Josh Babarinde MP: speeches 2025

165 published records · newest first.

Speeches

21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source
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I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his sartorial appreciation some time ago of my green suit, when he went on to ask whether I won it at a village fête.
21 Oct 2025 · Ending Homelessness · Hansard source
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I thank the co-sponsors, the hon. Members for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker), for securing the debate. Although Eastbourne might be the sunniest town in the country, its light and sun also cast deep shadows on our town, including through the temporary accommodation crisis and the out-of-area placements that make up 46% of placements in Eastbourne. In many circumstances, there are good reasons why out-of-area placements are appropriate—for example, for survivors of domestic abuse who need to relocate—but all too often, local authorities wrongly take “out of area” to mean “out of responsibility”. In such cases, local authorities leave vulnerable people stranded without the networks or support services that they need, and expect the receiving local authorities and charities to voluntarily meet those needs instead. In Eastbourne, that trend is increasing. For example, two years ago, in October 2023, Brighton and Hove city council had 42 placements in Eastbourne; today it has 195. That is concerning because in January 2023, for example, a 25-year-old man, who was placed into the Eastbourne area from Brighton and Hove city council, was found dead, but in the month before he died, the council had undertaken no welfare checks. Earlier this year, two more people died in Wilmington Square. In Newhaven, part of the neighbouring constituency, that of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary), 10 people have died.
21 Oct 2025 · Ending Homelessness · Hansard source
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I agree that the Government must provide support, but local authorities must do so too. I will come to that point shortly. This summer, I wrote to the Minister’s predecessor to ask what intervention the Government could make in relation to out-of-area placement policy. In response, the Government said that they will review their out of area placement policy, including considering ways “to further define where out of area placements are acceptable and expectations on placing and receiving local authorities.” I welcome that, but could the current Minister confirm the timeline for it? Will she meet with Eastbourne borough council’s leader, Stephen Holt, and me to discuss it? In the meantime, will she also urge Brighton and Hove city council to take responsibility and ensure that it does not let down folks who are vulnerable and need its support?
21 Oct 2025 · Ending Homelessness · Hansard source
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Will the Minister give way?
21 Oct 2025 · Ending Homelessness · Hansard source
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I will be quick. I want to repeat my questions from earlier on the subject of regulation. I asked earlier what the timeline was for out-of-area placement review, whether the Minister would meet me and Eastbourne borough council to discuss it, and whether she will urge Brighton and Hove city council to step up with their responsibilities. Can the Minister address those questions?
16 Oct 2025 · Children’s Hospices: South-east England · Hansard source
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. An amazing children’s hospice that serves constituents in my patch is Demelza, which has an amazing array of staff, volunteers and the rest, including Queen’s nurses such as Donna Mole. Will my hon. Friend congratulate Donna on being a recipient of that award? Will she also congratulate the fabulous Fia, one of the children served by the hospice, on a book that she has written, and will she encourage the Minister to order a copy?
16 Oct 2025 · Community Relations: Impact of Church Leaders · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Lady recognise the awesomeness of the Rev. David Harrigan at St Elisabeth’s church in Eastbourne? Working with the food bank, he has pioneered a partnership that has been featured by the Trussell Trust as an example of best practice for a relationship between a church leader and a food bank. Will the hon. Lady meet Rev. David and me to discuss the Church Commissioners’ plans for the land next to St Elisabeth’s church, to ensure that it is used for community benefit?
16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source
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The last Conservative Government crashed our criminal justice system, and ever since it is victims who have been paying the price. The shadow Justice Secretary spoke today of surrender, but who was it that surrendered victims to years-long waits for trials? They did. Who surrendered victims to reoffending rates through the roof? They did. Who surrendered victims to a failing tagging regime? They did. Who surrendered victims to their own early release scheme, with no specific exclusions for domestic abusers? They did. This is not justice; this is Conservative chaos.
16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source
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I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I refer to the comments I made on recall. As someone who spent their career setting up an organisation that supports young ex-offenders out of crime and into employment, I know that investment in rehabilitation is key. Rehabilitation prevents reoffending, and preventing reoffending prevents victims, reducing misery and improving lives. I hope the Government have heard loud and clear where we stand on this issue. We stand ready to work with them to improve the Bill.
