Jonathan Brash MP: speeches

Q Minister, you are a neighbouring MP of mine, so you understand only too well the anger about illegal migrants in your constituency and my Hartlepool constituency, particularly given that the previous Government’s decision to outsource asylum accommodation led to our communities being unfairly targeted. The test for many of my constituents will come down to whether the Bill will result in a reduction in the number of illegal migrants in our communities. What modelling has been carried out to look at the effect of the Bill on reducing the number of illegal immigrants? Anna Turley: As I said, it is part of our armoury. I recognise very deeply, as you do, the sense of fairness that people feel in communities such as ours, which are struggling on all kinds of levels, whether access to public services, employment opportunities, levels of poverty or the broader social fabric and community cohesion challenges that we face in this country—those are important issues. As a Labour Government, we always want fairness to be at the heart of everything we do. Although it is part of a broader armoury, the priority for the Bill is to move to a system in which British people do not feel that their sanctuary is being exploited or that others have the opportunity to access what they might not be able to access. Where we do extend a hand and help people to find a life of safety and sanctuary in this country, and they are able to integrate and become part of our communities, they will be responsible for repaying that support. Fairness, responsibility and contribution are at the heart of everything we should do in this country, as we uphold our international obligations, of which we are rightly proud.

The Minister is understandably burdened by the need to be diplomatic. Is the reality not that President Trump can review whatever position he likes, and the Argentinian Government can make whatever threats they like, but it does not make a jot of difference to this country, because the Falkland Islands will remain British?

Like parents and grandparents in Hartlepool, I find it incredible that technology companies even had to be asked to put software in place that protected against child sexual abuse. Having been asked, they apparently have said no. As the Secretary of State rightly points out, there will be further loopholes that need to be closed. Would it be better just to assume these companies’ moral bankruptcy and not ask in future, and just to legislate straightaway?

At the start of the summer, two heroic men tragically lost their lives trying to save children in the sea at Seaton Carew beach in Hartlepool. Wayne Taylor and Ian Pascoe were recovered from the water by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, but despite urgent medical treatment at the scene, tragically both men died. They were heroes. Their courage, selflessness and instinct to protect children in danger represent the very best of our communities. Will the Leader of the House join me in paying tribute to Wayne and Ian, extend the deepest condolences of this House to their families and loved ones, and recognise the bravery of the RNLI and all those who put themselves in harm’s way to save others? Will he urge his ministerial colleagues to ensure that coastal communities such as mine have the resources and lifesaving equipment needed to keep people safe?

One of my great frustrations in the debate around energy security is the way that populism and ideology pollute the debate. Hartlepool has one of the largest clean-energy economies in England, through new nuclear, which some oppose, and through renewables, which others oppose, but both of which I support. I also support drilling in the North sea. It is good for jobs and good for the economy. Will the Minister take the message back to her Department that we must approve Jackdaw and Rosebank and go further to expand drilling in the North sea?

Our councils are the front door to our democracy, and after years of damage, too many people have lost faith in what lies behind it. Does the Secretary of State agree that rebuilding strong, trusted local government must be central to rebuilding trust in politics? On the issue of high streets, will she meet me to discuss how existing tools such as high-street rental auctions can be made simpler and easier for councils to use, so that communities such as Hartlepool can bring empty shops back into use?

One of the other recommendations in the report was ensuring that at least 60% of food consumed in the UK is produced in the UK. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the only way we will ensure that is by protecting our farmers from the changes we are seeing in our climate?

I join the Home Secretary and the whole House in paying tribute to PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough, and in sending our heartfelt condolences to their families and loved ones. Matthew was a coach at my son’s football club, FC Hartlepool, and at Seaton Carew FC. The teams played each other last Saturday, when I was proud to join so many other Poolies in paying tribute to a remarkable man who was so loved by everyone who knew him. I also pay tribute to our police and all emergency services personnel, who are getting up every single day grief-stricken at the loss of their two colleagues, but are still doing their jobs to an amazing extent. These tragic events did not materialise out of the blue. The lawlessness that we are seeing in certain parts of our communities did not happen overnight. It is the consequence of systemic underfunding of our police and our fire service. I welcome the £2 million announced by the Home Secretary today, but does she agree—I join my colleagues in saying this—that we need a long-term solution to fix the funding formula, for both our police and our fire service, if we are to protect all of our communities? I hope that she is sincere about ensuring that that happens.

My constituent Terry Rowley received an IPP sentence on 8 February 2008 with a minimum tariff of one year and 126 days. That was 6,780 days ago—more than 18 and a half years—and yet he remains in prison. The Government have rightly committed to ending this injustice. Will the Justice Secretary ensure that as we do so, people like Terry will have a fair, transparent and genuinely rehabilitative route to release, while the public continue to be protected?

The Prime Minister has rightly described council tax as “highly regressive”, saying that it is unfair that people in Greater Manchester often pay far more than people living in London. Does he agree that that same injustice is even more stark in towns like Hartlepool, where a band D household pays £2,556 a year compared with £1,048 in Westminster? He has rightly attacked that unfairness, so will he now commit to attacking the problem and replacing the hated council tax system that hammers towns like mine?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. Hartlepool is a town with a proud coastal and industrial heritage, but above all, it is a town of proud people. We spend a great deal of time in this place talking about the concept of freedom, by which we usually mean freedom from something—whether that is freedom from regulation, from taxation or from the state. Although those debates matter, there is another freedom that we speak of far less: the freedom to become everything we are capable of becoming. The freedoms to earn, to learn, to build a secure life through our own hard work, to raise a family with confidence and to fulfil our potential—those freedoms matter every bit as much, if not more. Freedom is not simply the absence of restraint; it is the presence of opportunity, but that is what deindustrialisation and globalisation robbed from communities like mine. It did not simply close factories; it took freedom away from working people. It took away their freedom to earn a secure wage and build a career, or to believe that if they worked hard, there would be a decent job waiting for them at the end. It took away the freedom to know that our children will enjoy a better future than we did. The scars were never just economic; they were social, cultural and deeply personal. To solve this issue, education must be the engine room of freedom. In Hartlepool, I am so proud that our FE college is taking a visionary approach to ensure that children have that freedom. Not every young person wants the same pathway, and vocational excellence is every bit as valuable as academic excellence. Through our partnerships with X-energy and Centrica, whereby the new nuclear that we are bringing to Hartlepool partners with our FE college, we are once again giving our young people the freedom to believe that their future will be better than the lives their parents had.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, and I am grateful to the 1,744 people in Hartlepool who signed the petition. That is a significant number of my constituents, and their concerns deserve to be heard and taken seriously. Let me begin by saying something very clearly. The people of Hartlepool are entitled to be angry about immigration. They are entitled to expect secure borders. They are entitled to expect that those with no right to be in this country are removed. They are entitled to expect fairness in the asylum system and fairness for the communities that feel they have carried more than their fair share, and I share in those expectations. I have supported the Home Secretary’s measures to reduce illegal immigration, strengthen border security and increase returns, and I will continue to support this Home Secretary, including on the measures that will be laid before the House later today, which I hope this House will pass in full. The truth is that progress is being made. Net migration has fallen dramatically from the peak under the previous Government’s Boris wave: it is down 82%, delivering the reduction that was promised for years but never achieved. Indeed, the figures are now entering the tens of thousands that Conservative Administrations promised for so long. Small boat crossings are down 41% this year, while deportations of those arriving by small boat are up 16%. In Hartlepool, the number of asylum seekers living in dispersed accommodation has fallen by 14% since the general election. The new immigration and asylum legislation will further strengthen the powers available to remove those with no right to be here and deter those attempting to enter illegally. That is the serious work of Government. It requires law enforcement, international co-operation, proper returns agreements, faster decisions and a system that can distinguish between genuine asylum claimants and those who have no right to remain. I fully understand why people sign a petition like this. They see boat crossings in the channel. They see asylum accommodation in their communities. They see the pressure on housing, schools, public services and community cohesion. They feel that for far too long the broken system —broken by the Conservative party—has not worked, and they want action. They are right to expect it, but we also have a responsibility in this place to be honest. Offshore detention is something that I support in principle, but it is not a magic answer. It is expensive, it is legally complex and it does not remove the need for returns agreements, effective administration and tackling the criminal gangs who profit from human misery—but I reiterate that if we can make it work, in principle I support it. More importantly, the language we use matters. It affects how people view their neighbours, it affects how communities feel and it affects people’s lives. That brings me to a point that I want to make very clearly. A constituent, Jasvir Singh, came to see me a couple of weeks ago after experiencing repeated racial abuse in the community where he has lived and served for almost 30 years. He owns a local business and has paid his taxes; he has contributed to Hartlepool and built a life there. He has done exactly what we say we value, yet he came to see me because the rhetoric around immigration has made his life harder. Jasvir is not an illegal immigrant, and he is not a criminal; he has every right to be here and he is part of our community, yet a small minority accuse him of being an illegal immigrant, of having arrived on a small boat and of having no right to be here, and they do so for one reason alone: the colour of his skin. When politicians blur the line between voicing legitimate concern about illegal immigration and using language that encourages suspicion of people because of their background or their skin colour, it is people like Jasvir who pay the price. That is why the rhetoric we use matters. There is a line between wanting secure borders and stirring up hostility; there is a line between removing those with no right to remain and portraying whole communities as a threat; there is a line between legitimate concern and racist dog-whistle politics, and it is my view that that line has been crossed repeatedly by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe). When that happens, the consequences are not confined to Westminster Hall. They are felt by people like Jasvir. They are felt by families in Hartlepool. They are felt by children who hear abuse on their way to school. Words spoken in this place do not stay here. They travel into communities and workplaces and on to social media. That does not mean that we should avoid the issue—quite the opposite. We must continue to reduce illegal immigration, we must continue to strengthen our borders, we must remove those with no right to remain and we must dismantle criminal gangs and restore public confidence, but we must do so in a way that is serious, lawful and above all decent. Hartlepool understands the pressure that the issue creates. One of my first actions on being elected as MP for Hartlepool was to meet Mears, the company responsible for asylum accommodation locally, because Hartlepool carries more than its fair share compared with neighbouring areas. I made clear that the system had to be fair, that responsibility could not simply fall on communities already facing significant challenges, and that local people deserved answers. Following those conversations, new asylum accommodation in Hartlepool was halted and numbers fell. I will continue to raise this issue with Ministers because fairness matters. Hartlepool is a proud and welcoming town that believes in fairness. Fairness means secure borders and removing those who have no right to be here, but it also means standing up for the people who belong here and ensuring they are not made to feel like strangers because of the colour of their skin or the sound of their name. That is the balance we need: strong borders, faster removals, proper enforcement, serious government and politics that does not make innocent people pay the price for failures in the immigration system. The people who signed this petition deserve answers, and my answer is this: I will continue to support firm action to reduce illegal immigration, I will support strengthening our borders and I will support practical measures that work, but I will not support rhetoric that puts my constituents at risk, I will not support language that turns legitimate concern into racial hostility, and I will not stay silent when people who have lived in, worked in and contributed to Hartlepool for decades are made to feel that they no longer belong. We can have secure borders without losing that most fundamental of British values: common decency. We can have firm immigration controls without attacking decent people based on their skin colour, and we can tell the truth about illegal immigration without turning on our neighbours. We will not import Trumpian politics into our country. That is not the British way.

