John Milne MP: speeches 2025

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Speeches

9 Jul 2025 · Neighbourhood Plans: Planning Decisions · Hansard source
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The targets are centrally driven and set by the standard method. In many areas, they are extremely difficult to fulfil, and that is why we get pressure on the green belt or protected conservation areas. That is the fundamental cause. Across the country, many councils of many different persuasions all face the same problem. That can break councils, because they are forced to allocate housing in areas where they really do not want to. The fundamental issue is the standard method, and we will never solve the issue of building on brownfield or greenfield sites until we properly replace it.
9 Jul 2025 · Neighbourhood Plans: Planning Decisions · Hansard source
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for drawing attention to this often-neglected area. For many years, planning has been the subject of intense argument and dispute, both locally and nationally. Part of that argument is around environmental protection, but in particular there have been battles over the need to find ever more housing sites. The Government are clearly approaching neighbourhood plans from that perspective. As Liberal Democrats, we believe that the starting point for any planning reform should be public consent. That cannot mean a right of veto in every circumstance, because the needs of society as a whole may outweigh local considerations. However, the best results can be obtained when we go as far as possible to allow local residents genuine involvement in their own future. Neighbourhood plans were brought in following the Localism Act 2011 under the coalition Government. As such, Liberal Democrats have always supported them. At their best, they represent the strongest form of community involvement, control and consent in local development. They are a unique co-production between ordinary members of the public and planning professionals. Judging by the number that have been undertaken over the years, they have been very successful, especially in rural areas. When one considers the amount of voluntary work that residents have to put in, they are a remarkable exhibition of people power. I pay tribute to all the residents in my own constituency of Horsham who have sacrificed so much for their communities. Cutting locals out of the process, as the Government’s new Planning and Infrastructure Bill does in so many ways, is a violent break with this past. The main strategic goals for an area need to be set by professionals, but alongside them, ideally in genuine partnership, residents bring a unique local knowledge and emotional commitment in a way that can never be replaced by professional planning officers. As such, it is disappointing to see that this role has been entirely ignored in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that is currently making its way into law. In July 2024, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) asked the Secretary of State, “could she confirm that where local residents have complied with her mandatory targets through a neighbourhood plan, rather than a local plan, the neighbourhood plan will reign supreme and will not be trampled over by planning inspectors subsequently?” —[ Official Report , 30 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 1191.] The Secretary of State replied: “I can confirm that neighbourhood plans and the protections will remain, which is really important.” —[ Official Report , 30 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 1191.] Now that the full text of the Bill has come to light, exactly how true was that statement? Neighbourhood plans are usually created on completely different timelines to local plans. They are usually adopted at different stages and they allocate housing for different periods. Although a neighbourhood plan can meet a housing target at the time it is approved, if a subsequent local plan sets a higher target, the neighbourhood plan will be overruled. That was already a problem under the previous Government. The introduction of the standard method for calculating local housing targets created a parallel but contradictory process for deciding house building, and that has caused endless confusion and dispute ever since. I say to the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth that the real cause of the problems with his local council is the standard method. That is the source of the top-down targets. The standard method is not a solution to the housing crisis, but it is a major contributory factor. It is very disappointing—
9 Jul 2025 · Neighbourhood Plans: Planning Decisions · Hansard source
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That is a gross generalisation. There are local factors everywhere. The hon. Gentleman really cannot make generalisations like that.
9 Jul 2025 · Neighbourhood Plans: Planning Decisions · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Member give way?