16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source
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I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Speaking as a survivor of domestic and child abuse myself, and as someone who has been hurt in those very contexts, I have significant sympathy and alignment with a lot of what he describes. When I come to the domestic abuse identifier later, I will talk about how I think that should play out when it comes to the presumption against short sentences. We will be closely monitoring the force of the new identifier through its implementation, and we will continue to make the case for a full aggravated offence of domestic abuse to strengthen the identifier. Can the Government confirm that they will work with organisations such as Fair Hearing to provide domestic abuse training for judges and magistrates, so that the domestic abuse determinations that they make under clause 6 of the Bill can be informed by domestic abuse survivors’ experiences? We also welcome measures to introduce a presumption against short sentences, which we know are failing to reduce reoffending. According to Ministry of Justice figures, 62% of people receiving a sentence of 12 months or less go on to reoffend. This compares with a 24% reoffending rate for equivalent suspended sentences. However, there must be an exclusion for domestic abuse offences. For domestic abuse victims and survivors, the respite period—as it is often referred to—represented by a custodial sentence for their abuser is critical. Will the Government commit to excluding any offender convicted of a crime where the new domestic abuse identifier is applied from the presumption against short sentences? We welcome the reasonable and proportionate use of robust community sentences and licence conditions in the context of the earned progression model, but the Probation Service must have the tools it needs to manage this. I am sure we will hear again that the Government have pledged £700 million to the Probation Service to help enhance its capacity, but how will they resolve the 2,315 full-time equivalent shortfall in probation officers by next spring when those measures are set to be enacted? On some of the new conditions, the income reduction orders and the additional driving prohibition powers may disincentivise or even inhibit employment, which is a key factor when it comes to rehabilitation and reducing reoffending. How will the Government militate against that unintended consequence of potentially driving up reoffending through those measures? The recall provisions need to change. It cannot be the case that offenders can benefit from an automatic “get out of jail free” card after 56 days, with no assessment by the Parole Board before re-release. The Bill also threatens the independence of the judiciary from the Government by granting the Lord Chancellor a veto over judge-made sentencing guidelines. That looks like textbook Executive overreach, and it must be reviewed. On foreign national offenders, the Bill offers placeholders for secondary legislation, which will evade scrutiny by the whole House. Our constituents instead deserve clarity and full parliamentary scrutiny of that matter, and I hope the Minister will commit to providing that. Beyond that, there is lots missing from this legislation. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) said, where is the reform on IPP sentences? Where is David Gauke’s recommendation of an independent advisory body on prison capacity? Where are the measures to prevent offending in the first instance and not just to increase the supply of prison places? Where is the statutory footing for the publication of sentencing remarks for those victims of sex offences in perpetuity? I will ask many more questions throughout the process, but I hope the Government will work with us and with the victims and survivors whose concerns we have all been platforming this evening to make significant improvements in the Bill which fix the criminal justice system that the Conservatives broke, while affording victims the freedom, dignity and welfare they need.
16 Sept 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source
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I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but should he look at the figures for 2015, he will see that all the things that I have described surged under the last Conservative Government. It is chaos and it cannot go on. The Bill contains a number of measures that Lib Dems have proposed to help fix our pummelled prisons and crashed courts, but it also contains some problematic provisions that will need to be addressed if the Bill is properly to deliver justice for victims and survivors. The Liberal Democrats therefore cautiously support the Bill on Second Reading, but unless considerable changes are made throughout the remainder of the legislative process, the Government cannot expect our support any further. Following a long campaign on one of the measures in the Bill, working with fellow victims and survivors of domestic abuse, I am heartened that the Government are honouring the commitment they made to them and to me to create a formal domestic abuse identifier in the criminal law for the first time. Convicted abusers will fly under the radar no longer. I thank the survivors who campaigned on this alongside us, including Elizabeth Hudson, as well as Women’s Aid, Refuge, Victim Support, ManKind and the 50,000 people who signed my petition in favour of greater identification of domestic abuse in the law.
16 Sept 2025 · Probation Service · Hansard source
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I welcome the new Justice Secretary and the Minister responsible for sentencing to their places. The Probation Service relies on an effective tagging system in order to keep our communities safe, but the £300 million contract that the last Government awarded to Serco has resulted in lots of failures. I saw some of them close up when I shadowed Serco over the summer, including, for example, wrong addresses being provided, which means multiple failed visits and a failure to tag the offenders who need to be tagged. Will the Secretary of State tell us how much Serco has been fined in its contract, and will he commit to strengthening penalties so that we ensure that private contractors are not rewarded for failure?
16 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I would like to associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments on the bravery of the Hillsborough families and pay tribute to them for the success that has been landed today. Many of us across the House are deeply concerned that domestic abusers are weaponising the family court to perpetrate their abuse. Efforts to reform it have not yet been forthcoming from this Government, and we need change. Will the Deputy Prime Minister commit to legislating in the next King’s Speech for reform of the family court, so that it supports survivors and does not sabotage them any longer?