I can say absolutely wholeheartedly that the Home Secretary retains my complete support for seeing this legislation through in full. Does she not agree that, as we take this action forward, it is important not just that the hotels are reduced, but that the dispersal accommodation that has overburdened communities, like mine in Hartlepool, is also reduced?

Some crimes are so despicable and some individuals so evil that they forfeit their rights and their protections, and we must change the law to ensure that they are never afforded them. Is not the law change required here to ensure that no individual can ever again be released unless the very next day they are being deported from this country?

I welcome the Minister’s statement. It is integral that the public out there are confident that their politicians are not for sale. It is a shame that a small number of individuals make such actions necessary. I wonder whether the Minister shares my concern that money and corruption always find a way. Would it not be better to have an overall cap for all donations, foreign or domestic?

T5. Hartlepool, like the rest of the north-east, has always been critical to our defence industry, including brilliant Hartlepool companies such as Merlin Flex. Will the Minister outline how the record investment secured by this Labour Government will benefit jobs in the economy in Hartlepool and the wider north-east?

Ward Jackson primary school in Hartlepool has been named one of the top 10 schools in the world for overcoming adversity on behalf of their pupils. In the words of the award organiser, it is a school where “leaders refuse to let circumstance define what a child can become.” Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating pupils, families, governors and especially the extraordinary school staff at Ward Jackson on this brilliant achievement in leaving no child behind, which shows Hartlepool once again leading on the world stage?

As I was saying, I welcome the Government’s commitment to leasehold reform, but Ministers must ensure that estate management companies are not treated as an afterthought. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 provides important powers that have not yet been brought into force, so I urge Ministers to do that. Estates do need to be managed, but we should go back to how they were managed: by local authorities. That is the way to truly fix the system: ensure that every estate is adopted by every council and drive these estate management companies into the dust where they belong.

From the moment I was elected in Hartlepool, my inbox, surgeries and public meetings were filled with people telling me remarkably similar and shocking stories about their estate management companies. That is what I wish to focus my remarks on. The tales are very similar: terrible communication, risible explanations and no accountability, but ever-rising bills. Ahead of this debate, I asked constituents to send me examples, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer number that I received, so I obviously cannot go through them all today. The stories came from Marine Point, the Longbranch estate, Wynyard Mews, St Mary’s Court and other estates across the town. One constituent, Andrew, highlighted the fundamental unfairness between estates adopted by the council and those left in private management: people can live just streets apart, pay the same council tax, and yet receive completely different levels of service. Derek asked me a simple question: why should he pay both Hartlepool borough council and Sela Management, when the council cannot carry out the work, because it has not adopted the estate, and the management company also appears unwilling to carry it out? It is an entirely fair question. Ray and Janice wish to put their property, which they own outright, into a living trust, yet they were delayed from doing so because Sela Management must first consent. They describe this as “medieval behaviour”. Jordan told me he was threatened over alleged unpaid invoices that he never received. The first meaningful communication was not an explanation; it was a demand. That is no way to treat people. When Helena bought her Longbranch home, she was told that as more families moved on to the estate, the costs would fall, because they would be shared more widely. The number of households has more than doubled. Her charges have not fallen; they have risen by more than £200. Kim described waiting months for basic repairs, only for residents to feel that the work that was eventually carried out was of poor quality. Others have shown me photographs of unfinished drains, damaged kerbs and maintenance left incomplete. These are not legal technicalities; they are the everyday experiences of ordinary families—people paying real money for work that they cannot see, cannot verify and simply do not believe has been carried out properly. My constituent Christine, whose property is managed by Kingston, told me that residents were collectively charged around £24,000 to repaint a block of flats on the headland. Within three months, the paint was already peeling. [ Interruption. ]

The world has moved on and we no longer live in a free trade utopia, as some might wish. It is clearly difficult to impose protections for our steel industry, but it is the right thing to do. Does the Minister agree that failing to impose such protections would surrender our steel industry, surrender our national defence and surrender our sovereignty to other nations, which can never be acceptable?

I fully support more drilling in the North sea and the granting of more licences—I believe that is important for energy security—but I think it is important to be straight with the British people. As things currently stand, that would not lower their bills, because the oil and gas are sold on the international markets. Would it not be better to follow the example of Norway and put this under public control, which actually would lower people’s bills?

While I support the Government’s desire to drive out bureaucracy from the NHS and simplify systems for patients, Healthwatch Hartlepool has done an outstanding job in ensuring that patients’ voices are heard as systems and services are improved. What can the Minister do to ensure that local expertise is retained in any new system?

My hon. Friend used a word that has been used several times today: filibuster. In essence, that means “stop at all costs”. Given that that has been the behaviour of the House of Lords, has it not given up its rights as a revising Chamber if the intention is to stop this at all costs?

In Hartlepool we are reversing 30 years of globalisation and taking advantage of the unprecedented falls in immigration, thanks to this Home Secretary, and training our own, whether through our Health and Social Care Academy, our civil engineering academy, our centre of excellence for welding or our nuclear trades academy. Does the Secretary of State agree that rather than seeing it as an economic threat, falling immigration is an economic opportunity to train our own?

Constituents in Wynyard Mews in Hartlepool are being ridden roughshod over by their estate management company Praxis, just as residents at Marine Point are by Sela management, along with many others across the town. I met Praxis and secured an agreement that it would meet residents, but it appears to be reneging on that promise. Time and again, Members of this House hear the same stories of excessive and unjustified charges, poor standards of service, a complete lack of accountability and residents left feeling trapped in their own homes, with nowhere to turn and no chance of selling. The most frustrating element is that Parliament legislated in this area in 2024—the powers exist—yet years later, many of the relevant provisions have still not been brought into force. Will the Leader of the House liaise urgently with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to establish a timetable for implementation, and will he provide Government time for a debate on the issue, so that hon. Members from across the House can expose the full scale of the financial abuses that many residents continue to face?

There is considerable scepticism across the House, and among experts outside this place, including in the Criminal Bar Association, about whether restricting jury trials will have any impact on the backlog. Does the Solicitor General understand the confusion of many Members about why we simply do not make the change temporary, and then have a review to find out if it actually works?

I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement today and pay tribute to him for his enduring commitment to this issue, which started long before he came to this place. Improving the lives of children in care and care leavers must be our highest priority, and Hartlepool’s previous Labour council stood four-square behind the Minister’s intent to rebalance the system. As he knows, though, I am really concerned about the legacy of this broken system—the firefighting that councils are having to do, the financial pain it has caused them, and their inability to make that rebalancing happen. Can the Minister give me a little more information about how he is working with his colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to support those councils, which are under such huge financial pressure?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) on securing this important debate, which matters enormously to communities like Hartlepool. For far too long, politics in this country has been obsessed with helping the wrong people. Big business gets bigger, shareholders get richer and large cities grow. Meanwhile, the people who keep our towns alive are fighting for survival: the family businesses, the independent hotels, the cafés, pubs and restaurants, and the people who get up before dawn and work seven days a week and take all the risks. Take Lee and Claire Dexter, who run the Marine Hotel on Seaton Crew seafront in my constituency. Their family-run business has been there for more than 30 years, yet thanks to rising costs, higher business rates and changes to employer national insurance, they face almost £30,000 in additional costs. For Westminster, that might seem like a line on a spreadsheet, but for family businesses, it can mean the difference between investing or standing still, hiring staff or cutting hours, and staying open or closing the doors. Hospitality is not some niche sector in Hartlepool; it is one of our major industries. Restaurants and catering generate more than £95 million in turnover, support 3,400 jobs and contribute more than £47 million in economic value—that is before we even count our hotels, pubs and visitor attractions. Hospitality is not a side issue for Hartlepool; it is jobs, livelihoods and local pride—and it is a huge part of our future. I ask the Minister: can we be bolder? First, will the Government ensure that business rates reform properly reflects the pressures facing seasonal coastal businesses, including hotels and restaurants as well as pubs? I welcome the action taken on pubs by the Government. Secondly, will Ministers look again at the impact of employer national insurance increases on family-run hospitality businesses? Thirdly, will the Government consider regional variations in jobs taxes to drive investment into left-behind communities? Fourthly, will Ministers recognise that visitor levies are often inappropriate in coastal towns that are still trying to grow their visitor economies? Finally, will the Government bring forward a joined-up plan for coastal hospitality covering taxation, staffing, transport, skills and visitor attractions? Hartlepool has everything it needs to succeed, and our hospitality businesses have done their bit. They have shown resilience through covid, rising costs and economic uncertainty. Those businesses deserve a fair deal. It is time that Westminster finally gave them one.

Today, X-energy and Centrica’s proposals for advanced modular reactors at Hartlepool reached another major milestone with the submission of an application for a generic design assessment. Given the importance of retaining Hartlepool’s world-class nuclear workforce and ensuring that there is no cliff edge when the existing power station approaches the end of its operational life, will the Minister reassure me that every effort will be made to maintain the outstanding momentum to build this project and, wherever possible, to accelerate progress?

My constituent David Hewitt was dismissed from the RAF simply for being gay, and that was just days before the armed forces lifted the ban on LGBT service personnel. Years later, he is still waiting for the restoration of his rank and financial redress. What can the Minister do to expedite this process, and does she agree with me, on the first day of Pride Month, on how unacceptable that legacy is?

I would say very clearly that nobody should be castigated for highlighting a truth that is self-evident. I think the most important thing here is that once the essence of the petition is taken up by the Government—and I hope that it is—it will reveal a truth that there is an issue with grooming gangs, and that sometimes they come from particular ethnic minority backgrounds, but it will also reveal another truth: that the vast majority of perpetrators are not from grooming gangs or ethnic minority backgrounds. That is a truth that we have to get out into the open if we are to deal with it properly. I go back to the point that if we are insistent on a narrative that tries to sow division in our country and to be selective in its focus, the only people who will lose are victims of this appalling crime. It is of genuine concern to me that we do not narrow the focus of this debate. Why would we want less transparency rather than more, unless the goal was something other than protecting children? Narrowing the focus of the debate to only some crimes is not about protecting children, but a tactic to weaponise the issue with the goal of promoting division, driving social media clicks and furthering the individual political ambitions of certain Members of this place. It is of genuine concern to me that today’s debate has been promoted, including by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), as a debate on grooming gangs. That is not what this debate is about. It is about all victims of child sexual abuse. It is about all data on all perpetrators. I noted this morning that the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth said that he was going to name and shame every Member of Parliament who did not attend the debate. There are 650 Members of Parliament, and I believe there are 50 seats around this Chamber. Temperance in our language would serve the victims of this crime far better than the language of the hon. Member. This issue must never be weaponised, and it must never be reduced to slogans or selective outrage. It must be about truth, accountability and, above all, justice for victims. I say wholeheartedly: publish the data, show the truth, and never forget the children we are duty-bound to protect. We owe them nothing less.

