John Milne MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 11 Feb 2025 · Cost of Energy · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. This country has been in need of a coherent national energy policy for a long time, as the lack of one has left us in a difficult place. Figures from June 2024 show that UK energy prices are 27% higher than those of our EU counterparts. That has made energy-intensive industries unviable and is a major problem for all of us. Many millions of households in England live in fuel poverty, and total energy debt across the country is estimated to be £3.8 billion—indeed, in my constituency, it is one of the biggest causes of people slipping into debt. The part of the solution that I want to focus on today is community energy. It is welcome that the Government are getting behind renewable energy projects, but they are paying little attention to gaining public consent. The great advantage of community energy is that it is generated locally, requires no unpopular transmission systems and benefits the very people who have to put up with the local infrastructure and the potential loss of green space. The best way to get local consent for a new solar or wind farm is to let local people benefit from the energy directly. Unfortunately, neither the previous Government nor this one have done enough to encourage the community energy industry. It remains too costly and bureaucratic for community energy companies to become energy providers. There is no sliding scale of fees to reflect the size or capacity of an energy project, which effectively rules out smaller enterprises. Furthermore, community energy companies have to sell the energy they produce at a fraction of its genuine retail value to registered suppliers. Absurdly, local communities are frequently unable to buy energy directly from the solar farm or windmill they can see from their windows. Communities are obliged to sell their energy back to the grid at a low price and buy it back at the marginal rate of gas, with transmission costs that had no need to be included. That is despite the fact that some community energy projects achieve a 75% reduction in per kilowatt-hour pricing. Those obstacles are part of the reason why Community Energy Horsham in my constituency is struggling to get its solar energy project across the line. It has had council backing for a community-funded project to put solar panels on the Bridge leisure centre for some time, and I am sure it will happen at some point, but it has taken a few years already and the whole process is much more difficult than it needs to be. We need a community electricity export guarantee to create a statutory right for sites with capacity below 5 MW that generate low-carbon electricity to export their electricity on their terms to an existing electricity supplier. We need a community electricity supplier services scheme to create a requirement on existing larger energy suppliers to work with community schemes so that they can sell the power they generate back to local customers. Encouraging community energy is the democratic way to determine local land use. When local communities directly reap the rewards from community energy projects, it not only puts power—in every sense of the word—in the community’s hands, but demonstrates the benefits of a greener energy transition, which is important for our net zero targets and the planet. I urge the Government to put public consent at the heart of their energy strategy—indeed, I could say the same about their planning strategy, but that is a whole other debate. The best way to do that is to empower community energy schemes. Never mind Great British Energy, I want to see Great Horsham Energy and, indeed, Great Everywhere Energy.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms · Hansard source

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  It is a fundamental principle that legislation should not be retrospective, but here we have a tax that requires farmers to have acted seven years before they ever knew the tax was going to exist. It is fundamentally wrong and I ask the Government to withdraw the measure.

• 5 Feb 2025 · English Devolution and Local Government · Hansard source

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  I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In my constituency, we are lucky enough to have a district council that is very well run and very well funded. For that reason, we have been able to preserve, for example, a theatre that is run and owned by the council, which would surely have been lost if it had been exposed to the bottomless pit of SEN budgets and adult social care. I am concerned that the loss of a two-tier system means that our wonderful institutions will be at risk unless they receive some kind of protection. Can the Secretary of State offer us anything for the future when we become a unitary?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children in Care · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for securing this very important debate. In my Horsham constituency, a family has approached me who are kinship carers for their grandson. They feel they are discriminated against in a system that gives more resources and attention to children in care than to kinship carers. Given the shortage of places in foster care, does the hon. Member agree that we need to do everything we can to balance up the support that kinship carers receive?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Social Security Benefits · Hansard source

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  In my constituency of Horsham, food bank usage increased by 25% last year, and it has increased by 700% over six years. In the light of that evidence of the pressures, will the Government consider putting a minimum level on universal credit?

• 3 Feb 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sure that I speak for all hon. Members when I say that putting a stop to fraud of any kind is welcome, especially at a time when public money is scarce. However, many of my Horsham constituents have contacted me to say that the powers outlined in the Bill are very far-reaching and, if abused, could have hugely detrimental effects on benefit claimants through no fault of their own. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) said, the carer’s allowance repayment scandal shows exactly what can go wrong when the state has high-level powers over debt recovery. Due to departmental error, not the claimants’ error, there were more than 250,000 cases of overpayment to carers in the last five years of the Conservative Government. That is an enormous number. What would have happened to those carers, who are paid very little for the huge service to society that they provide, if the powers in the Bill had been in place during those five years? They would probably have faced forced withdrawals from their bank account, the possible removal of their driving licence or even forced entry to their home by the DWP. The Bill will give increased powers to access private bank accounts. This requires careful consideration from a civil liberties perspective. However, the DWP already has the power to compel third parties to share data where criminal activity is suspected. The new powers appear to reduce the need for prior evidence and simply grant access at will. Given that access to banking information is estimated to recover just 1.4% of the Government’s annual loss to fraud and error, do these powers of forced withdrawal represent a proportionate action? Before introducing new powers, it might make more sense for the Government to increase the efficacy of existing requirements on third parties to report suspicious activity, and for HMRC to share banking data on an annual basis. The Government have asserted that the Bill will save the public purse £1.5 billion, but in the absence of an impact statement, how do we know? If the DWP is to have the power to take people’s money, suspend driving licences and enter homes, we should at least be very confident that it is worth it. In particular, we need to be sure that the savings predicted do not come from the blameless victims of departmental error, as happened with the carer’s allowance overpayment scandal. It is of huge importance that fraud be reduced, but until we are sure that we have learned the lessons of the past, we run the risk of damaging people’s lives for insufficient benefit. We are at risk of making the same mistakes again, but with fewer checks and balances. The sentiment of the Bill is welcome, but there are risks attached. I am concerned that it builds a narrative that assumes that the claimant is the guilty party, when it could be the Department that is at fault. I therefore call on the Government to apply all possible care before launching new regulations that, at present, would amount to a matter of trial and error.