15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman can thank me for intervening. He talks about costs and legal requirements, but does he agree that in many areas hedge-fund-backed independent specialist schools are taking cash from our starving system? There is no cap on their profits, they do not have to report on their attainment and they do not have the same level of transparency as maintained schools. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to get to grips with the unscrupulous hedge-fund-backed providers, to make sure that kids and families are not taken advantage of?
15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
11 Sept 2025 · Bus Services · Hansard source
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Eastbourne district general hospital, where I was born, and the Hastings Conquest hospital are quite far apart. On a good day, it takes 45 minutes to drive from one to the other, and two hours by bus. More and more services are moving to the Hastings hospital, but we need better transport links, such as a shuttle bus, to make things seamless for patients. Can the Minister meet me and local representatives to discuss how we could secure a shuttle bus service to Hastings hospital for our town?
8 Sept 2025 · Cadets · Hansard source
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Eastbourne’s mighty sea cadets celebrate their 115th birthday this year, but their future is being put under threat by rising energy bills, which are making running the operation less and less sustainable. It is the same with many other cadets across the country. Will the Minister share how the Government will support the likes of the Eastbourne sea cadets with energy bills so that they can continue having an incredible impact on local young people and our armed forces more generally?
8 Sept 2025 · Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests · Hansard source
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Hundreds of peaceful protesters have been arrested this weekend in the name of national security, but in what way does a peaceful protester’s tactic of holding a banner compromise national security? If the aim of national security is fundamentally to ensure that we can live in a free society where our democratic freedoms are protected, can the Minister not see that the mass arrest of peaceful protesters is an authoritarian measure that undermines, not protects, those freedoms?
3 Sept 2025 · Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families · Hansard source
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It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this debate. On behalf of my party, I too pay tribute to the Hillsborough families in this landmark debate. After years of delay by the last Conservative Government —the Conservatives are, shamefully, barely represented here today—Liberal Democrats in Parliament and Liberal Democrat councillors such as Carl Cashman welcomed this Government’s commitment in the King’s Speech to create a statutory duty of candour on public authorities to force them to tell the truth. However, given the urgent need for such a duty, it is unacceptable that the Hillsborough law was not introduced in time for the 36th anniversary of the disaster, as the Prime Minister himself had promised. Ninety-seven men, women and children lost their lives as a result of the shameful events on that terrible day in 1989, yet the families of the victims were forced to wait decades for the truth, in the wake of institutional silence and deceit from state institutions. For years they were told that Liverpool fans were to blame, but they were not. It was police incompetence, a failure of safety and then a cover-up—a deliberate attempt by public officials to shift blame, rewrite the narrative and protect institutions instead of people. It was not only public institutions that were responsible for warping narratives. I will not name the title, but we all know a particular newspaper that still lives a legacy of shame for the way it demonised fans on that day. A legal duty of candour would not erase that tragedy, but it might have spared the families years of gaslighting, indignity and conflict. Similar is true of the Grenfell disaster, as the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) has powerfully said. Seventy-two lives were lost in that shocking disaster, including that of emerging photographer and artist Khadija Saye, who I knew. It was a tragedy that should never have happened, and a scandal that revealed deep systemic failures in not only fire safety but the way public authorities treat working-class communities, especially when they are black or brown. Even after the fire, we saw the same pattern again: a slow trickle of information, shifting stories and an instinct—a culture—of institutional self-preservation. We must ask ourselves, how many times will we allow this cycle to repeat? How many lives must be lost before we accept that the public deserve honesty from those in power?
3 Sept 2025 · Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families · Hansard source
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The point my hon. Friend makes is testament to the importance of parity of legal representation. To continue, how many lives must be lost before we accept that the public deserve honesty from those in power? When will we get to the truth proactively, not just when institutions are dragged to the witness box? That must change. I pay tribute again to the tireless campaigners—the bereaved families of the Hillsborough disaster and the Grenfell tragedy, those wronged in the Post Office scandal and more—who have refused to accept institutional silence and deceit. However, it should not be up to victims or their grieving families to fight for decades to get answers; it should be the duty of the state to give them those answers—early, clearly and completely. The Government must act without further delay. I therefore urge the Minister to announce a timeline for a new statutory duty of candour now. I urge that it is not watered down under any circumstances, and it must be accompanied with parity of legal representation for bereaved families during inquests and inquiries into disasters or state-related deaths. This Parliament must be the one that says, “No more lies, no more hiding and no more protecting institutions over protecting people.”