Some of the Jay report recommendations were implemented by the Government through the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which came before the House recently. How did the hon. Gentleman vote on it?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I want to begin by putting on the record my thanks to the 651 constituents in Hartlepool who signed the petition. They are right to demand greater transparency and accountability from the institutions responsible for protecting children. I also thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for opening the debate in such a measured way. Let me be absolutely clear: child sexual exploitation is one of the most vile, destructive and unforgivable crimes imaginable. It destroys lives, shatters childhoods and leaves scars that never heal. It is a crime that demands from all of us the strongest possible response. That word “unforgivable” is important. I make no apology for saying this, both as a Member of this place and as a dad: for those convicted of the rape of a child, no punishment is too harsh. They should be chemically castrated, they should be given hard labour, and they should never be allowed to see another free day for the rest of their, I hope, very miserable lives. There should be no ambiguity and no softness when it comes to protecting our children. I support wholeheartedly the intent of the petition: transparency, accountability and truth. Where facts are missing, speculation—sometimes fostered by malign actors—fills the gap, and when trust in institutions breaks down, it is ordinary people and, most importantly, victims who suffer. As we have heard, sunlight is the great disinfectant. It matters. The public have a right to know the full picture of crime in their communities and how we intend to deal with it. Of course there are practical challenges. As Baroness Casey has highlighted, some categories, such as religion, depend on self-declaration and, on that basis, may not always be particularly reliable. But those challenges are not a reason for inaction. They are a reason for getting the systems right, not for avoiding the issue altogether. Let me make a second point very clear: this debate must be about victims, not about political point scoring, and not about narrowing or distorting the problem. Analysis by the police showed that 115,000 children were victims of sexual abuse in 2023. The child sexual exploitation taskforce identified 4,228 group-based offences in that same year, of which 1,125 were cases of family abuse and 717 were sexual exploitation cases, including offences perpetrated by grooming gangs. Even if we accept that not all crimes will be recorded, not all data will be accurate and many crimes will remain hidden, there is simply no doubt what these figures reveal: group-based abuse is real and must be tackled without fear or favour. The figures also show something broader and far more uncomfortable: this abuse takes many forms and happens in many settings. The most common offenders are not organised networks; tragically, they are family members, trusted adults, friends of the family, neighbours, acquaintances and, in a growing number of cases, peers—children themselves, under the age of 18. These are hard truths, but they are essential truths if we are serious about prevention. That is why we cannot afford a selective focus. Every victim matters, every offender must be pursued, and every form of abuse must be confronted with equal seriousness. It is true, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), that investigations of grooming gangs have identified instances where offenders come disproportionately from an ethnic minority background. That must be investigated and confronted without fear or favour wherever it occurs. I trust that the independent inquiry, which in my view was set up too slowly, albeit much faster than under previous Administrations, will do that. Anyone found to be complicit in not dealing with these appalling crimes should be brought to justice with the severity of punishment they deserve.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Yes or no?

I warmly welcome the Government’s decision to move towards the nationalisation of British Steel. It is the right decision for our economy, our industrial communities and Britain’s national security. I say that as somebody who believes in the value of enterprise, competition and a strong private sector, but there are clear cases where privatisation has failed the national interest and where Government have not only the right to intervene but the duty to do so, particularly where foundational industries are now foreign-owned. I was stunned that when the shadow Minister was asked a straight question about whether the Conservatives would prefer British steel to be in the hands of the Chinese or the British, he could not simply answer “the British”. He avoided the question. That shows a staggering disregard for our country’s national security. Steel is not just another commodity—it is fundamental to our national sovereignty. It underpins our defence industry, infrastructure, energy sector and manufacturing base. A nation that cannot produce its own steel leaves itself vulnerable, dependent on the decisions, priorities and interests of others. We have moved into a different era, although if we listened to some of the contributions from Opposition Members, we could believe that we are still in the 1990s. Globalisation is dead and, to be honest, I welcome its death, because all it ever did was leave working-class communities such as mine behind, ripping out the heart of industrial communities like Hartlepool. The tragedy is that in this country we still import 68% of our steel needs. We must fix that tragedy. If British taxpayer money is to be spent, then British industry must benefit. If we are building British warships, British steel should be used. If Britain is building offshore wind farms, then British steel should be used. If we are building new nuclear reactors, as we are in Hartlepool thanks to the deal that we struck last September, then British steel should be used. My biggest plea to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench is that we radically reform procurement policy in this country. I welcome the steel tariffs being put in place and the assurances given by the Secretary of State that he will look carefully at the individual cases that have been mentioned, but we must put our country first. This Bill is critical to doing that and to protecting the working-class communities I represent.

I have heard that the hon. Gentleman thinks energy prices should come down, and we do not disagree on that, but he still has not answered my question. Does he think British Steel should remain foreign-owned—yes or no?

I just wish to seek some clarity from the hon. Gentleman. Is the Conservatives’ position that they would prefer British Steel in the hands of the Chinese than the British?

Following a successful sale to the LB Group, chemicals firm Tioxide is planning to reopen its Greatham plant in Hartlepool. The £350 million critical chemicals resilience fund is a real boost, at exactly the right time, for that Hartlepool employer. Can the Chancellor say a little more about how the fund will promote jobs and growth in Hartlepool?

This week, I hosted the British Beer and Pub Association in Parliament. It has more than 20,000 members across the country, including Camerons Brewery in Hartlepool. Among the many issues that it raised was this summer’s football world cup. In other parts of the UK, late licences are being permitted for all games, but in England and Wales, they are only for England and Scotland games. Will my hon. Friend make representations to her ministerial colleagues about allowing late licences for all games, so that we back our pubs and celebrate this festival of football?

I listened very carefully to the Minister’s explanation about what exactly we are doing, and I echo the comments from colleagues across the House about the failure to communicate this effectively in the last 24 hours. I have had very upset constituents getting in touch with me about this issue. One report—from Bloomberg—seems to indicate that there is briefing and counter-briefing across Government at the moment and that this move is a departure from our European colleagues. Can the Minister confirm whether we are in fact departing from our European colleagues on these sanctions?

Included in that list of achievements is the £12 billion deal signed last September to bring new nuclear to Hartlepool, making Hartlepool one of the biggest clean energy economies in this country. Does the Secretary of State agree that as we secure energy security, we must also secure economic security for those parts of the country that are left behind?

I am acutely aware that this debate on the King’s Speech is in the shadow of a political moment that is moving at extraordinary speed, a moment on which I have already made my views clear. While I respect the sincerely held opinions of many of my hon. Friends, there are truths that are now too obvious to ignore. Last Thursday’s local election results, in which many hard-working, dedicated and talented Labour councillors in Hartlepool and elsewhere lost their seats, were not a routine protest vote; they were a roar of unbridled anger. In towns like Hartlepool, that anger did not begin 22 months ago with the election of this Labour Government; it has been building for more than 20 years. People have repeatedly voted for change. When it came to Brexit, they voted for the change promised by members of Reform, and they were failed. They voted again for change under the Tories, with levelling up, and were let down once more. Now, that accumulated anger lands on our doorstep, alongside an understandable fear among many of my constituents that politics will once again let them down. The message last week was unmistakeable. People want a Government who act with urgency, courage and purpose against the crushing pressures of everyday life, and if they do not get it, they will once again roll the dice, even if it means taking a risk on a charlatan, because desperation drives risk, and people are desperate for hope. However difficult it may be for many Labour Members to admit, it is now clear to me that this Prime Minister can no longer provide that hope. I do not say that with pleasure, but leadership is not only about knowing when to fight on; it is about knowing when your authority has ebbed, when trust has frayed, and when it is time to leave the stage. Some people will say that this is about personality. It is not; it is about policy, and whether we are prepared to meet the moment with the scale of change it demands. This Government have done so much in their first 22 months, and there is much to applaud in this King’s Speech, but caution will not save us now. Incrementalism will not save us now. We must be bolder. We need a programme of radical renewal that improves the lives of working people in Hartlepool and across Britain. That means abolishing the hated council tax and replacing it with a progressive system that no longer punishes poor communities simply for being poor. It means radical welfare reform that is both compassionate and demanding—support for those who need help, but a clear demand that everyone who can work must work. It means bringing failed monopolies back into public ownership where markets have plainly failed, from water companies to the Royal Mail. It means cutting taxes on jobs and investment in deprived regions, so that opportunity finally reaches communities that have been left behind for decades. It means banning estate management companies altogether, and requiring every council to adopt every street. It means finding the £2 billion that the British Dental Association has said is needed to rescue NHS dentistry. It means lower energy bills for those communities hosting the new nuclear, wind and solar that powers Britain, and while I absolutely support the Home Secretary and stand behind her reforms, if it is necessary, it means declaring a state of emergency at our borders and turning boats back. It means banning southern councils from discharging their homelessness duty by shifting the burden to communities like mine, simply because our housing is cheaper. It means taking defence spending out of the fiscal rules and spending what this dangerous world requires now. It means giving councils the power to simply seize empty shops, abandoned homes and derelict sites where absentee owners refuse to act. It means finally standing up for justice for our WASPI women—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—and it means delivering a national care service, not eventually, not someday, but now. I do not want this country to fall prey to Trump-style populism, but the truth is that only we on the Labour Benches can prevent that. We have the parliamentary majority, we have the mandate, and we still have time, but if we do not use those things to deliver visible, meaningful change—if we do not give people hope that they can feel in their wages, their streets and their communities—then others will inevitably fill that vacuum. If that happens, the responsibility will lie with us.

One of the things that I find most difficult to understand in this process is why, when this scandal erupted in September of last year, before the Prime Minister made statements in this place and elsewhere—statements that he must have known would have involved talking about the vetting—he did not simply order officials to share the vetting information with him. Why did he not do so, and does he regret it?

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Swim England recently launched its report into the state of the nation’s swimming facilities. The report, “The Deep End”, clearly shows the crisis facing community swimming, largely due to issues with funding and infrastructure. While Hartlepool’s brilliant Labour council is delivering amazing new facilities in the form of the Highlight leisure centre opening in June, not every constituency is so lucky. What steps is the Secretary of State’s Department taking to improve access to swimming facilities where those facilities have been lost or are in danger of disappearing?

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

Public service is about dedication, resilience and delivering for those who need it most, and as she prepares to retire next week, Denise McGuckin, the chief executive of Hartlepool borough council, has exemplified those qualities throughout an outstanding career. It has been my privilege to work with Denise for two decades, during which time she has shown unwavering commitment to the people of Hartlepool. From starting as a recycling officer 30 years ago to leading the council through the pandemic, securing over £160 million of investment, delivering outstanding children’s services and bringing the tall ships back to our town, her calm, compassionate and decisive leadership has left a lasting legacy. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking Denise for her remarkable service to the people of Hartlepool, and in wishing her a long and happy retirement?

I met the Disability Poverty Campaign Group, which points to the fact that in recent years average support has fallen sharply and, as a result, job retention has dropped from 88% to 43%. That is fewer people in work as a result of the broken system the hon. Gentleman describes. That is counterintuitive when we want to strengthen our economy and ensure that people are in work.

I welcome the 8% reduction in knife crime and the increase in neighbourhood policing, which has seen a named officer in every ward of Hartlepool, but the Minister is right to say—and my constituents would agree—that it is not enough. Frontline officers tell me that they are taken off the street for far too long because they have to travel to Middlesbrough owing to the closure of our custody suite by the Conservative party. Given that the funding formula is broken and unfairly punishes Cleveland, can the Minister commit herself to reviewing it so that we can receive the funding we need to reopen that custody suite for my town?

I want to join Members across the House in commending the Minister for his steadfast commitment to this issue and, in particular, for the way in which he has consistently listened to members of the community and acted on what they have said. My constituent, Alex Robinson, lost her father to the scandal in 2006. I spoke to her just a few moments ago on the phone, and she remains concerned by the speed at which applications are being processed. Can the Minister outline what steps he is taking to speed up the process and deliver the justice that Alex and so many others deserve?