9 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source
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I rise to speak in support of amendment 36. Over the past weeks, I have met numerous disability organisations, from Parkinson’s UK to Action for ME, and heard directly from those living with complex fluctuating conditions. I have also seen the impact at first hand as an employer of people with long-term invisible disabilities. What I have heard, seen and lived is simple: the current proposals risk unacceptable consequences for those who are already among the most vulnerable. The Government’s redefinition of “severe conditions” hinges on the word “constantly”—a single word that is of dubious clinical value. I appreciate the clarification given to other Members, but it is very late in the day to be getting such important information. Conditions such as ME/chronic fatigue syndrome, MS, epilepsy and bipolar disorder do not operate on a schedule. They are unpredictable and they fluctuate, yet the Bill would exclude many individuals who have them from vital support, simply because their symptoms do not comply with a Government definition. Amendment 36 would ensure that our assessment system respects the United Kingdom’s obligations under the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. This affirms the principle of non-retrogression so that we do not roll back hard-won rights. It insists that we take invisible and episodic conditions seriously, and it protects people from falling through the cracks. The Bill has had an extraordinary passage through Parliament, and at this point the most obvious course of action would be simply to pull it altogether and start again. I realise the political difficulties that that may involve, but vulnerable people’s lives are at stake. When the Government come to look again at some of the deleted clauses via the Timms review, it is essential to approach the issue from a “needs first” angle, not a “how much can I save?” angle, because so many Government cuts in the past have ended up costing more than they have saved. I accept that the Government do not have infinite funds, but the PIP proposal represented an arbitrary change in eligibility—the four-point rule—with the crude objective of making a predetermined saving. It has all been the wrong way around: we should wait to understand needs first, and only then consider to what extent the Government can afford to meet them.
9 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source
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I cannot agree with the hon. Member, and I will partly explain why in a moment. We need a more honest assessment of the overall financial situation that is being used to justify these drastic cuts, because the wrong diagnosis leads to the wrong solutions. The dramatic rise in PIP claimants is at least partly driven by other Government policy; perhaps one quarter of the rise is simply due to raising the pension age. Large numbers of people who are older, and therefore more likely to be disabled, have been pushed out of pension support into benefit support. The state pension is paid out of current taxation, not past contributions, so the impact is immediate.
9 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source
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Yes, I agree that that is an additional concern. The implication has been made, both by this Government and the previous one, that much of the rise in claims is down to benefit chasing and people simply exaggerating their conditions. This is an assumption that needs serious interrogation because it looks to be substantially untrue. For all these reasons and more, the best course of action would be to pull the Bill now and to make a fresh start. Denying adequate support today will only shift the burden tomorrow on to social care, the emergency services and our already overstretched NHS. We have been warned by the UN not once, but three times, that our welfare system is failing disabled people. Amendment 36 is a chance to show that we are listening.
8 Jul 2025 · Court Backlog and Pre-trial Waiting Times · Hansard source
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In my constituency of Horsham, I have been asked to support a woman left in limbo regarding the trial of her ex-partner on a domestic abuse charge. When she was finally given a date, the trial was pulled as a result of an administrative error as she sat waiting in the courtroom. A new date was set for a whole year later. She suffered emotional distress and had to take time off work, which cost her £500. She installed CCTV at her own expense and endured months of further intimidation. Will the Minister undertake to set clear guidelines about maximum waiting times for trials to solve the problem now and in the future?
8 Jul 2025 · Court Backlog and Pre-trial Waiting Times · Hansard source
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14. What steps she is taking to tackle the backlog in the courts.
