforcement rather than administrative licensing functions. If we are serious about safety, that is where our attention should go. The wrong kind of reform could damage viable farm businesses and undermine food production for no clear benefit. I urge the Government to listen carefully to rural communities, licensing professionals and the evidence. Let us modernise licensing and strengthen the medical safeguards. As a result, we will improve public safety while supporting this valuable industry and community.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Firearms Licensing · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for his balanced introduction to the debate. One of the things we get right in this country is our rigorous gun control laws. In the US, we can see the consequences of slack controls, which have resulted in gun carnage at a horrible scale—no matter what President Trump may claim. The lethality of weapons that are routinely available there is extraordinary. Here at home, we already have strong laws, and I am not convinced that merging section 2 shotgun licensing into section 1 is a necessary further step. As other Members have said, there is a risk of serious unintended consequences for the rural economy and community.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Firearms Licensing · Hansard source

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  Absolutely: let us apply the laws that we already have, as they are well equipped to do the job. I have been contacted by many constituents about this issue. One constituent, Rob, works as a farm vet, so he is well placed to get an oversight of what is going on. He works with livestock farmers, visits large and small holdings, and sees at first hand how rural businesses operate. He had never written to his MP before but felt it necessary to write to me about this proposal. Rob has seen how shotguns are used responsibly for pest control, protecting animal food stores, managing predation and safeguarding livestock. He understands how tightly regulated the system already is, and he is deeply concerned that a blunt merging of sections 1 and 2 risks placing new financial and bureaucratic barriers in the way of businesses and people who are already under immense pressure. The proposal to align sections 1 and 2 is presented as a public safety measure, but if that had been in place already, to what extent would it have prevented recent tragedies? The answer is far from clear. The serious failures identified in past cases were ones of process, enforcement and oversight—not failures caused by the legal distinction between shotgun and rifle certification. This proposal would, however, impose additional administrative burdens on already overstretched firearms licensing units. There are 43 separate licensing authorities across England and Wales, and even more in Scotland. Many already struggle with delays that are measured not in weeks, but in many months. In parts of the country, such as the south-west, it can take years. Some forces have faced backlogs so severe that they have stopped accepting new applications.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  We have heard a lot about the coalition years and austerity, to the extent that I began to wonder whether I had misread the title of the debate. Whatever the rights and wrongs of austerity, it was the conventional wisdom at the time. Had we been in coalition with Labour, I think the same thing would have happened, perhaps under another branding. At the time, I was living and working in the Republic of Ireland, which carried out a much more severe austerity, and its economy bounced back very well. Whether that was because of or despite austerity is an argument for the economists. I thank the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for her comments about not wanting this to be a zero-sum game, taking away from some at the expense of others. I very much agree with her and other Members who said that deprived areas and inner urban areas had been unfairly treated over a very long time. I wholly agree that something needed to happen, but not at the expense of rural areas such as the one I represent. I applaud the Government for taking action on this issue—it had been kicked down the road for many years—including by writing off 90% of SEND deficits. That must have been a difficult decision, but it had to be done; those deficits could never have been paid for by local authorities. The Government are committed to centralising SEND spending for 2028-29, but we are not sure how far that commitment will truly go. Will it cover only the high-needs block deficits, or will it reflect other costs around SEND provision, such as home-to-school transport? In counties like West Sussex, where my constituency is, SEND transport costs have risen dramatically over recent years. Those pressures do not sit neatly in one budget line; they rip across children’s services and transport budgets. We are still awaiting clarity on what will happen with education, health and care plans. Michelle Catterson, the head of Moon Hall school, has spoken clearly about how vital EHCPs are to families. Sustainability cannot be achieved by weakening the legal right to EHCPs, or by diluting councils’ duties to fund them. I am concerned that that is about to happen. When Ministers are asked directly about what will happen to EHCP protections, the answers are far from clear. Parents must have certainty. EHCPs must not become a back-door route to cost-cutting. I also have serious concerns about the evidential basis for elements of the settlement. My local council, Horsham district council, was initially projected to operate with a healthy surplus, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies has now flagged miscalculations in the business rate valuations, and the council’s position has been inverted into a deficit. Many councils operating with business rate pools, as Horsham district council does, have found that funding formulas did not properly account for those arrangements until very late in the process. As the District Councils’ Network has warned, changing allocations between the provisional and final settlements because of revised policy assumptions is deeply destabilising. Councils are entitled to ask on what evidential basis those formulas are constructed. Departmental research from 2018 suggests that population is often a more accurate predictor of need than deprivation alone, yet the settlement has put all the weighting into deprivation. Why? Can we see the justifications and rationales? Deprivation