3 Sept 2025 · Pavement Parking · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate. Whether it is on Seaside, Melbourne Road, Linden Close, Sydney Road, Heather Close or outside Oakwood, St Thomas a Becket or West Rise schools, it is unacceptable that pedestrians, especially those with disabilities, are all too often blocked from using our pavements and pushed on to the road, and residents with wheelchairs, scooters or prams are blocked from using drop kerbs. On behalf of them and the Eastbourne access group, when will the Government share with us their national plan to empower local authorities to crack down on this problem once and for all? While we wait for that action, I invite the Minister to join me in congratulating Langney primary academy in my patch, led by the amazing Mr Ben Bowles—an awesome local headteacher—on being part of the school streets scheme that has taken measures to safeguard schoolchildren from dangerous pavement parking at pick-up and drop-off time. I hope the Minister will congratulate them on the great work they are doing.
1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source
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As an Eastbourne boy born and bred, I am a proud Englishman. In Winston Churchill’s St George’s day speech in 1933, he said that his England was one where no one would think of persecuting a man on account of his religion or his race. Does the Home Secretary agree with Winston Churchill that our country and our flag represent unity and tolerance? Does she agree with me that those who attempt to divide our communities in the name of our flag are no patriots of Churchill’s England, no patriots of today’s England and no patriots of our great country?
22 Jul 2025 · Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment · Hansard source
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It is an honour to speak in this debate, named after the late Sir David Amess, to whom I wish to pay tribute. I also use this opportunity to pay tribute to the late Ian Gow, one of my predecessors as a hard-working Member of Parliament for Eastbourne, who was appallingly assassinated in 1990, and whose shield is on the door above the entrance to this Chamber. I thank all those involved in keeping MPs and our teams safe today, with special mention to PC Will Bayley, who has helped my team and me to manage some concerning threats to us. It has been an action-packed first year as Eastbourne’s Member of Parliament. Working with incredible campaigners from across our town and beyond, we have: secured the reopening of Eastbourne district general hospital for births after months of closure; won our campaign for a direct train from Eastbourne to London Bridge and back; successfully led a national campaign to reform the law on domestic abuse; worked with campaigners to save Linden Court day centre for people with learning disabilities from closure; worked with local residents to protect the Sovereign Centre, where I learned to swim, from losing its pools; worked with Government and others to lock in £20 million in neighbourhood funding, which we thought we might lose after the election, to regenerate our town; and much, much more. However, one year in, after taking up more than 11,000 cases for residents, and more than 200 mentions of Eastbourne in the Chamber later, there is still much more to do. We need to fix our temporary accommodation catastrophe, which has been triggered by a housing shortage that can be addressed only if we build more housing and properly regulate temporary accommodation. We have a particular shortage of three-bedroom homes in Eastbourne, which is causing a huge challenge. As many other Members have said of their constituencies, we need to address the SEND crisis in our town, because families such as the Wilcocks and hundreds of others are left without the educational provision that they need. We need Southern Water to get a grip of the foul stench its water treatment works have been emitting across our town in recent months, blighting the lives of residents in Langney Point and beyond. We need a fix to this problem now, not next year, as Southern Water has said. Frankly, the CEO should be denied his outrageous pay rise while this issue remains and until local residents have been properly compensated. Beyond our shores, in response to the appalling situation in Israel and Gaza and on the west bank, the Government must continue to push for the release of all hostages, urge for aid to be let unobstructed into Gaza, ban arms sales to the Israeli Government, recognise a state of Palestine, and further sanction the Israeli Government when they infringe international law, and that includes sanctions on Netanyahu himself. It is an honour to have been elected to represent the town that made me the person I am—the town whose teachers believed in me, whose scout leaders challenged me and whose local businesses took a punt on me by giving me my first job. I hope to be able to represent our town for many, many years to come. As we draw to the end of our time before the summer recess, I would like to extend a very open invitation to Eastbourne to any hon. Member who has not yet booked their summer holiday. Eastbourne is officially the sunniest town in the UK. It has more hours of sunlight than anywhere else in the country—to the disdain of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths). I hope that Members will come and sample some of the best of Eastbourne delights.
22 Jul 2025 · Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment · Hansard source
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I certainly owe the hon. Member one, but that is not quite as bad as when I was mistaken for another mixed race Member when I once forgot my pass and was granted a pass of somebody else—who may or may not be the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty). I did not settle the bill left with the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), but I look forward to continuing to exchange stories about mistaken identity in the WhatsApp group—the DEI crew—that we have created. Currently, I think it is 11-5 to me in being mistaken more times than the hon. Member for Huntingdon, but I am sure that there will be many more adventures and shenanigans on that front as time goes on. I will if I may return to my point in my last 30 seconds. I say to hon. Members that Eastbourne is open for business. It is open for their custom and it is open for their leisure. Our 94 individual beaches await.
22 Jul 2025 · Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment · Hansard source
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I will not take the hon. Member’s intervention, unless he is going to confirm my point. [Interruption.] Okay, I will take his intervention.

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