1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source
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I have great respect for the experience and intelligence of the Ministers behind the Bill, but what we have left in front of us today is no more than a clumsy salvage operation. How on earth did we end up here? The Government say that the cost of disability benefit is spiralling out of control. They say there is no option but to make cuts. However, the premise behind this argument is too simplistic. Overall, the cost of in-work benefits as a percentage of GDP has not changed much, because every time a Government try to cut one benefit, another rises in its place to compensate. Before any changes were proposed, there should have been a serious analysis of what is driving the surge in PIP claims, but Ministers have made little attempt to understand why—it is just a curve on a spreadsheet that needs to be flattened. We are left with the implicit assumption that the Government believe that hundreds of thousands of people are currently receiving benefits that they do not really need and do not deserve. However, there are lots of factors driving this increase, some of which are actually a direct knock-on effect of other Government policies. For example, many of the extra claimants are the result of a recent rise in retirement age; the Government have simply shunted one benefit cost—pension payments—into another—PIP. Another big slice of the increase comes from people who are unable to access healthcare in a timely fashion, especially since covid, and have therefore fallen out of the workplace. Perhaps most of all, people are driven towards benefits by the terrific rise in the cost of living—they just cannot get by any more. Fundamentally, life costs more for people who are disabled. Besides the impact on daily living, many treatments and aids are not available on the NHS. Overall, there are three telltale signs that what we are looking at is a botched compromise. First, we have the new four-point rule for PIP assessments. Any question that scores a one, two or three will not make any difference to the outcome. If someone cannot undress their lower half and needs help to go to the toilet, incredibly, they will not qualify for help. There is literally no point in asking half the questions on the form. The whole four-point rule has been dreamed up not because anyone thinks it is a good way to assess hardship, but to hit an arbitrary cost saving. Secondly, we have the incomprehensible proposal to change PIP assessments next year, without waiting for the outcome of the Timms review. I quote from the Commission on Social Security, which has written to the DWP: “The circus around the proposed changes to PIP and universal credit are a classic example of what happens if policy makers do not work with those whose lives are profoundly affected by Government policy.” Thirdly, we have the decision to give higher benefits to existing claimants than to new claimants, as if someone’s needs were somehow less because they applied after 2026. I do not know how anyone can stand over this as a credible policy. Even on the most optimistic forecasts, only a relatively small minority of current claimants will be able to find jobs, and no account at all has been taken of regional employment blackspots. For every disabled person who can be helped back into work, there will be others moving in the opposite direction. About a third of ME and MS sufferers who are currently in work will be unable to continue as a direct result of losing PIP support, but they do not figure in the Government’s back to work estimates. We also have the 150,000 people who will lose their carer’s allowance, which is likely to rebound on the health service and wipe out whatever savings the Government had hoped to make. The Secretary of State has set high standards to be judged by, saying: “For me, this is a moral mission because I believe that there is a better future for people in so many parts of the country. It is absolutely not cruel.” Well, it might have been a moral mission, but it is certainly not a moral outcome. This is not fairer and more compassionate, as the Secretary of State has claimed. It is harsher and more chaotic. The Bill can no longer be considered a serious attempt at welfare reform—it is just a cobbled together scheme to get us through the next 24 hours. I urge all Members to vote against it.
26 Jun 2025 · Armed Forces Day · Hansard source
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We owe a huge debt of thanks to the whole of the world war two generation, but I would like to pay special tribute to a remarkable local hero from my constituency, Jack Dark, the last surviving member of the Pathfinder squadron. The Pathfinders played a crucial role in world war two, flying ahead of bomber formations to mark targets for attack. To say it was a tough mission is an understatement: Pathfinder crews survived for an average of just six weeks. Against all the odds, Jack will celebrate his 102nd birthday on 11 August—an extraordinary milestone that speaks to his incredible spirit and determination. I am very much looking forward to meeting Jack in person tomorrow, and I hope the hon. Lady will agree that his story is a powerful reminder of the bravery and resilience of all our armed forces.
24 Jun 2025 · Recognition of the State of Palestine · Hansard source
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13. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of recognising the state of Palestine.
24 Jun 2025 · Recognition of the State of Palestine · Hansard source
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What is happening in Gaza is hard enough to watch, but if we are to prevent the west bank from going the same way in a few years’ time, we must act today. Does the Minister agree that recognising the principle of a Palestinian state, without making any judgment for the moment on its borders, is the strongest and most effective way to reaffirm the UK’s long-standing commitment to a two-state solution, while there is still territory left to form it with?