exists across the country, including in rural communities, such as mine. It may be in pockets, but it is still there, and it is felt just as deeply. We know that geography is a major cost driver for councils. Rural councils face longer travel times for care workers, higher transport costs for schools, dispersed populations, thinner provider markets and recruitment challenges, yet metropolitan councils are projected to receive significantly higher per-head funding increases. In some comparisons, Government-funded spending power rises by around 20% in metropolitan areas, but just 2% in rural areas. In county areas like West Sussex, when it comes to the funding increases, approximately 98p in every pound will have to be raised locally, as opposed to just 58p for metropolitan areas, which is a terrific difference. That imbalance raises legitimate questions about fairness between places. That brings me to what may be the most fundamental inconsistency. The Government recognise remoteness as a cost factor in adult social care, so why is remoteness not consistently recognised in children’s services, school transport and wider service delivery? How can distance and sparsity increase costs for adults, but apparently not for children? If geography drives costs—in rural counties, it definitely does—then that must be reflected consistently across all funding formulas. Finally, the reintroduction of the recovery grant is welcome in principle, but why is its allocation still based on deprivation indicators from 2019, when more recent data exists and has been used elsewhere across Government? When millions of pounds are being distributed, councils deserve clarity that allocations reflect current realities, particularly given the economic shifts of recent years. Without that transparency, we have mistrust. Councils stand ready to work with Government, but in return they must have fairness, clarity and clear evidence.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Pensions and Social Security · Hansard source

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  I very much appreciate the action that the Government have taken to uprate UC—for the first time in its history, as the Minister says—but does he accept that it still will not cover the cost of basic essentials such as food, heating and rent for many of our most put-upon constituents?

• 10 Feb 2026 · Place-based Employment Support Programmes · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I also thank the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for shining a light on this important issue. The Liberal Democrats strongly support the principles of devolution and localism so we welcome the Government’s stated ambition to expand place-based employment support. Employment conditions vary so much across the country that a purely national strategy could never work. However, local delivery is only half the story. A succession of Governments have been adept at passing on new responsibilities to local government but not necessarily the budget to match. The Liberal Democrats will not support reforms that simply shift costs and risks on to councils without the funding systems and accountability to make them work. What extra powers or funding flexibility will the Government give local and combined authorities so that they can design and deliver place-based employment strategies that genuinely reflect their local labour markets? Improving employment prospects is also about removing barriers. Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of people are economically inactive due to long-term sickness linked to NHS waiting lists. More than 600,000 people have reduced their working hours while waiting for treatment. Too much existing work support consists of generic help with CV writing and basic qualifications such as maths and English. Although important, that does not go far enough to answer individual needs, especially for people with specific health conditions. The current system seems to work best when providing adjustments for people already in work, who then become disabled, but fails those who are trying to get a job in the first place. The practical adjustments through Access to Work are frequently agreed only after the job offer and that is too late in the process. The case of one of my constituents from Horsham, Amanda, illustrates what can go wrong when systems do not join up. Amanda is deaf; she got a job and needed an interpreter funded through Access to Work, but a basic administrative breakdown between her employer and the Department for Work and Pensions resulted in her support being refused. Long delays in making awards are causing real trouble; I believe the waiting list has increased by four times in just a few years. The current system seems unable to respond to individual circumstances. The Liberal Democrats argue that devolution must be matched with stable funding and enough resources to support implementation. There is a journey to go on and, as we embark on it, we need to be honest about a legacy of negative culture in the system. According to a 2025 survey by Turn2Us, 64% of claimants say that the system is trying to “catch them out.” Only 15% said support from work coaches is useful, while 55% of universal credit claimants say that claiming benefits has “worsened their health.” That sounds less like an employment system and more like a deterrence system. That tactic has backfired. Job hunting is a tough process; morale matters. Totally undermining unemployed jobseekers by treating them like benefit scroungers has only ended up making sure that is exactly how they remain: stuck on benefits. The pressure on jobseekers to demonstrate industrial quantities of applications every week has destroyed trust on both sides. I have seen how local employers in my constituency have disengaged with the jobcentre. They feel that the applicants they are being sent are not interested and are just trying to meet their weekly quota of applications. The Liberal Democrats welcome the trial of place-based approaches, such as JobsPlus. It is too soon to judge, but the early signs suggest higher engagement and improved confidence and wellbeing. We need to get both jobseekers and employers believing and trusting in the system again. We need clarity on funding. Council budgets are already under severe strain and rural areas, such as mine in west Sussex, face some of the greatest barriers to employment support, yet also face some of the stiffest demands and the tighter settlement under the new local government finance settlement. Councils are concerned that JobsPlus