In just one week prior to Easter, Hillingdon council discharged its homelessness duty by issuing 22 section 208 notices and placing 77 individuals, including 35 children, in Hartlepool, with many concentrated in just one postcode. Does the Minister accept that this unfair practice places far too great a burden on towns like mine?

Is the issue not also about the way the economy is balanced? The truth is that some areas of the country, including Hartlepool, will struggle to bring people in with their tourism offer compared with others. A tax such as this actually drives money and investment away from areas that need it most. Is that not why such a holiday tax is bad for constituencies such as Hartlepool?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for opening this debate in his characteristic way—highly detailed and bringing the voices of victims to the fore, something that is so important here. The petition before us speaks to the simple but fundamental principle that access to justice should never be denied according to a person’s ability to pay. If our role in this place is anything, surely it is to break down the barriers that our constituents face when trying to access that to which they are entitled. This is clearly one of those barriers. Given that it involves access to justice—that most fundamental of rights—I cannot think of a more significant barrier that needs to be knocked down. I thank the 479 constituents in Hartlepool who signed the petition. Their voices reflect a real and growing concern that what should be a basic feature of open justice cannot be placed behind a paywall. At present, courtroom tribunal transcripts can run into the hundreds and even the thousands of pounds. For many of my constituents, that is simply unaffordable. The result is that people are denied access to a full record of proceedings that may directly affect their lives. That has serious implications for victims, for those seeking to appeal decisions, and for public confidence in a justice system that is already under strain. I raised this issue of costs with Ministers just last week during Justice questions. I welcomed the response from the Minister for Courts and Legal Services, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman)—as an aside, my thoughts are with her and her constituents today. The commitment to making sentencing remarks available to victims free of charge is a positive and important step, showing that the Government recognise the need to reduce these barriers and improve transparency. However, there is a clear case to go further. The Government’s response to the petition suggests that expanding free access would place additional pressure on the system. As Members have already said, in an age of AI and technology, I wonder whether the basic credibility of that excuse stands up. This is not an optional extra. It goes to the heart of whether our justice system is truly accessible and accountable. It is encouraging that the other place has already taken steps in this direction: Lords amendment 1 to the Victims and Courts Bill would create a statutory entitlement for victims of criminal offences to receive key transcripts free of charge, including the route to verdict and bail decisions, with a clear expectation that they are provided promptly. That development is significant and welcome, but still does not go far enough. The principle behind that change should not stop there. If access to transcripts is essential for fairness and transparency, it must apply more widely across our courts and tribunals. Open justice cannot be selective; it cannot apply in some cases but not others, or to some people but not others. The law belongs to us all. The records of our courts are part of the public record and they should be accessible as such. Of course there will be practical challenges, but those challenges should be addressed, not used as a reason to delay progress. With the right approach, including better use of technology, we can improve access while managing costs. Only where there are clear safety or national security concerns should access ever be restricted. Ultimately, this issue is about fairness and trust. It is about ensuring that no one is denied access to justice because of their financial circumstances. I urge the Government and the Minister to build on the progress already being made, to support the direction set out in the Lords amendment and to move towards a system where access to court and tribunal transcripts is guaranteed, not priced out of reach.

Given that plan 2 tuition fees were introduced by the Conservatives in 2012, that they froze the repayment thresholds in 2016 and that they abolished the maintenance grants, was that fair then?

My hon. Friend hits the nail precisely on the head. We are debating a possible fuel duty increase seven months ahead of it happening. The reality is that the Opposition have been caught championing an illegal war in the middle east that the public of this country do not support, and they are trying to divert it with this nonsensical argument.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. My constituents in Hartlepool report letters arriving late, entire streets going days without deliveries and, in some cases, post turning up only once every 13 days—this is not once or twice, but a pattern lasting for months. Let me be absolutely clear, as other Members have been, that this is not the fault of our posties. I have met them and they are hard-working, committed and deeply proud of the job they do. They are just as frustrated as anyone else because they know the service is not what it should be. The failure lies not with the workforce but with the system. The Royal Mail as an organisation is simply not delivering the service that the public are entitled to expect. We should be honest about why. The privatisation of Royal Mail has gone the same way as rail and water: a public service turned into a private asset, focused no longer on delivery—quite literally in this case—but on what can be extracted. Profit first, service second, and the public and our hard-working posties left to pick up the pieces. The consequences for my constituents are not abstract but real and serious. Bills arrive late triggering penalties, appointments are missed, and important correspondence simply does not turn up on time or at all. Financial penalties, missed healthcare and the real anxiety caused by a service that is not functioning are not minor inconveniences. Yet these issues are raised with Royal Mail, we are told that they are not long-term problems, but just down to short-term staff absences. With respect, that does not pass the most basic credibility test. Who gets it in the neck at the end of the day? Our posties on the doorstep. This is profoundly unfair. Royal Mail is failing the public and its workforce. It is a pattern: privatise a public service and it fails the public. So I urge the Minister, who I know is deeply committed, to take on the Royal Mail, and if it does not improve, take it back.

One of my constituents has raised this issue with me; she is owed nearly £6,000. She says: “What makes me most mad is if he paid, I wouldn’t need UC to top up my wages. The government is paying twice, once for chasing him and once for covering him.” Is the system not completely broken?

Ministers will be aware of the campaign to make all court and tribunal transcripts available for free. Fees can run into the thousands, effectively acting as a paywall to justice. Do Ministers agree that access to the law cannot be based on wealth alone, and what will they do about it?

My dad was a GP in Hartlepool for 33 years. He worked through the improvements brought in by the last Labour Government and, until his retirement, through the destruction that the last Conservative Government oversaw—most notably the inability to get a same-day urgent appointment, which saw far too many patients ending up at the door of their local hospital. Does the Minister agree that ensuring that people can access same-day urgent appointments gets treatment out of hospitals and back into communities, where it belongs?

As this is Colleges Week, will the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute to the incredible college staff in Hartlepool and across the country for the work that they do? Does she agree that we must end the misguided prejudice that the academic route is always best, and champion vocational qualifications, which will give us the workforce we need to rebuild our country?

May I start with the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), who did not give way when I asked him to? I will happily give way in a moment should he wish to correct the record, but he said that the 2024 Labour manifesto on which we stood promised to freeze council tax. No such promise exists in that manifesto, and I invite him now to correct the record.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I absolutely endorse all that; part of that work needs to be taking a very close look at the funding settlement. We need to look at whether councils that may have done very well out of the settlement are still moving people out of their areas, even when they have extra finances from this Government.

I would say that if we want there to be trust in politics, we need to be accurate in what we say in this place, but I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s correcting the record. The Minister understands exactly what I am going to say. I know how sympathetic and supportive she is in this respect, and I hope that in the coming days we will be able to deal with the issue that I am going to raise. I thank her for her support in recent weeks. I want to be clear about what Hartlepool is facing, and about why I cannot regard the current settlement to be fair and also believe it to be self-defeating. Hartlepool now has the third highest number of children in care in England. That pressure has been made worse by other local authorities placing families in my town, leaving us with a £6 million overspend in children’s social care alone. My brilliant Labour council has already taken decisive action, halving that projected deficit in-year and establishing a robust, credible plan to eliminate it entirely. That plan is exactly what the Government say they want to see: it means fewer children coming into care, more early intervention, stronger families and better outcomes. It includes strengthened early help and family support, a dedicated edge-of-care team, a refreshed in-house foster care model, safe reunification pathways, wholesale SEND reform, enhanced support for care leavers, and better workforce planning. This is a serious, preventive change, not a sticking plaster solution. But here is the problem: these reforms require short-term stability to succeed. The settlement does not recognise the sheer number of children in care in my constituency. It undermines prevention, which means that we are likely to see more children in care, more long-term costs, and worse outcomes. That is why I see this settlement as self-defeating. Ministers will rightly point to percentage increases in funding, but those percentages mean far less in Hartlepool than they do almost anywhere else, because our baseline is already so low. The cost of a child in care is exactly the same in Hartlepool as it is anywhere else. When we look at it in cash terms, the reality is stark. The increase in the Government grant for Hartlepool this year is just £3 million, which is equivalent to funding around six children in care. After weeks of discussions and representations, the final settlement for Hartlepool has remained unchanged, yet down the road—this sticks in the craw for me—Reform-led Durham county council has received an additional £3.7 million this year, which means that it is reducing the amount by which it is increasing council tax. The increase in Durham’s final settlement is more than our entire increase this year. I cannot describe that as fair funding. As we have heard from many Members from across the House, the unfairness is compounded by a broken council tax system. Hartlepool has one of the weakest tax bases in the country, with a high proportion of homes in band A. A 1% increase in council tax in Hartlepool raises a fraction of what it raises in wealthier areas, yet our residents already pay far more, both in real terms and as a share of their income, than those living almost anywhere else in the country. The settlement simply does not change that reality. Governments of all stripes talk about core spending power, but half of that core spending power is achieved by raising council tax. That hammers the poorest communities the most, and it is a regressive tax. That is not fairness; it is entrenched inequality. To make matters worse, changes to deprivation measures and population assumptions mean that Hartlepool’s needs are being systematically underestimated. Official forecasts put our population at under 94,000, yet the Office for National Statistics data shows that it is already closer to 100,000—growth that is driven in large part by other councils discharging their homelessness duties into my constituency. Hartlepool is not asking for special treatment; we are asking for support to deal with a problem that is not of our making.

Sorry, they cancelled it; we initiated it.

I will take up the hon. Member on that invitation. He mentioned Blackpool, and I know that the Members who represent Blackpool and Stoke—in the top three areas for the number of children in care—would also be very interested in his offer. Without support to deal with the gap in our in-year funding for children’s social care, the risks are clear: prevention will fail, costs will rise, and vital community services such as youth provision, libraries and community hubs will be under threat. I fully support my Labour council colleagues, who have been clear that they are not prepared to make those cuts, which would be so self-defeating in the round. This is a moment of profound seriousness for my constituency. Hartlepool has a plan for children’s social care that is aligned with the Government’s agenda, but we now need a settlement that gives us a fair chance to deliver it. I have spoken today with our council leader and colleagues in Hartlepool, and they are distraught, despondent and profoundly worried about what the future holds—in just a matter of days, when the budget is due to be set in Hartlepool—so I appeal to the Minister for any piece of support she can give me.

I am sure the hon. Member did not mean to inadvertently mislead the House, but as I was a councillor in Hartlepool in 2010, I can tell him with absolute surety that it was the Conservatives who cancelled the building schools for the future programme. I think he should take the opportunity to correct the record. You cancelled it; we initiated it.

In Hartlepool, 70% of every penny the council spends is on social care, and my constituents pay, as a proportion of their property value and as a proportion of their income, far, far more than the more affluent areas of the country. As my hon. Friend has said, they do not receive the services that they need. Is it not time to abolish the council tax system?

The right hon. Member made a point about core spending power. I share his irritation at the use of core spending power, because such a large percentage of it is in council tax, but it was introduced in 2016 by the last Conservative Administration. The concept of core spending power including council tax was introduced by the Conservatives. What did he say about it at the time?