23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source
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Recently I met Kathryn from my constituency who had to give up a £90,000-a-year job in order to care for her husband. With 150,000 carers set to lose their allowance due to PIP eligibility reforms, some of our country’s most hard-pressed households face losing £8,000 a year. Will the Minister confirm that even if the welfare reforms work out to the most optimistic expectations, there will be far more net losers that net gainers among PIP claimants?
23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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In her March Green Paper, the Secretary of State promised to provide an additional £1 billion in funding to help benefit claimants back into work, but only £400 million has actually been allocated, and even that will not come until 2028-29. We have heard some talk of efficiency savings, which is practically the definition of a magic money tree if ever there was one, so will the Minister confirm that the promised £1 billion for employment support will be all new money, and not cannibalised from other vital DWP services?
18 Jun 2025 · Businesses in Rural Areas · Hansard source
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It is good news that the rural prosperity fund has been extended for another year, but it has been reduced to £33 million this year. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a firm, long-term commitment to solving the challenges of rural infrastructure provision?
18 Jun 2025 · Banning Conversion Practices · Hansard source
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15. When she plans to bring forward legislative proposals to ban conversion therapy.
18 Jun 2025 · Banning Conversion Practices · Hansard source
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Previous Governments have promised to bring forward legislation to ban conversion therapy, but it has not happened yet. Eris, one of my constituents in Horsham, tells me that recent headlines have created fear and uncertainty within the trans community, increasing their sense of isolation. Will the Minister show the LGBTQ community that they are not ill or something to be converted, and commit to action within the next 12 months?
12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source
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SEND provision in our schools is in a state of deep and growing crisis. In my area, West Sussex county council is already struggling with a £130 million SEND deficit this year—a figure likely to rise to £224 million by next year. That huge figure is one of the worst in the country, but what is truly concerning is that so much overspend has not even bought us a satisfactory service. Complaints from parents and schools have filled my postbag ever since the election. Only half of EHCPs nationally are issued within the legal 20-week timeframe. In West Sussex it is even worse: just 12% now meet the deadline—and that is after a big push to get the waiting list down. It is hard to believe that slow processing is not a tactic. An EHCP gives parents the right to access educational support, but that support does not actually exist, so the local authority’s solution is to create deliberate bottlenecks in the system so that many families will never get all the way through. That is particularly unfair at the nursery level, because educational psychologist assessments can take so long that the child is all the way through school before they get one. More and more families are forced to go to appeal—tribunal appeals are up 53% in one year—but the fact that councils lose almost all those cases tells us that things should never have got that far in the first place. In effect, that discriminates heavily against parents who, for whatever reason, are less able to fight their case all the way through the system. I have met many parents with SEN children and the emotional cost is enormous. Sometimes I feel like I myself need counselling afterwards. Parents have to watch their children drift away from mainstream schooling when early intervention might have saved them. Families are breaking up under the strain. One couple told me that a third of marriages do not survive the experience. Of course, the pressure on staff is no less severe. Our teachers—particularly SENCOs—are exhausted, unsupported and leaving the profession. One Horsham SENCO told me: “We are seasoned professionals, but we are at breaking point.” Mainstream schools face manifest injustices. One school told me about a child who was refused by a specialist school because their needs were said to be too great. What happened? The child was allocated to an ordinary mainstream primary without any specialist support. I realise that the demands on the Government’s budget are endless, but I hope that the current review will lead to swift action. Any further delay means we risk losing all the educational progress that teachers have worked so hard to deliver over the past 10 years.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I welcome the Government’s decision to widen access to free school meals—a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy—but Castlewood primary school in my constituency tells me that it is currently losing 56p for every single meal it provides. Will the Chancellor undertake to fully fund school meals, or else is she asking schools to choose between teaching and eating?
