Jonathan Brash MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 3 Nov 2025 · Care Leavers · Hansard source

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  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?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  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?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Holidays During School Term Time · Hansard source

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  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.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Holidays During School Term Time · Hansard source

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  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.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Ending Homelessness · Hansard source

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  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?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation · Hansard source

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  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.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation · Hansard source

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  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.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Free Schools: Application Decisions · Hansard source

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

• 20 Oct 2025 · Free Schools: Application Decisions · Hansard source

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  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?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Pride in Place · Hansard source

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  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?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  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?

• 10 Sept 2025 · Russian Drones: Violation of Polish Airspace · Hansard source

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  The appalling attack on Ukraine and the violation of Polish airspace yesterday simply highlight the increasing and devastating use of drones in modern warfare. I have been contacted by Hartlepool constituents today, expressing their anxiety and fear about what this might mean for our shores. Will the Minister share the Government’s plans to ensure that the UK’s drone and air defence capabilities meet the challenge of the changes we are seeing in modern warfare?

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

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  Yesterday the Tory Mayor of Tees Valley took to social media to claim falsely that Venator, a brilliant company operating in my constituency, had gone into administration, and that UK tax policy was to blame. I spoke to the company yesterday afternoon, and it made it clear that that is not true. The UK operation is solvent and healthy, and nothing that is happening to its international holding company has anything to do with UK tax policy. It is a strong and successful company, and we must work to secure its long-term future. These are people’s jobs; these are people’s lives. My constituents are not political footballs for Ben Houchen to kick around. Will the Leader of the House join me in correcting the record, offering our support to that brilliant Hartlepool company and its workforce, and encouraging the Mayor of Tees Valley to stop playing politics, grow up and apologise?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Property Taxes · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman has talked at great length about taxing the wealthy, but he has omitted one of the suggestions that came forth over the summer, which was to get rid of the punitive council tax system, which taxes poverty and deprivation in this country. The former Conservative leader of Hartlepool borough council famously cheered when he put up council tax on deprived people in Hartlepool. Why are the Conservative party and now Reform—that former Conservative leader has now defected to Reform—so attached to that regressive system?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree that far greater powers are required to hold mayoral development corporations to account, and that may be one way of doing it. The changes are not just about planning powers: publicly owned assets are being transferred from the council and other public bodies. When Labour councillors demanded that those assets, which include Hartlepool’s civic centre, would be returned to public ownership if they were not developed or if the corporation was wound up, that demand was refused. When we asked whether the council could resist this change, the advice was stark: we could not, there was no veto and it could not be stopped by the council. When the council voted against a mayoral development corporation just down the road in Middlesbrough, it was imposed on the town anyway. Let me be clear that I am not opposed to the principle of development corporations. I was willing to support the one in Hartlepool in the spirit of cross-party co-operation, but the outcome has become confused, with zero accountability and residents left unclear about who to turn to, especially as more and more houses in multiple occupation pop up across our town centre, put there by an unelected, unaccountable company. This is not power in the hands of the people. Devolution was supposed to mean decisions made closer to communities, but too often the reality is the opposite: power hoarded and pushed further away from the very neighbourhoods that are supposed to be empowered. That is why I support the We’re Right Here campaign, which asks that power does not stop at the mayor’s office but flows to the people themselves. It is championed by Hartlepool’s own community leader, Sacha Bedding. It is a way forward and I hope that Ministers are listening. We must ensure that there is accountability for mayors. They can be the vehicle for delivering for the public, but the power itself can lie only in one place: with the people.

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  English devolution is a mess. It is a postcode patchwork of opaque systems, varying powers and unclear lines of accountability. That is not just an historical failure, but profoundly dangerous, because when the public cannot navigate their democracy or do not know who holds the pen on planning, transport, housing or skills, they understandably disengage. Accountability is lost, and in that vacuum politicians can get away with anything. I will give the House one clear example: in Hartlepool, the Tees Valley Mayor has imposed a mayoral development corporation with very little consultation—certainly not with the public. Planning powers were stripped from the council for large areas of the town, supposedly to be exercised by an appointed board. We fought hard to secure some form of democratic representation on that board, yet of its 14 members, only four hold elected office and only one is there because they have elected office. In any event, the mayor quickly outsourced the majority of those powers to a private company in Manchester, so people who have never walked our streets are now making the majority of the decisions shaping them.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Beer Duty · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman has argued eloquently in favour of the record of the last Government, but ahead of the last general election the British Beer and Pub Association reported that more than 10 pubs a week were closing under the last Government. That does not seem a record to be particularly proud of.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Beer Duty · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making a persuasive speech about reducing beer duty. One of the other great pressures facing microbreweries—such as the Crafty Monkey Brewing Co. in Hartlepool—is the inability to get their product into tied pubs. That is bad for pubs and microbrewers. Would he support a change to the pub code to allow them to get their produce into more pubs?