I absolutely agree. Just this week, there have been stories in my local press about a family with children who have been moved to a place where they have no connections, no familial links and no understanding of the local community. The Minister is absolutely right: those children are suffering as a result of the behaviour of councils.

Will the hon. Member give way?

I thank the hon. Member for his comments, and I endorse them wholeheartedly. I have heard stories of London boroughs and Birmingham city council putting families in taxis with the threat, “Get in the taxi, or you’re homeless.” They do not know where they will get out at the other end, and they discover that they are in Hartlepool only when they arrive. It is left for our council to deal with the pressure and the additional SEND needs, and for our council to deal with the children, who sometimes end up in care. It is a disgraceful practice that should rightly be cracked down on. I know that the Minister is alive to this problem, and it needs to be dealt with.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

My hon. Friend makes my point for me, which is that the devastating thing was ripping the experience out of our police force and then dressing up new recruits as somehow a replacement. That led to higher crime in my constituency and, I know, in his.

My hon. Friend talks about a new funding formula needing to be based on need and the challenges that the precept creates. We are never going to get fairness if the council tax system is the method of doing this. Is she ruling out getting rid of the police precept as a method of raising funding?

15. What recent progress he has made on developing alternative routes to market for new nuclear projects.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the publication of the advanced nuclear framework. It is an important step forward, providing a clear pathway for credible projects such as the one that X-Energy and Centrica are delivering in my constituency. Will he ensure, though, that the right balance is struck between backing those projects that are most robust and mature and recognising that Government support will be particularly important to unlocking private investment for the first project of its kind in the UK, which will make Hartlepool a trailblazer for our country?

Town centre crime in Hartlepool has fallen by 15% in the last year, thanks to the brilliant work of our police force under the leadership of Helen Wilson, but far more needs to happen. My constituents deserve to feel safe in their town centre, so can the Secretary of State tell me what more we can do to make sure that our town centres remain safe?

Q7. Hartlepool now has the third highest number of children in care in England—a number fuelled by southern councils shipping families to my town. This is blowing a £6 million hole in our budget, a deficit that my brilliant Labour council has halved, but there is now nothing left to cut. Percentage increases in funding mean less in Hartlepool than almost anywhere else in the country, but a child in care costs exactly the same in Hartlepool as elsewhere. The fair funding settlement announced in December does not go far enough. I am fighting non-stop for a better deal for my town, because I will not accept one of the poorest communities in the country being condemned to higher taxes or devastating austerity. We need support. Will the PM commit his Ministers to working across Government to fix this for Hartlepool?

I stand here acutely aware that I am the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool, and I think today I speak for Hartlepudlians when I look at the evidence before us and say: undoubtedly, Peter Mandelson is a traitor. On that basis, it is important that the public have confidence in this process. Does the Minister agree?

I recognise the Justice Secretary’s sincere commitment to tackling the court backlog that was disgracefully left by Conservative and Reform politicians. However, one of the most troubling aspects of the proposals on jury trials is the suggestion that the changes will be permanent, regardless of whether the backlog persists. Will he consider explicitly making these measures temporary and subject to review, so that their impact, if any, on reducing the court backlog can be properly assessed?

19. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the proposal to restrict the right to a jury trial for certain offences on court backlogs.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the importance of non-league football and the vital role it plays in communities across the country. Non-league clubs are often more than football clubs. They are community hubs, employers, charities and a source of deep local pride. Nowhere is that clearer than in Hartlepool. Hartlepool United acts as a veterans hub, supporting those in our borough who have served, and it was the first professional football club in England to sign the armed forces covenant. It was also the first to receive a bronze award from the armed forces covenant employer recognition scheme, an achievement that speaks volumes about the values of our club and our town. Fans are closer to the players in non-league football than at any other level of the game. In towns such as Hartlepool, football is not just entertainment; it is part of who we are. The fortunes of our club are felt right across the community, well beyond the turnstiles. As a proud season ticket holder, I take my children along to Pools at every possible opportunity. I did so before I was elected, and I will continue to do so long after I leave this place, because Hartlepool United belongs to Hartlepool, and Hartlepool belongs to its football club. While I deeply appreciate the many colleagues who have come to intervene in support of this debate, and I am sure to plug their local teams, I must say that as this debate is in my name, any suggestion that their team is better than Hartlepool United will be given robustly short shrift.

Of course I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to those organisations, which exemplify why non-league clubs are so important to their communities. He pre-empts me, because I was going to remind him of our recent match on 30 December, when we beat you 2-1. I will focus my primary remarks on the national league’s 3UP campaign and what it would mean for non-league clubs such as Hartlepool United. The campaign is simple: it calls for three promotion places from the national league into league two, bringing it into line with the rest of the professional football pyramid. It is supported by all 72 national league clubs, by the Football Supporters Association, by fans across the country, by more than 50 Members of this House—on a Thursday afternoon, I appreciate why they are not here—and by respected voices across the game, including Hartlepool legend Jeff Stelling. I take this moment to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns), who asked me to make special reference to her support for the campaign. I will not mention the result last time Hartlepool met Carlisle. This would not be a radical restructuring of football; it would be a straightforward reform to make the system fairer, more competitive and more sustainable. As it would simply mirror the structure of the English football league, it can hardly be regarded as a major upheaval. There are 72 clubs in the national league system, and many clubs currently in the EFL have benefited from time spent in the national league, yet only two clubs are promoted each season. That imbalance limits opportunity, suppresses ambition and places enormous financial pressure on clubs that are striving to succeed. At a time when clubs higher up in the leagues are struggling financially, it does not take much imagination to see how that pressure is felt even more sharply at our end of the spectrum. I fully recognise that the Government do not directly control promotions and relegations—and probably just as well. Those decisions sit with the EFL, but the Government do have influence, particularly at a time when football governance is under greater scrutiny than ever before. With the introduction of the Independent Football Regulator, there is a clear expectation that fairness, sustainability and the long-term health of the game must sit at the heart of decision making. That is why I was proud to walk through the Lobby in support of the legislation that introduced it. Too often, our game has been overtaken by vested interests, with as many headlines about ownership and governance as there are about the football itself. Pools fans know that only too well. That is why I want to place on record my thanks and welcome to Hartlepool United’s new owner, Landon Smith. His recent takeover has given us our club back. I was delighted to welcome the journalist Robbie Stelling to Parliament. Disgracefully, he was banned from home games by the previous owner, but he is now, quite rightly, welcome once again at Victoria Park. That moment mattered, because it symbolised something bigger: Hartlepool United returning to its supporters, town and values. Real fans want to see their teams given every possible opportunity to succeed. Real fans want the hope that exists at every other level of the football pyramid. Real fans want 3UP. This change has been stalled for years. It has now been 23 years since the national league was awarded a second promotion place. In that time, the business of football has changed beyond recognition, yet the basic question of parity remains unresolved. The EFL has argued that 3UP should be considered as part of wider reform, but that may take years. National league clubs cannot wait years, and neither can the communities that stand behind them week in, week out. The EFL board will meet early next month to set the agenda for its annual general meeting, which takes place in early March. This is a critical moment at which a decision could be taken with all member clubs present. If this opportunity is missed, national league clubs face waiting yet another year to be treated as equal partners within the football pyramid. I ask the following questions of the Minister. What steps will the Government take to encourage constructive engagement between the EFL and the national league? How will the Government ensure that fairness and opportunity are central to the future governance of the game? How will the new regulator support a pyramid that rewards sporting merit and gives ambitious clubs a genuine route upward? This is about putting football first. It is about fairness and recognising the enormous contribution that non-league clubs such as Hartlepool United make to our communities. I urge the Minister to use the voice of the Government to support that principle. I will finish by simply saying, “Up the Pools!”

I should probably point out that my father was a Hibs fan as a child—I hope that does not act against me in this debate. The Minister mentioned that the Football Governance Act requires meaningful fan engagement. Given that fans are so unanimously behind the 3UP campaign, would he see it as a failure of engagement if we do not see that change coming forward?

6. What steps his Department is taking to support the hospitality sector in Hartlepool.

I thank the Minister for her answer. The Marine hotel in Seaton Carew in my constituency of Hartlepool has been run for the last 30 years by Lee and Claire Dexter. It is a family business run by hard-working people who are committed to their community, yet they have seen their business rates rise significantly, driven not by the multiplier but by the sharp increase in the rateable value. They need help, so I welcome the steps set out this week to support pubs. Will the Minister meet me to look at ways that we can fix the business rates system, which is failing hotels and wider hospitality in Hartlepool?

Keeping our neighbourhoods clean and tidy requires a whole community effort, and that is exactly what we are delivering in Hartlepool. Our Labour council is investing £1 million in its Pride in Place campaign, complementing the fantastic work of volunteers from Hartlepool Big Town Tidy Up to make a visible difference to our borough. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating my constituent, 11-year-old Theo Rhead, a pupil at High Tunstall school, on winning a young litter picker award at the Davina Hodson memorial awards hosted by CleanupUK? He embodies the spirit of Hartlepool.

Of course this package of support for pubs and music venues is most welcome, and I know it will be welcomed in Hartlepool, but I have been contacted by numerous businesses, including the Marine hotel in Seaton Carew, whose business rates will basically double this year. Hartlepool is a town of entrepreneurs and innovators, but they cannot afford that. Will the Minister look again at the wider support package that we could put in place for hospitality?

My constituents in Hartlepool are facing outrageous estate management charges, including a 49% increase in the administration fee by management company Sela just this year on the Marine Point and Longbranch Homes estates, as well as ongoing charges by Praxis on the Wynyard Mews estate. We have heard that time and again from Members today. When will we switch on the protections of the 2024 Act, and give the powers necessary for homeowners to challenge unfair charges, hold estate management companies to account and prevent families from being unfairly burdened?

I absolutely agree that the Labour Benches are strengthened by having hon. and gallant Members, such as the Armed Forces Minister, to help lead this country. His actions in recent days are in stark contrast to the weasel words from some so-called leaders who refuse to call out the US President in the way that we all should. I welcome the direction of travel set out in this Bill for our serving personnel, our veterans and their families. After years of neglect and cuts, our armed forces are finally receiving the focus, attention and respect that they deserve. When this Government came into office, they delivered the largest pay increase for our armed forces in 22 years. That matters, not just in pounds and pence but because of the message it sends that this country values their service, sacrifice and commitment. Those pay rises stand alongside wider reforms to improve everyday service life, including action on forces housing and the strengthened armed forces covenant. For the first time, public bodies will be required to properly consider the unique pressures faced by service families when making decisions on housing, healthcare, education and other essential services. This is long overdue. The reforms are further reinforced by Op Valour, the Government’s plan to deliver joined-up regional support for serving personnel, veterans and their families. Hartlepool is home to some 4,000 veterans. As part of a wider north-east bid, led by the extraordinary team at the East Durham Veterans Trust, we are aiming to secure a Valour support centre in the Middleton Grange shopping centre, at the centre of Hartlepool. This is truly a team effort, with the support of my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Stockton North (Chris McDonald); our local NHS; our armed forces liaison group; the development corporation, which has provided the space rent free; our armed forces champion, Councillor Chris Wallace; and our council, which under the leadership of Councillor Pamela Hargreaves is providing free car parking for any veteran who uses the centre. Hartlepool is united in support of our veterans. The main reason I wanted to speak in today’s debate is so that I could discuss the Bill’s proposed reforms to the service justice system, particularly those relating to victims of service offences. These provisions are vital, but they must be shaped by the lived experience of those the system has failed. The case of my constituent Richard Lee shows just how badly things can go wrong. In 1981, Richard’s two-year-old daughter Katrice disappeared while their family were stationed in Germany. For more than 44 years, the family have lived not only with the pain of that loss, but with the compounded trauma of how they were treated by the Royal Military Police. They were not treated as victims; they were treated as a nuisance. In 2012, the Royal Military Police issued a written apology, but not to the family, and they acknowledged the failings of the investigation. Yet those failings have never been fully explained, and neither has there ever been the transparency and accountability that the family deserves. Even more distressingly, a former investigating officer publicly admitted those failures last year on “The Patch” on BBC Radio 4, stating that there had not been “enough searching” and that the Royal Military Police “had not considered that someone would abduct a child.” Yet again, that admission was not made to the family themselves. When I was elected, I arranged for Richard to meet the then Veterans Minister, who is now the Armed Forces Minister, and the Victims Minister. It was a remarkable moment, and I pay tribute to my colleagues for their compassion, decency and openness in that meeting. We jointly agreed that a visit would take place to the defence serious crimes unit in Portsmouth to discuss the case further. The visit was arranged by the Royal Military Police, but they failed to invite the Ministers. Once again, Richard and his family felt let down, and I hope the visit can now go ahead as promised. Richard and his family are victims. The system admits that it failed them, yet more than four decades on, they are still seeking justice, still seeking answers and still seeking basic respect. That is why the provisions in this Bill that relate to victims of service offences matter so much. A statutory victims code for the service justice system could be a major step forward, but only if it is built around the voices of the victims themselves.