• 29 Jan 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q13. In my constituency of Horsham, my local council faces a tax bill of half a million pounds from the rise in national insurance, and my local hospice, St Catherine’s, has had to mothball a brand-new ward. What message does the Prime Minister have for all the public services that are outright losers at the hands of the very tax that is supposed to save them?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Airport Expansion · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister confirm what compensating measures the Government will take, if airport expansion is to go ahead, to ensure adherence to carbon budgets? They must have already been agreed on by now.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Road Safety: Young Drivers · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate. Just a few weeks after my election, I received a letter from my constituent, Jane. She is a mother who has had to endure the unthinkable pain of burying her 17-year-old son. Will died in a collision in June. He was a smart and popular young man, with a passion for judo, maths and computers. My heart goes out to Jane and her family. Jane’s son had passed his test just one month prior to his death. She told me: “As a mother, I did everything I could to protect him. I persuaded my son not to drive with his friends in his car for the first month...I felt I could not request this for longer when his friends didn’t have such rules and it wasn’t law.” I remember myself, when I passed my test and first went out with a group of teenage friends, how intimidating that was. Why has the UK not taken action already? Under the coalition Government, the potential adoption of graduated driving licences was discussed, but various issues arose. One problem was the impact on less affluent young people, who may be more adversely affected by restricted driving hours—for example, working 17-year-olds who need access to a car to work at night or for early-hours shift work. How can young people who rely on carpooling to cut transport costs do so if there are passenger limitations? There are obstacles, particularly in rural areas such as the villages in my constituency of Horsham. I support the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and my constituent Jane by joining their call for the Government to take action. We should see an impact assessment of the various graduated driving schemes, many of which are already in operation around the world, so we can make the right choice for the 60% of the public who, as polls suggest, already support them. Finally, I thank Jane for bringing her heartbreaking story to me. It cannot be easy to campaign with a wound so recent. I would like Jane to know that it is only because of individuals such as her that we are able to have this debate, and perhaps because of them, change will come.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  On the funding of local arts and theatres, my constituency has a wonderful local theatre called The Capitol, which is owned and managed by the district council. However, our council is likely to be merged with some debt-laden neighbouring councils, with some of the responsibilities my hon. Friend has outlined, and that poses a severe threat to the theatre’s long-term survival. Does he agree that the Government need to look at inventive ways to reverse the decline in local funding? One option would be to emulate France’s patronage law, which provides for 60% tax relief on donations to art organisations.

• 24 Jan 2025 · Climate and Nature Bill · Hansard source

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  The key stewards of our landscape for hundreds of years have been our farmers: no one has done more to make our countryside as beautiful as it is or has a bigger stake in protecting its health for the future. Does my hon. Friend agree that the path to net zero and sustainable local food production lies through our farming community, with the support provided by the Bill? If we are to get the best from our farmers, it is time to use rather more carrots and fewer sticks.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs: OBR Costing · Hansard source

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  Farmers have made their inheritance tax plans in good faith, based on existing rules. In effect, the measure is a retrospective change to tax law, so will the Minister agree to at the very least delay its implementation until the effects are properly understood by both farmers and the Government?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Education, Health and Care Plans · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on calling this vital debate. EHCP provision is a national crisis, but how it plays out locally varies enormously. In East Sussex, 87% of EHCPs are issued within the 20-week target, but hop across the border to my area of West Sussex and it is just 3.6%—I thought that was the worst statistic out there, until I heard what is going on in Essex. This crisis is destroying people’s lives. Take the example of Sarah—not her real name—from my Horsham constituency. Sarah’s son was offered a place at Crawley college, where it was claimed the post-16 SEND provision would be just right for him. Within weeks, the college said that they did not have the resources to support him and that he did not meet the minimum grades. He was excluded. Desperate to rescue his future, Sarah is now paying almost £500 a month for private tuition, and that is not the only cost; her son’s removal from full-time education means she no longer qualifies for the child element of universal credit, despite being his main care provider. Sarah is a single parent on a low, part-time income, and these are almost impossible obstacles to overcome. I recognise that this was not the present Government’s fault, but it is now their responsibility.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Welfare of Doctors · Hansard source

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  Last week I met with a GP in my constituency, and she described very much what the hon. Gentleman is talking about: at the end of the day, after blitzing through 25 patients, back to back, she sometimes found herself sitting in her car, simply too tired to drive home for half an hour. Does he agree that we are expecting too much of our medical staff in relying on their dedication to go beyond the call of duty?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions: Charities · Hansard source

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  On the hon. Member’s earlier point about Age UK, it estimates that just in my Horsham constituency it will cost £150,000 per year to cope with the changes and the extra charge. Age UK is not a business and cannot raise its prices; it can only cut its service. Does the hon. Member agree that when one in five pensioners are adjudged to be living in poverty, this is the wrong time for such a measure?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions: Charities · Hansard source

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