Jonathan Brash MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  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.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Income Tax and National Insurance Threshold Freeze · Hansard source

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  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?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  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?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Unemployment Levels · Hansard source

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  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?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  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?

• 4 Dec 2025 · Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan · Hansard source

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  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.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Reading: Pre-school Support · Hansard source

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  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?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Reading: Pre-school Support · Hansard source

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

• 26 Nov 2025 · Young People not in Education, Employment or Training · Hansard source

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  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.

• 25 Nov 2025 · G20 and Ukraine · Hansard source

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  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?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Critical Minerals Strategy · Hansard source

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  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?

• 18 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Asylum Policy · Hansard source

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  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?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Station: Wylfa · Hansard source

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  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?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  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?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  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?

• 11 Nov 2025 · BBC Leadership · Hansard source

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  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?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Council Tax Reform · Hansard source

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  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]

• 11 Nov 2025 · Imprisonment for Public Protection · Hansard source

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  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?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Imprisonment for Public Protection · Hansard source

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

• 5 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  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?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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• 4 Nov 2025 · Houses in Multiple Occupation: Planning Consent · Hansard source

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  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.