Let me start by referring to an email that I received today from a Hartlepool veteran whose name is Ian. In it, he told me that he had put his life on the line in the Falklands, in Northern Ireland, in the Persian gulf, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and that he was disgusted by the comments of President Trump. Indeed, he wrote: “An apology from Trump to the UK publicly should be forthcoming”. Let me put on record again that the United States President has not apologised for the disgraceful things that he said about our service personnel and the service personnel of our allies. Let me also pay tribute to the leadership, in recent days, of our Armed Forces Minister, who I know has brought a great deal of comfort to veterans who have been very distressed by what they have heard on the news.

It seems to have been indicated a couple of times during this debate that President Trump has apologised. As far as I can tell, he has not apologised at any point for his disgraceful comments. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in encouraging President Trump from this place to do so publicly and quickly?

Like my hon. Friend, I have many veterans in my constituency, and when I speak to them, they often talk about how lip service is paid to the armed forces covenant. Does she therefore agree that we must ensure that when it is extended to every public sector organisation, they are held to account in delivering it?

I offer a cautious welcome to the proposals. Reorganisations and mergers are only effective if they create a more efficient system that reinvests savings into the frontline. Under the Tories, Hartlepool saw cuts to the frontline, including to our custody suite. Does the Home Secretary agree that the proposals will only be successful if such cuts are reversed?

Some 15% of my constituents live in fuel poverty, and many more go without in order to pay the outrageous energy bills they face. Many vulnerable people, children and elderly people are living in properties that are too cold and too damp. That is not acceptable to me, and I know that it is not acceptable to the Secretary of State. How will we ensure that the welcome measures in this plan reach the most vulnerable people in communities in Hartlepool and beyond?

Hartlepool is a coastal community home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the north-east, but they are too often polluted by water companies to the detriment of my constituents. I absolutely agree with the Secretary of State that this Government have done more in 18 months to fix this mess than any other Government in history, but does she agree that once we have forced these failed water companies to get their house in order and clean up our waters, we should get them out of the ownership of foreign nationals, hedge funds and private equity, and reverse the worst privatisation in British history?

It is clear that social media harms our children. I am firmly of the belief that when a child is being harmed, it is the Government’s duty to act. I support a ban, but even the most cursory engagement with Hartlepool residents shows me very clearly that there is a range of views among parents on this issue. Can the Secretary of State fathom what possibly could be the objection to listening to parents?

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for the expert way in which he opened the debate. I think the last time I spoke in a petition debate that he led, Members across the Chamber agreed about mandatory digital ID, so I am hoping for a similar outcome today. I thank the petitioners, Helen and Robert, everyone else who is in the Public Gallery here today, and the people across the country who have signed the two petitions. In my constituency alone, 361 people signed the petition calling for firework sales to be limited to council-approved events and 227 signed the petition calling for lower noise levels. I have also received 114 emails from Hartlepool residents, all calling for tighter controls or an outright ban on personal use. That tells us something very clear: this is not a niche concern. It is widespread and persistent across the country, including in Hartlepool. I want to be clear from the outset that I support public firework displays. When they are organised and well managed, they bring communities together. As a child, I loved attending the firework display at Ward Jackson Park in Hartlepool. Hartlepool is fortunate to have a major public display still at Seaton Carew, supported by Hartlepool borough council and sponsored by X-energy, and I am grateful that it continues. What my constituents are experiencing now, though, goes far beyond a few celebratory nights. Fireworks in Hartlepool begin in September, and intensify through October, November, December and into early January. For weeks at a time, there is no predictability and no break—and that has real consequences: children awoken night after night and elderly residents reporting fear and anxiety. In 2024, Hartlepool police was forced to issue a dispersal order on the Bishop Cuthbert estate where fireworks were being used as weapons, seriously injuring at least one young person. Pets suffer distress, and veterans and others living with trauma are affected by the sudden loud explosions. Calling for action is not being anti-fun; it is respecting others. There is nothing nanny state about protecting the most vulnerable in our society. Limiting sales to council-approved events would bring order and safety to communities such as Hartlepool. Reducing the maximum noise level to 90 dB is a simple, common-sense approach. Quieter fireworks already exist; alternatives are available. People in Hartlepool are not asking for celebrations to end. They are asking for balance and fairness. I urge the Minister, who I know has listened intently all afternoon, to listen to the petitions and to the messages from Members across the House and from the people of Hartlepool. The current system is not working and needs to change.

T8. Currently, not a single NHS dentist in Hartlepool is taking on new patients, and many of my constituents are desperate. We have made real progress on urgent care, including a new urgent dental access centre, but it is not enough. What more will be done to fix NHS dentistry in Hartlepool and across the country?

7. What steps he is taking to improve access to tissue freezing for brain cancer patients in Hartlepool.

I thank the Minister for her answer, and for her positive response during a recent Westminster Hall debate on this issue. As she will recall from that debate, my constituent Trevor Jones died in September last year from glioblastoma. His widow, Samantha, learned only later that life-extending treatment options might have been available had his brain biopsy not been stored in paraffin blocks, but instead been flash frozen. Will the Minister recommit to examining how flash freezing can be made standard practice for brain biopsies across the NHS, and will she meet me and Samantha to discuss a way forward?

In purporting to discharge their homelessness duties, some southern local authorities are bundling vulnerable people into taxis in the middle of the night and dumping them in Hartlepool because our housing is cheaper. They are acting in a vile way. I welcome the fact that the Minister has written to me and set out her belief that we need to ban this poor practice. Does she agree that we need to ban it outright?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I start by saying how honoured I am to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who demonstrates so ably that the high-minded ideals of representation, compassion and decency run right through this place, and perhaps more often than is fully recognised. I thank him for his contribution. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) for securing this important debate, and his constituent Ellie for her campaigning—I can say without hesitation that you have another signed-up supporter of Owain’s law here today in me. As my hon. Friend demonstrated, MPs do not generally come to these debates to have abstract policy discussions, but to do our most important job: to be the voice of our constituents. That is where I want to start. I want to share the experience of my constituent, Samantha Jones, who came to see me alongside her father-in-law, Garry Jones, following the death of her husband, Trevor, from glioblastoma. Trevor was just 41 years old when he suddenly became ill on Christmas Day 2024. Until that moment, there had been no warning signs and no symptoms that anyone could reasonably have recognised. Tests revealed stage 4 glioblastoma, and he was given six months to live. He lived for nine months and died in September 2025. Like so many families confronted with this diagnosis, they were plunged into a world of shock, fear and urgent decision making. A biopsy was taken, which confirmed and sequenced the cancer, and at that point the family believed that everything possible was being done. It was only later, through Samantha’s own research and through conversations with an oncologist experienced in international practice, that they learned something that they found deeply troubling. There were treatments that may have been available to Trevor on the basis of his biopsy, but they could not be used because the tissue sample had not been flash frozen. Instead, the biopsy had been stored in paraffin blocks, which is standard practice in much of the UK, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly. By the time the family discovered the significance of that, it was too late: Trevor was too ill to undergo another biopsy, too unwell to travel and unable to take part in clinical trials. Samantha told me that in Germany brain tumour biopsies are flash frozen as a matter of course. That allows for far more advanced genomic and molecular testing, which can open the door to a wider range of treatments. In the UK, by contrast, flash freezing is done only if it is specifically requested, or if the patient is part of a clinical trial. For families who have just been told that their loved one has an aggressive and terminal brain cancer, that is not a realistic expectation. They are in shock. They are terrified. They are placing their trust in the system to do everything that it can, without knowing that one unmade request could close off future options entirely. That raises a simple but profound question, which I put to the Minister: why does the NHS not routinely flash freeze all brain tumour biopsies as standard practice? What can we do to change that here and now? I am not suggesting false hope. I fully recognise that glioblastoma remains a devastating diagnosis with limited treatment options, but when options are already so few, it cannot be right that patients are denied even the possibility of certain treatments because of how their tissue samples were stored. This is also an issue of fairness and equality. Access to the best possible diagnostics and research pathways should not depend on geography, chance or whether a family happen to know the right question to ask at the worst moment in their lives. Samantha and Garry came to see me not only in grief but with a determination—one reflected by Ellie, in the Public Gallery this morning—that something good might come from their devastating experience. They want other families to be spared the same sense of missed opportunity and unanswered questions. More broadly, brain cancers remain under-recognised and underfunded compared with other forms of cancer, despite their severity and poor outcomes. If we are serious about improving survival, treatment and research, we must be willing to look honestly at current practice and ask whether it is good enough, because I think the consensus is that it is not. I hope that the Minister will engage constructively on this issue and consider making the flash freezing of brain tumour biopsies standard practice across the NHS, because that could improve patient access to treatment, strengthen research and offer families reassurance that everything possible is being done. For Trevor, such a change has come too late, but for future patients it does not have to.

Over 14 years of the Conservative Government, they cut Hartlepool’s budget in real terms by 40%. That is £50 million missing from that budget every single year. It meant libraries and parks being left behind and child poverty being up by 10% over those 14 years. While some of the Conservatives come here to criticise and others jump ship to Reform, including in Hartlepool, does the Minister agree that they should be ashamed of themselves for their record on local government? This is the start of putting right what they got so wrong.

Pensioners in my constituency of Hartlepool who rely solely on the state pension have shared with me their concern that freezing the tax threshold will draw them into paying tax. Can the Minister confirm what the Chancellor has already said publicly, which is that pensioners who rely solely on the state pension will not be taxed during this Parliament?

Like many Members, I have been inundated with messages. My Hartlepool constituents are hugely concerned. Does the hon. Member agree that part of the problem is that we got an announcement without the detail? I have written to the Minister with a number of questions that my constituents have put to me. Does the hon. Member think that Government Ministers owe our constituents answers about the detail of what they are proposing?