funding ends in March 2026, yet the full evaluation has not yet been completed. What long-term funding certainty will be provided to ensure that community-based employment support is not cut off just as it starts to deliver results? Finally, on national oversight, it is vital that we ensure that place-based employment support is properly integrated with jobcentres and national programmes such as restart to avoid duplication and confusion. Will the Government commit to clear outcome measurement and regular, public reporting so that Parliament can hold the DWP to account for what those programmes actually deliver? Alongside that, what are the Government doing to properly integrate local employment schemes with national programmes, such as restart and jobcentre services, to make everything work together effectively? To conclude, the Liberal Democrats believe that place-based employment support can reduce inequality, improve outcomes and help people into sustainable work, but it must be backed by long-term funding, a competent Administration and clear, national accountability. Otherwise, localism will end up as a slogan, not a solution.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Postal Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) for bringing attention to this important issue. Pressure has been building on postal services for decades. In my former career in advertising, I worked on behalf of the Irish post office, An Post, to try to at least slow the decline in volumes. That was 20 years ago, and of course the challenge is much greater now. Royal Mail is in danger of turning into a parcel delivery service with the occasional letter attached. I visited my local delivery office in Horsham just before Christmas. The team there seemed to be doing a great job and I want to support them in every way that I can. Fundamentally, postmen are expected to cover wider areas than they ever were in the past. The problem is obviously more acute in rural areas because, just like our bus services, mail deliveries do not come as often as they used to. One couple contacted me to say that they never received my postal invitation to my MP surgery in their village. Now, one might say that missing the chance to talk to me face to face is not the end of the world, but it did leave them unsure about what else they might be missing through lack of notice. More seriously, my constituent Alison, who lives in Horsham, lost her job, income and driving licence because critical court correspondence did not arrive. She works in domiciliary care, driving between patients’ homes carrying out time-critical visits involving medication, catheter care and support for bedridden clients. She also cares for her 93-year-old disabled mother and is the next of kin for her 96-year-old aunt. In late December, she received a letter from the magistrates court, dated weeks earlier, warning of a proposed driving disqualification. It was the first correspondence that she had received on the matter and she responded immediately. Despite that, a court summons, which was also delayed, arrived too late for her to attend. She was disqualified in her absence. Her attempts to reverse the decision—swearing on oath that she had not received the letters—made no difference and she lost her job. That is unacceptable. In the end, this is about people’s lives, responsibility to family and ability to earn. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for rural business and the rural powerhouse, I feel a responsibility to speak up when rural villages and businesses in Horsham and across the UK are not being treated fairly. The universal service obligation exists for a reason, and it must work not just in theory but in practice, for the people who depend on it most. Rural Britain does not ask for special treatment, but it does demand a postal service that is reliable and fit for the realities of rural life. That is the standard that our constituents deserve and that the Government must insist on.

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

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for securing this debate. I can vouch for everything she said about the ring road around Chichester, which I have spent more hours on than I would rather. I agree that it has an impact on the commercial health of the city—it is off-putting to go anywhere in that direction. I was formerly a county councillor serving in Chichester, so I had to go there many times. I also echo what my hon. Friend said about the pressure of new house building; in Horsham we also have many new estates. The section 106 funding goes towards roads within the estate or access roads, but it does not remedy deficiencies in the network as a whole—that is not what it was designed to do, and it does not do it. We have more and more housing going up along the same roads. In Horsham we have one dual carriageway running north to south, and that is pretty much it. The A29 is single-track and is severely overloaded already—and it will only get worse. I empathise with all the things my hon. Friend said. Horsham is also impacted by the Croydon bottleneck that she referred to. We suffer from delayed and cancelled trains as well, so I thank her for raising that issue. I want to concentrate mainly on public transport, particularly buses. In my time on the council I was on the transport committee, so that is an area I campaigned on in the past. I know the severe pressures of budgets, so what I am suggesting to the Minister is looking at a number of budgets to do with public transport and possibly combining them. The home-to-school transport budget in West Sussex has grown by over 100% in recent years, and the Government’s decision to un-ringfence funding and increase the distance cap from 20 to 50 miles is a welcome recognition that existing rules simply did not allow councils to meet their statutory duties. That particularly applies to special educational needs and disabilities pupils. In West Sussex, around £33 million is now allocated for home-to-school transport. The vast majority of that is on SEND provision and it is ballooning. At present, 63% of pupils are travelling via private taxi or minibus services rather than the West Sussex county council internal fleet. That fleet currently includes over 500 vehicles and represents a long-term investment by the council. It supports not just home-to-school transport but adult social care and transport for older residents. I fully recognise that many SEND pupils do require individualised transport to meet their needs but, wherever possible, we should look at