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to speak in today’s debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank those who signed the petition that has brought us here today. The petitioners are absolutely clear: the Government must do nothing that would allow Northern Ireland veterans to be prosecuted for doing their duty—those are the critical three words—in combating terrorism as part of Operation Banner. On that sentiment, I stand resolutely with them. It is a simple and powerful demand that should be respected, understood and agreed to. It is not just a legal matter; it is about justice, trust in public service and the promises we make to those who risk their lives in the name of our country. I understand that, as my hon. and gallant Friends have said—it is a privilege to serve in this place with them—the legislation passed by the Conservatives has been found unlawful, and that it is not supported by any political party in Northern Ireland, for the various reasons that the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) highlighted. I understand that it gave an amnesty to terrorists—murderers of British soldiers. However, any legislation replacing it must uphold one central commitment: we will protect our veterans. I have met constituents in Hartlepool who served in Northern Ireland with distinction, professionalism and bravery. Last month I met one constituent who served with honour, carrying out his duties at great risk to himself. Not only does he have to live with the scars of the past, like almost every veteran of any conflict, but he told me that he now lives every day with the thought that one knock on the door could mean being dragged into a vexatious legal nightmare. We cannot allow that to happen. These people are not looking for special treatment. They are asking only for fairness—fairness in the recognition that they served under the command of the state; fairness in the understanding that investigations too numerous to count have already been carried out, many of them at the time when the events occurred; and fairness in not being treated as political scapegoats decades after the events in question. The legacy of the conflict should not be ignored, but we cannot have a system in which those who served the state under its orders face endless scrutiny for the rest of their lives. The current framework fails everyone, and it also fails the future, because it undermines the possibility of truth and reconciliation by giving neither side confidence that the process is fair or final. The Conservative Government claimed that their legislation would draw a line under the past, but it was a hollow claim. It has done the opposite. It has stirred up more anger, reopened more wounds and brought more uncertainty to people who have already given enough. I urge the Government to think very carefully about the next steps they take if they want to restore the faith of the veteran community in this country. We routinely ask our armed forces to do extraordinary things in impossible circumstances. We must not abandon them decades later for doing what they were asked to do. If we are serious about supporting veterans, it cannot just be words; it must be action. The Government must deliver for those who served. The veterans of Operation Banner deserve nothing less.

• 14 Jul 2025 · Planning System: Community Involvement · Hansard source

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  In Hartlepool, the Tees Valley Mayor’s development corporation has removed planning powers for large swathes of the town from all democratic control. In turn, much of the planning function has been outsourced to a private company with no connection to Hartlepool, which is ruling out any community involvement. Will the Minister look at curbing the powers of development corporations so that planning remains in the hands of democratically elected politicians?

• 9 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  When the Bill started its life, the Government were advocating for cuts for PIP and UC health claimants now and in future. They conceded that now was not right and that it was only for future claimants. Then they conceded that it should not be PIP claimants in future, leaving only UC health claimants. Does my right hon. Friend understand the anxiety and confusion that this has caused people in the disabled community? Would it not be better to pause, wait for the review and do it properly?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Act 2025 has now received Royal Assent and I congratulate the Lord Chancellor on her swift action, but it would never have been necessary if sentencing guidelines were not the preserve of an unelected, undemocratic quango in the form of the Sentencing Council. Does she agree that we need a democratic lock, or even a vote in this place, to approve new sentencing guidelines?

• 7 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the roll-out of Best Start family hubs. They build on the legacy of Sure Start—one of the proudest achievements of the last Labour Government. The Secretary of State may remember our visit to High Tunstall college of science when she last came to my constituency of Hartlepool. The head told us that he could pinpoint precisely the year group that had not had access to Sure Start, such were the additional challenges that those young people faced. Does the Secretary of State agree that the brilliant announcement today means an investment not only in our children and grandchildren, but in our wider society, and that it will ultimately save the taxpayer money?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Educational Outcomes for Boys · Hansard source

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  As a former A-level teacher, one of my concerns—in addition to the disparities between boys and girls in educational outcomes—was the disparity in educational choice. Physics and maths classes were dominated by boys, and English literature and psychology classes were dominated by girls. Those are different subjects that develop different skills. Does the Secretary of State share my concern about that disparity, and does she have any plans to address it?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you, Mark, for coming here today. I want to draw your attention to the provisions on compelling offenders to attend their sentencing. First, I am genuinely quite interested in your specific perspective on that. Secondly, we have heard evidence today that the use of force, if it were to become disproportionate, risks making a spectacle of the offender, drawing attention away from the victim. Do you have any thoughts on that? Mark Brooks: We believe it is right that a perpetrator, or somebody who has been sentenced, should be forced to be present at court, including at sentencing. It is important that victims not only see that justice is being done in terms of sentencing and the court experience, but feel that it is being done. Seeing the person being convicted in front of them, with their family and the wider community, is absolutely essential, so we support the measures on that in the Bill. In terms of it being a spectacle, the bottom line is that we must act in the interest of the victim, the person who has had the crime committed against them. They must be the priority, so we are in favour of the measures put forward by the Government.