Since the general election, the number of people claiming universal credit in my constituency has fallen by 7.3%. Does the Minister agree that central to this Government’s mission of getting people back into work is that it must reach every part of the country, including those areas that have been let down for far too long?

Last week was Parliament Week, and like Members across the House I had the chance to visit some of the brilliant schools in my constituency, to hear from Hartlepool children about the things that matter to them at St Teresa’s, St Peter’s Elwick, West View, and Eldon Grove academy, where pupils showed me their brilliant campaign comics on litter, bullying and the environment. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Hartlepool’s extraordinary young people, and the brilliant school staff who support them, for their outstanding contributions to our community?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing this debate and for all his ongoing work leading on this issue. One of the most remarkable features of the human brain is its ability to change. Neuroscience tells us that the brain has what is known as plasticity: the ability to rebuild, adapt and form new connections after injury. But that is not automatic; as with any muscle, recovery happens only when the brain is exercised, challenged and supported. If someone breaks a leg, we do not simply discharge them and hope that they walk again; we provide structured rehabilitation, physiotherapy and ongoing care. Yet for many people with brain injuries, that is exactly what we do not do. Too often, rehabilitation is determined by postcode rather than need. Some parts of our country offer specialist support; others offer little or nothing at all. Patients are discharged from hospital and sent home often not because they are ready, but because the hospital bed is needed. Families suddenly become care co-ordinators. People struggle with memory, fatigue, speech and personality change without professional help. Let us be clear about the scale of the issue. As has already been mentioned by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, acquired brain injury is the leading cause of death and disability among people under 40 years old. Every year, around 900,000 people experience a brain injury and over 160,000 of them are hospitalised. Around 350,000 hospital admissions involve an acquired brain injury. As has already been mentioned, the cost is enormous. Analysis shows the real cost is over £43 billion, with wider wellbeing costs exceeding £91 billion. We also know that every £1 spent on neuro-rehabilitation saves £16 for the state. Yet community services are underfunded and overstretched, and voluntary organisations warn that systems are close to collapse. This is not just moral failure; it is also economic failure. Behind every statistic is a life, and one of those lives belongs to my constituent, Jonathan Purnell. While playing rugby 34 years ago, Jonathan suffered a massive brain haemorrhage—he was 27 years old. He spent three years under neurosurgical care, and when discharge day finally came, he believed he was starting again, but then the reality hit him, as he describes it, “like a steam train.” There were no services, no pathway and no road map to recovery, so he built his own. Out of his experience, determination and quiet defiance, Jonathan created the 1492 Group, not as a charity in theory, but a lifeline in practice—a place for people with brain injuries to come together, share, rebuild and be heard. I am so proud that it operates today in my constituency of Hartlepool. Jonathan did not wait for the system to change; he began the change. Today, he is not only a survivor, but a force—a campaigner, an advocate and a builder of hope for others still trying to understand their new reality. He should not have to do this alone, and no one else should either. The case for reform is overwhelming. The Government have committed to their acquired brain injury action plan—a process, I have to say, that started as a strategy in December 2021. How long does it take to get this done? It started in December 2021, and here we are in December 2025. What matters now is delivery. We need a statutory right to rehabilitation, consistent national provision, proper data collection and sustainable funding for community services. Above all, we must ensure that people with brain injuries are not written off because recovery is complex. Brain injuries change lives, but failure to act destroys them. Jonathan Purnell shows what is possible, and the Government must now do what is responsible. I urge the Minister to set out a clear timescale for that action plan, the necessary funding commitments and the accountability mechanisms. When it comes to acquired brain injury, warm words are no longer enough: people need support, and they need it now.

I welcome so much that is in the Budget: the measures to reduce the cost of living, most notably the £150 off energy bills; the lifting of half a million children out of poverty, including 3,210 in my constituency of Hartlepool, paid for by taxes on online gambling; and the decision to introduce a mansion tax for properties valued over £2 million, in a nod to our broken council tax system. Sadly, however, a nod is all it was and it does nothing to fix the underlying problem. Council tax is the most unfair, most outdated and most indefensible tax in Britain today. The longer the Government refuse to reform it, the clearer it becomes that working-class towns like mine are expected to carry on paying the price for a lack of political courage. Let us be honest about what council tax really is: it is a relic of the 1990s, frozen in time, frozen in injustice and weaponised against the poorest communities in this country. Nowhere is that clearer than in Hartlepool, where a band D property costs £2,500 a year for its occupants and here in Westminster it is just £1,000. That is not just unfair; it is a scandal hiding in plain sight. For many households in Hartlepool, council tax is not just another bill. It is the bill that breaks the family budget, it is the bill that pushes families into arrears and it is the bill that tips people from coping into crisis. What is the answer from successive Governments? We are told that it is too complicated, we are told that it is too politically difficult and we are told that now is not the right time. For the people of Hartlepool and constituencies like it, it has been the right time for decades. The worst accusation is that if we introduce a new system, there will be winners and losers. The current system has winners and losers. The losers live in terraced houses and the winners live in mansions. There is nothing Labour about defending a system that punishes working-class communities and protects high-value wealth. There is nothing Labour about a tax that hits hardest those with the least. There is nothing Labour about lacking the political courage to sweep the system away once and for all. Council tax does not merely fail working-class towns; it targets them. There is a solution: a proportional property tax, as backed by Fairer Share. That is what we have to introduce. I urge Ministers to summon the courage to get rid of this regressive tax that harms the people I represent.

My constituent Lyndsay Hogg has successfully brought a Penguin little library to her community in Hartlepool. It is designed to celebrate Penguin’s 90th anniversary, and the aim is to promote the joy of reading. Hartlepool borough council’s leader, Labour’s Pamela Hargreaves, inspired by Lyndsay’s brilliant work, has promised to expand this excellent idea right across the town. Does the Minister agree that this fantastic initiative will help families with access to books and inspire a love of reading, and will she commit to visiting Hartlepool to see these little libraries for herself?

19. What steps her Department is taking to help support families to read with their child before they start nursery and school.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on further education and lifelong learning. This debate matters deeply to my constituency. Hartlepool has one of the highest levels of young people not in education, employment or training in the country, and behind every single number is a young person with untapped potential. Hartlepool is also paying the price for that unrealised talent. It is a town that used to build things—shipyards, factories and docks. Our people were makers: they built the ships that sailed the world, the machinery that powered the country and the homes and streets that held our communities together. For too long, however, our view of education has not meant education in all its forms; it has meant academic education. That is wrong. Right now, Britain needs welders, bricklayers, engineers and electricians—workers who can build the houses, roads, factories and energy systems that we need to get our country moving again. I therefore welcome the Government’s decision to scrap the target for half of young people to go to university. That was the right decision, and it starts to change the legacy of the previous Government. The Hartlepool college of further education, for example, had its budget cut by 10% in real terms at the same time as the previous Government put those essential skills on the points-based immigration system—importing talent from abroad instead of training it here at home. That is a salient lesson in how not to deal with skills in our country. I say to the Minister: let us give vocational routes the respect they deserve by funding them properly, champion technical education, and rebuild further education as the backbone of towns such as Hartlepool. We should remove those key roles from our immigration shortage lists, recognising that the real shortage comes from years of neglect, and instead invest in our young people to give them the skills that they need to rebuild this country.

The Prime Minister rightly said in his statement that Putin continues to seek to undermine our security. Those efforts were aided and abetted by Reform’s Nathan Gill when he took Russian bribes. He is a traitor to this country. How plausible does the Prime Minister think it is for that just to have been an isolated incident? Does he think that Reform’s refusal to investigate its own party and find out how many more Putin puppets and traitors lurk there tells its own story?

I welcome the statement from the Minister, who is of course my constituency neighbour. He knows full well that we represent areas that built this country and were far too often left behind by the last Government, by globalisation and by deindustrialisation. Can he assure me that this strategy and our wider industrial strategy will benefit those areas, like Teesside and Hartlepool, that did so much to build this country?

Hartlepool has one of the largest clean energy economies in the north of England with thousands of local jobs—jobs that Reform would destroy. At the same time, we have one of the largest nuclear industries. We have signed the biggest deal in our history—jobs that the Greens would destroy. Does the Minister agree that when it comes to energy policy, we’ve got clowns to the left of us and jokers to the right?

I welcome this statement and can say clearly to the Home Secretary that she will have my complete support in implementing the measures within it and in doing whatever it takes to fix our broken asylum system and secure our borders. One of the consequences of the broken system is what can only be described as the targeting of deprived communities like Hartlepool by private companies charged with providing asylum accommodation. We have started to bring the numbers down. Does the Home Secretary agree that that process must continue to put fairness back into our system?

Hartlepool police do a magnificent job, but like police in the rest of the Cleveland force area, they are hamstrung by a funding formula that is broken. The victims core grant works out at £7 a crime in my constituency. Down the road in North Yorkshire, the figure is £19 a crime. That is unfair and unjust. Can the Minister please commit to fixing this fundamental unfairness?

I welcome this announcement about small modular reactors. Thanks to the landmark deal done back in September, Hartlepool will now lead the world in advanced modular reactors, which will bring £12 billion of economic input and 2,500 jobs, and power 1.5 million homes. The pace in getting that project started is critical, so what will this Government do to ensure that regulatory alignment is in place so that spades are in the ground as soon as humanly possible?

Like many MPs across the House, I am sure, I have been inundated with correspondence from concerned constituents on the issue of fireworks, be it about their use in antisocial behaviour, the impact on household pets, or the severe distress that they can cause to the vulnerable, including veterans. The status quo is clearly not acceptable. While I support organised firework events, does the Leader of the House agree that it is time to review all the legislation in this area, and will he grant a debate in Government time on this issue?

I welcome today’s announcement, particularly the savings that have been identified. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can use the savings in the Cleveland area to reverse the disgraceful decision in 2019 to close Hartlepool’s custody suite? So far, there is an unwillingness to look at reopening the suite. Will she meet me to look at options for how we can make it happen?

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. It is absolutely right to hold the BBC to the highest standard, because that is the best way to defend our national broadcaster. Does she agree that it is not acceptable for Members of this House who are paid by the BBC’s commercial rivals—in fact, looking at the time, one of them is probably in make-up as we speak—to use their status as an MP to mount sustained and frenzied attacks that have only one aim: to destroy this national institution?

This evening I am presenting a petition on behalf of the people of Hartlepool to register their total opposition to the current council tax system. Council tax is deeply regressive and a tax on deprivation, and it hammers towns like Hartlepool. It simply does not work, not for councils, not for Government and certainly not for the 1,276 people from Hartlepool who signed this public petition. I am proud to present their signatures and their voices here today. They are demanding change, I am demanding change and we must deliver change. The petitioners “therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to look into all appropriate measures to fix the broken council tax system to establish a fairer system for residents and local authorities.” Following is the full text of the petition: [ The petition of residents of Hartlepool, Declares that the current system of Council Tax is no longer fit for purpose given the substantial variations in property band prices across different local authorities. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to look into all appropriate measures to fix the broken council tax system to establish a fairer system for residents and local authorities. And the petitioners remain, etc. ] [P003123]

My constituent, Terry Rowley, received an IPP sentence on 8 February 2008. His minimum tariff was set at one year and 126 days. That was 6,486 days ago—almost 18 years—and he remains in prison. No one disputes the seriousness of his offences, but the issue for Terry and his family is one of equal justice. Someone sentenced to the same crime today would not receive an IPP. Does the Secretary of State accept that this raises fundamental concerns about fairness and equality before the law for those serving under the IPP regime, and what steps will he take to fix it?