whether that could be delivered through internal fleets rather than outsourced contracts. Reliance on private providers brings higher costs, hidden inefficiencies and less resilience, while direct investment allows councils to build capacity and plan for the long term. In the meantime, however, we cannot ignore the pressure facing those private providers that are keeping SEND transport running. Providers in Horsham have raised serious concerns with me about the impact of national insurance contribution rises on their running costs. Some are questioning whether they can continue to offer these vital services at all. Andy Mahoney, chair of the Licensed Private Hire Car Association’s SEND Transport Operators Group—that is some acronym—has been clear about the risk. The increase in employer national insurance will substantially raise costs for SEND transport operators, pushing already tight contracts into loss. If providers are forced to walk away, local authorities will be left struggling to meet their statutory obligations. The industry has calculated that a ringfenced emergency SEND transport grant of around £40m for 2025-26 would cover the shortfall across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That is a modest sum when set against the disruption that would be caused if services collapse. The Government’s claim that the £515 million announced to offset NI rises for councils will address this issue simply does not hold, because that does nothing to address indirect costs passed on by private suppliers. That is why the Government should look at exempting smaller vehicles—those with fewer than 10 seats—from VAT when they are used for transport provision. Removing VAT would lower costs for providers, reduce pressure on council budgets and support more flexible, community-based provision. Cost saving is vital in the context of stretched local government finances. The national Government already recognise remoteness as a factor in adult social care funding and they must do the same across other funding streams. County councils face an uphill battle otherwise, with County Councils Network estimates suggesting that 98p of every pound will be funded by residents rather than by central Government, compared to just 58p in metropolitan areas. Rural bus services in Horsham have faced significant challenges in recent years. In particular I have raised concerns both locally and in Westminster on behalf of residents in Slinfold and Partridge Green many times. The No. 63 and No. 17 bus services, which serve those villages, have both faced damaging cuts. In Slinfold, residents like Lynne relied on the No. 63 bus to access Horsham town centre and the rail network. Good public transport links were a key reason for moving to the village in the first place. That service has been rerouted and no longer serves the village at all. In Partridge Green, residents have raised concerns for years about declining services and their ability to reach essential destinations. The removal of direct services to Horsham has cut people off from health services, the high street and basic utilities. Students no longer have a bus taking them to school or college, undermining access to education. Workers cannot commute between villages in Horsham, limiting employment opportunities. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for rural business and the rural powerhouse, and that is one of the things we are looking at. It is a major reason why rural areas have lower productivity rates than urban areas, and it could be reversed. At the Horsham District older people’s forum last year, one gentleman told me that the only way he could reach appointments in Horsham from Partridge Green was to walk over a mile to the neighbouring village on his crutches. What is most shocking in Horsham is that recent service cuts were made without consultation. Villages were given little or no warning. Community campaigns were strong, passionate and well organised, but of course the decision had already been made before anybody knew it was even being discussed. The bus operator, Stagecoach, told us that there is no formal requirement to consult residents and that, where changes are driven by commercial necessity, consultation does not normally take place. However, there is nothing to stop West Sussex county council from consulting, particularly where amendments would result in the complete loss of a service for the community. Other county councils do that. That is why I tabled an amendment to the recent Bus Services Act 2025 to make consultation compulsory, and I regret that it was rejected by the Government—not least because residents, given the opportunity, can come up with alternative solutions that would work better for everyone. This is part of a wider national picture. Back in 2012, only 59% of rural households had a bus stop within a 13-minute walk that had an hourly service. Since then, councils have been forced to make deep cuts, in some cases losing up to 43% of funding. Nationally, bus service provision has fallen by 28%. With economic inactivity almost 2.5% higher in rural areas, ensuring access to education and employment through public transport must be a priority. The Liberal Democrats are clear about what needs to happen. We want simpler funding streams for councils, a return to the £2 bus fare cap and the removal of VAT on smaller public transport vehicles. We need to look at co-ordinating all local transport needs and budgets, including schools, SEND, buses and community transport services. Yes, money is tight, but we can make the same money work harder. Local councils face huge challenges. We must reduce reliance on private transport providers over time through sustained investment in internal fleets, but in the short term, we also need to work with private providers, offering tax relief where possible, and supporting them so they can continue to operate. We have to reverse the slow death of rural transport services.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Magistrate Recruitment · Hansard source

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  I visited my local court just a few days ago. In Horsham, we are lucky enough to have a sufficient number of magistrates, but we still cannot maximise throughput because of a lack of support staff. In July last year, the Justice Committee reported that shortages of support staff were having significant impacts on delays and court capacity. What are the Government doing to attract younger people into the justice system, so that we can finally get to grips with this horrible court backlog?