9 Jun 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source
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I wish to speak about my new clauses 46 to 48. The Bill concentrates entirely on removing perceived barriers to development. Unfortunately, in the Government’s view those turn out to be nature and the general public, and to that end the Bill proposes a huge reduction in the ability of local residents and councillors to make their voices heard, or to have any meaningful influence over outcomes. That is such a pity, because gaining consent is not an impossibility. Neighbourhood plans were introduced under the coalition Government. Done well, they represent the best version of local knowledge and local wishes, but there is not so much as a single mention of them in the entire Bill. Nothing could reveal more effectively how far the Government’s focus is from the views of local residents, who are to be treated as “hostiles” who must on no account be allowed to have their say. For that reason I have tabled new clause 48, which would require neighbourhood plans to be taken into account in decision making. Otherwise, I am not sure why they exist at all. I have also tabled new clauses 46 and 47, which are directed at the need for local infrastructure. New housing development comes with two key promises: that it will bring affordable homes for local people, and that the extra funds it brings will mean more civic amenities. Both these promises are routinely broken. For the last decade, the pace of house building has been rapid in my constituency. Residents have been asked to support large-scale development because, they have been told, it will bring new schools and clinics along with it. In reality, they have seen the houses built but not the services. Why does that keep happening? People usually blame greedy developers, but the real fault usually lies with the Government. Incredibly, although a school may in good faith be written into a local plan, signed and sealed via a section 106 agreement, that guarantees nothing. When the time comes to build the school, the Department for Education will often withdraw its support, and no DfE support means no school. Similarly, an apparently solid commitment to build a new GP surgery is so many empty words if the integrated care board later decides that it does not want to staff it. As budget pressures increase year on year, Government bodies will decide that it is cheaper to cram more children into existing schools, and more patients into existing clinics, than it is to add new ones. Unfortunately, the Bill does little to fix those problems. Every time the Government mention supporting infrastructure, it turns out that they mean big national infrastructure. That is important too, but it does not solve local problems. The Government are viewing this problem through urban eyes. Urban centres usually already have sufficient infrastructure in place, but in rural areas such as Horsham, settlements are literally doubling in size, but with the same level of services. As a former local councillor, I have experienced at first hand how hard it is to shape development to meet local needs when planning authorities lack control over so many of the essential factors. No wonder residents object to new housing, when all they see is more strain on services that are already at breaking point. I hope the Minister will support my amendments. They are intended to improve this Bill, not to sabotage it. Local participation is not something to be feared; rather, it should be embraced.
5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source
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I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I agree that such sites can be in remote locations where there are fewer resources. As I will say later in my remarks, fire officer training is very much part of what I am recommending. There is a strong case for mandating water-based suppression systems, off-gas detection, ventilation systems and thermal runaway mitigation as design conditions. Unfortunately, that is far from the case today. The guidelines for planning approval are imprecise and vary across the devolved nations. Currently, the burden of responsibility falls on individual local authority planning officers who have no specific training or background in lithium-ion technology—and why on earth would they? For reasons that are hard to understand—perhaps the Minister can explain—fire and rescue services have not been made statutory consultees for planning applications. The current guidance states that applicants are “encouraged to engage” rather than required to do so, but even compulsory consultation is not enough by itself because the fire services themselves do not always have the expertise. Within the last fortnight, Henry Griffin, Suffolk’s deputy chief fire officer asked for fire services to be given new powers, saying: “I’d like to see a power that is akin to a regulatory order like those for a commercial property, where we would have the power to enforce safety measures on those sites.” He explained that the fire service is currently just a “contributing partner”, able to give “direction and professional advice”, but not necessarily to require what it might like. The result is inconsistency, which is destructive both of public trust and of the success of the industry. In my own constituency of Horsham, the local planning authority has rejected a BESS application, while a similar site, just half a mile away, across the border in Mid Sussex, has won approval. Such inconsistencies show alarming parallels with Grenfell. The Grenfell disaster was the end result of many failings by both individuals and companies, but at heart it was a failure of regulation. The rules left things wide open for exploitation by cost-cutting developers, which is exactly what happened. Just as with lithium-ion batteries, a new technology—in that case cladding—was being used at scale for the first time, without proper understanding of the risks. The time to act is now because the number of BESS applications is expanding exponentially.