8. What assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the number of prisoners serving imprisonment for public protection sentences.

Q3. My constituent Georgia Hart was just 15 years old when she was diagnosed with Friedreich’s ataxia, a cruel and degenerative condition that slowly robs a person of their mobility and independence. Since then, her courageous parents have battled day in and day out to raise awareness and money to get her the treatment she needs. There is now a drug, omaveloxolone, which has been proven to slow the progression of the disease, yet despite that it has been stalled by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, partly because the number of patients affected is judged to be above the limit for ultra-rare conditions.Georgia and those like her are being failed not because the science is not there and not because the treatment is not there but simply because the numbers do not add up. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that we cannot allow bureaucracy to stand in the way of life-changing treatment? Will he commit to ensuring that I, along with Ataxia UK, can meet the relevant Minister at the earliest opportunity so that Georgia and her family do not lose more precious time?

rose—

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. If I had to choose three letters to sum up my inbox when it comes to planning matters, it would be HMO. Nowhere in my constituency illustrates that more starkly than Windsor Street. I first saw the challenges there when I served the area as a local councillor, and they have not gone away. On a street of around 40 Victorian terraces, as many as seven are now HMOs. For the 20 years that I have been involved in Hartlepool politics, HMOs have been a perennial source of concern for local people. As we have heard, there are good HMOs, but there are also far too many bad ones—ones that are poorly managed, in a state of disrepair, magnets for crime and antisocial behaviour and a blight on communities, and that erode social cohesion. There are two things I want to raise in my brief time. First, Hartlepool effectively has two planning authorities. The first is the council, which is democratically elected, with officers who understand the streets, our history and our needs. The second is the mayoral development corporation, which covers a large part of the town centre and outsources most of its decisions to a private company based in Manchester. My first plea to the Minister is that she please review these development corporations and not allow local authorities to have their planning powers stripped and exercised by a private company. My second plea is around article 4. One of the perverse aspects of applying for an article 4 direction is the 12-month notice period. We are applying, but in those 12 months developers rush to get as many HMOs through as they possibly can before the direction comes into force. My second plea to the Minister is therefore to review that timescale and reduce it to a matter of weeks, so that democratically elected people in Hartlepool can protect their communities from bad HMOs.

My hon. Friend has outlined the vast range of steps that the Government have taken in short order to fix a very broken care system, but these things take time, and local authorities are under unimaginable pressure—they are at breaking point in many cases. What can he do in the short term to ensure that local authorities can continue to provide care for looked-after children and do not reach breaking point?

Q4. Football is a game based on fairness, yet brilliant clubs that unite communities every week, like Hartlepool, are being held back by a fundamental unfairness. The 3UP campaign—backed by 72 national league clubs, including Hartlepool United, and championed by Hartlepool legend Jeff Stelling—seeks to grant a third promotion place from the national league to league two. This simple change would be transformational for these historic clubs, many of which are over a century old. While I accept Arsenal may never directly benefit from such a change, does the Prime Minister agree that this campaign to put football first would help the new football regulator to protect club heritage, ensure stability, and put fairness and fans back at the heart of our game?

There are a number of mechanisms. The Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), offered one solution. I am a believer in price controls in this area and that the state can intervene in the market here; it is basic fairness. Of course attendance matters. As a former teacher, I have seen at first hand the link between attendance and attainment. Students with 100% attendance are nearly three times more likely to achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths, compared with those whose attendance drops to 65% to 70%. But let us be honest with parents: the current system is not working. Expecting families to pay fines to prove a point about attendance does nothing to tackle the real problem. Research shows that fining parents does not improve attendance. There is no statistically significant link between more fines and better attendance rates. Indeed, the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report found the same internationally: fines do not work, but they do harm low-income families. Instead, punitive measures often make things worse, creating tension and mistrust between families and schools. We know many children with poor attendance have special educational needs, as has already been mentioned, or anxiety or mental health issues. Punishing their parents does not solve those challenges; it just adds financial and emotional pressure. The Centre for Mental Health has even warned that fines can exacerbate the very issues that keep children away from school. I am proud that in Hartlepool we are trying to look at things differently. Alongside nine other local areas, we are part of a pilot programme run with the Department for Education and a social enterprise called Etio. I met Etio last week, and what it is doing is simple but powerful. When it comes to attendance, the focus is on support. Its teams sit down with families to understand what is really going on, whether it is anxiety, caring responsibilities, transport programmes or financial hardship, and offer practical help to get children back into the classroom. The results are encouraging. When families feel supported rather than criminalised, attendance improves and relationships between schools and parents are strengthened. It is just common sense. If we fix the root cause, we fix the problem. That is the approach we should champion nationally, replacing the blunt instrument of fines with early help, understanding and partnership, because the issue goes far deeper than holiday costs. It is about fairness, common sense and respect for families. Parents should not be treated as offenders for trying to spend time with their children and for giving them a holiday.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate on holidays in school term time. This issue resonates deeply with families across the country, including in my own constituency of Hartlepool, where 530 residents signed the petition we are debating today. Let us start with the reality that every parent recognises. They search for a family holiday in June and it costs a certain amount; they search for one in August and the cost has exploded. For many families those price hikes make a break together completely unaffordable. I have taken to calling it the Center Parcs tax. This morning I searched the Center Parcs website for a short break next May. Four nights from 11 May is £599; from 18 May it is £599; but from 25 May it is £1,349—a £750 mark-up for the exact same trip, simply because it falls in half-term. It is cheaper to take the fine. Of course, it is not just one company; the practice is rife across the entire holiday sector. Families are being priced out of spending time together, and the state’s response is to fine them for trying. It is immoral. I say to the Minister, “Ban those practices by holiday companies and end the culture of fines.” Parents should not have to choose between doing the right thing by their children’s education and giving them a well-earned family break. Families already struggling with the cost of living should not be punished for trying to give their children the same experiences as everyone else.

Throughout this debate the issue of community has been raised repeatedly. A challenge we face in my constituency is the fact that local authorities in other parts of the country often discharge their homelessness duty by packing families into taxis at short notice and moving them hundreds of miles to places where they have no connection with the community. That is bad for the individuals and bad for the communities such as Hartlepool. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that we have to end that practice in order to solve homelessness effectively?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I commend the 1,600 Hartlepool constituents who signed the two petitions that we are debating. Asylum accommodation is an issue that stirs emotions, and for very good reason. Too often, legitimate concerns are dismissed as being racist or right-wing, and nothing could be further from the truth. Let me be clear: there are indeed those who would seek to sow division and want to weaponise the issue to incite hatred and further their political careers, but for the vast majority of people, being worried about a broken system is not racist or right-wing; they are simply common-sense concerns. People are concerned about their communities, housing, public services and the fairness that underpins our country. Those concerns deserve to be heard and treated with respect. When I was first elected, my constituency had one of the region’s highest rates of dispersed asylum accommodation. Hartlepool has never had a hotel used for asylum, but we do have housing bought up by the Home Office contractor Mears concentrated in our town centre. Homes that could have gone to local families are instead taken for temporary placements. The system that we inherited of outsourcing to private companies more interested in profits than in people hardwired unfairness into the asylum process. I make this plea to the Minister: please do not renew those contracts, which targeted deprived communities because of their housing costs. Let me also be clear that we must always play our part. A decent, confident country will always look to help the vulnerable. It is worth noting that, in 2024, the UK had fewer asylum applications than Germany, France, Italy or Spain. But fairness matters, and the fact that there are 46 asylum seekers for every 10,000 people in Hartlepool, compared with just nine per 10,000 in neighbouring County Durham, is simply not fair. Our town has seen major services leave over the past decade. Our A&E closed in 2011 under the Tories. Our custody suite closed in 2019 under the Tories. Our council services were slashed and our schools were underfunded by the Tories, yet we have borne a disproportionate share of responsibility for asylum—thanks to the Tories. I took this issue directly to Mears and the Home Office last March. I argued that our town could no longer be expected to take the burden of unfairness that this system had produced, and they agreed. They confirmed that no new properties will be procured in Hartlepool for the asylum process and that existing ones will gradually close. We have already seen a drop of 5%. Sending vulnerable people to a place where NHS dental appointments are as rare as unicorns helps no one—not the asylum seeker and not those needing those already stretched services. The system can work, and one example where the results are extraordinary is the Salaam community centre in Hartlepool, led by the magnificent Nancy Pout. It supports asylum seekers to become integrated into our town. I have personally witnessed the compassion and decency at the heart of that organisation, with asylum seekers volunteering to give back to our community. When riots led by thugs and criminals attacking local businesses and destroying Hartlepool property took place last year, it was the Salaam centre and its army of volunteers that took to the streets the next morning to clean up the mess. Its volunteers and staff come together time and again to work as an integrated community, celebrating our achievements. The message is simple: we cannot impose further pressure on deprived communities that are already struggling. Let us also be honest that those posing as asylum seekers for economic gain damage trust and make life harder for genuine refugees. That must also be addressed. If they have no right to be here, they must be removed. But this debate should not be about being for or against asylum; it should be about fairness—fairness for those seeking refuge and fairness for the communities asked to do their bit to host them.

The hon. Gentleman does know my constituency quite well—I would not say very well, if we are honest about the short time he spent there—and he makes an interesting point. This is the second time that we have interacted on this issue and that he has eulogised the previous Labour Government, and I obviously welcome that once more. I also welcome his advocacy for free and safe routes, which I hope are now Reform policy—I look forward to that. He is right: the system is unfair; the system is broken, and it incentivises perverse behaviour and perverse levels of pressure on communities like mine. The critical thing is that if we get the balance right in our system, we will see stories of integration and hope. The current system leaves communities feeling abandoned and overwhelmed, and that cannot continue.

8. What plans she has for the free school application decisions that were paused in October 2024.

Residents in Wynyard, in my Hartlepool constituency, have waited for far too long, thanks primarily to the mess left by the Conservative party, for their new primary school, St Joseph’s, which has been caught up in this review. Understandably, parents are frustrated by the continued delays, so will the Minister commit to using every possible lever at his disposal to expedite the decision, so that Wynyard families can finally have access to the high-quality school provision that they have been promised for so long?

I warmly welcome the £21.5 million pride in place investment for Hartlepool, which will go directly into our neighbourhoods. It comes off the back of the biggest deal in Hartlepool’s history of £6 billion for new nuclear and 2,500 jobs, and a brilliant Labour council delivering £150 million of capital investment in our town. Does the Minister agree that after years of being left behind, this shows that the people of Hartlepool have a Government and an MP who are on their side?

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and, of course, the peace deal. I also welcome his crystal clear statement that there can be no lasting peace or viable Palestinian state in which Hamas is involved in any way. Similarly, there can be no lasting peace without the reconstruction that is now desperately needed. The Prime Minister has said on a couple of occasions today that the public will be surprised when they see the extent of the devastation that has taken place. Right now, 400,000 tonnes of rubble need to be removed before a single bit of reconstruction can take place. Will he reject the isolationist calls from some quarters and agree that this country will rightly play its full role in ensuring that reconstruction takes place?