5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That this House recognises the unique challenges posed by lithium-ion fires in battery energy storage sites; and calls on the Government to bring forward enforceable national regulations for their design and construction. I have asked for this debate in order to highlight important issues associated with lithium-ion batteries when deployed at grid scale. These installations are known as battery energy storage systems, or BESSs. In particular, I am calling for clear national regulations that could be applied in the same way in every part of the UK. We need legislation, and I hope that this debate will push the Government further along the road to passing it. The UK has set a target to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. To achieve that, many wind and solar farms have been constructed and permissions are being sought for many more. I fully support the drive towards renewable energy; the enhanced regulation that I am suggesting today is intended to secure the industry’s future, not to create more obstacles. I think it is perfectly possible to draw up regulations that will not stand in the way of BESS roll-out, and which in the long term could actually save the industry from a wholly avoidable setback in the event of an accident. BESSs solve the classic question of what to do when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow. They provide a number of highly useful functions, including load balancing, peak shaving and energy arbitrage. Above all, they make it practical to meet a much larger percentage of our national energy needs from renewables. However, every energy system carries some kind of risk, and most BESSs currently use lithium-ion battery technology. In the event of an accident—and sooner or later there are always accidents—lithium-ion batteries catch fire in a different way from other materials, in a process known as thermal runaway. It is important to note that most BESSs now rely on lithium iron phosphate or LFP batteries. This chemistry is much more stable than lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide or NMC cells, which are common in consumer uses. That means fewer incidents, but those incidents can still be dangerous. In the future, there will undoubtedly be other chemistries, so we need to leave space for innovation. Thermal runaway generates very high temperatures and requires different firefighting methods. It is usually best not to try to put out the fire, but rather to control the spread. Firefighters also have to contend with severely toxic gas emissions, the risk of an explosion, soil contamination and damage to watercourses. To repeat, I am in no way suggesting that battery energy storage systems are inherently unsafe. The risks they entail may be different from those of traditional systems, but they are perfectly controllable.
5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman is better acquainted than I am with the way that devolution works, but yes, I hope that the Minister will be able to set out whatever course of action is required to get to that point. It is essential that we build battery energy storage sites to proper safety standards so that we do not find ourselves facing the need for a massively more expensive retrofit, with consequences for the entire energy network. What accidents have there been so far? In September 2020, a fire at a BESS site in Liverpool created a significant blast and took 59 hours to extinguish. Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service said that the blaze on Carnegie Road “appears to be the first significant fire of its type to occur within the UK”. However, this was only a small BESS, with just four containers and a modest 20 MWh output in total.
5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source
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I thank the Minister for her response and all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. Wherever we stand on renewable energy, we can all agree that we must have the highest possible safety standards—that is an absolute given. From the conversations I have had with industry, clear national guidance would be widely welcomed because what we have now is not felt to be sufficient. What industry most wants is clarity, so any rules can be integrated from the start, at the design stage, when the cost impact is minimal. Regulations are clearly a live issue in many constituencies with so many applications across the country, as Members have said. However, everything is progressing in a random and unco-ordinated way. The fact that the Government do not know which Department should answer questions on the subject is revealing. I am concerned that Parliament does a weaker job of scrutiny on niche subjects like this one because they are so technical. We are currently placing part of that responsibility on the shoulders of local councillors and council officers, who cannot possibly have the relevant expertise. In her remarks, I noticed that the Minister was still using the term “encouraged” in relation to consulting with local fire officers. That is not enough as such consultation should be mandated and I am disappointed not to hear that there will be mandatory consultation, which is what we all want. I stress again that incidents will be rare, but a single incident can bring down an industry. I hope that the Minister will not make the same mistake that was made over cladding regulations: let us make this a tragedy that never happens. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House recognises the unique challenges posed by lithium-ion fires in battery energy storage sites; and calls on the Government to bring forward enforceable national regulations for their design and construction.

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