Josh Babarinde MP: speeches

Speeches

• 26 Jun 2025 · Road Network: Condition · Hansard source

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  The Rapid Transition Alliance tells us that we can improve the quality of our roads if we support more people to use rail as a form of public transport. That is one reason why I am campaigning to restore the direct train between Eastbourne and London Bridge that was discontinued during the pandemic. Will the Minister back my campaign, with a view to helping to improve our roads and improve economic growth for Eastbourne too?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Criminal Justice · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), working with the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), for making the pitch to the Backbench Business Committee to secure this debate. I join him in thanking the incredible staff who work across our criminal justice system. If I may, I will add that charities such as the incredible abandofbrothers in Eastbourne work with young ex-offenders across my hometown to tackle crime. As has been documented in this Chamber today, the last Government left our criminal justice system in a state. Our prisons were left in crisis and overcrowded, with increases in violence and self-harm incidents at their highest since records began. Our probation services were left high and dry, with an electronic tagging contract that left offenders with violent convictions unmonitored for far too long. Our courts were left dealing with staggeringly high backlogs, with tens of thousands of open cases and victims waiting months and even years for justice. As has been mentioned by hon. Members, reoffending is through the roof, with 80% of people in our prisons being reoffenders. That is a symbol of more crime, more victims and more misery and harm. That carries an enormous price tag, with reoffending costing society more than £18 billion a year. The consequences of that dire set of circumstances have been plain for us all to see; I saw them myself when I worked in this space before being elected to this House. I spent my career supporting young ex-offenders out of crime and out of gangs in the east end—very far from Eastbourne in many different ways. I remember working with a particular young person. I said to him ahead of his first day of work with us to come in wearing some smart trousers, and he did not know what I meant. He said, “Josh, do you mean court trousers?” What a sad state of affairs it is when a young person in our country has grown up more accustomed to the criminal justice system than to our education system. I am afraid that is a legacy of the last Government. I remember working with another young person who went into a young offenders’ institution that was notorious for its issues with violence. He was working with us as a phone repair technician before he went in. He came back when he came out of that institution, except he came missing a finger as a result of some of the things going on in that place. Again, some of our institutions are out of control. As a victim, I have experienced what it is like to wait for years to have a case heard through an adversarial criminal justice system that seeks to beat down victims, as opposed to supporting them to rise up. That needs to change. Giving credit where it is due, I welcome the investment that this Government are making in our criminal justice systems through the spending review, but that investment is not a silver bullet, and it might not go far enough to right the wrongs of the past: it must be accompanied by reform. There is no mention in the spending review specifically of investing in our crumbling courts, which cause so much inefficiency and cost our system, victims and justice. As the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) mentioned earlier in the debate, the Magistrates’ Association has been particularly concerned about the lack of mention of funding for legal advisers in magistrates courts. The lack thereof is resulting in one in 10 sittings being cancelled. While investment in creating new prison places has been announced, the spending review features no reference to extra funding for women’s centres—an alternative to custody—despite David Gauke recommending that in his independent review and charities such as Working Chance telling us that women’s centres are often at least 10 times more effective at reducing reoffending and are more cost-effective than the prison system. Although we welcome the £700 million committed to the Probation Service, it is critical, as per the demands of Women’s Aid, that some of that cash goes towards mandatory training for probation officers as far as recognising domestic abuse and protecting survivors of domestic abuse is concerned.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Swimming Facilities · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) for securing the debate. I learned to swim in Eastbourne Sovereign Centre. Locally, we are ambitious to protect the pool for the long term. That is why I am pushing the Treasury to pilot new models of investing in the future of swimming facilities, because the current local authority “going it alone” orthodoxy is broken. Through a blend of new investment, a partnership between the UK’s largest operator for leisure facilities, Better, and innovative political leaders in my town, as well as Government flexibility on other grants we have been awarded, Eastbourne Sovereign Centre could be a test bed for a new funding model that could be replicated across the country. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me to discuss the model, and to her officials for coming down to Eastbourne last week to explore it and see our swimming magic in action. That magic is also present in the work of Helen Nichols and the Motcombe pool community interest company team, which has secured over half a million pounds to help regenerate their local community pool; the Hillbrow sports centre, with Nick Harvey and Duncan Kerr pioneering a model that uses swimming and health together to train up general practitioners; Eastbourne swimming club, which has nurtured swimmers since 1866; Gary and his team of Eastbourne voluntary lifeguards at the Eastbourne college pool; Joe Agrela at Swimming Nature; and the Blue Lagoon in Hampden Park. These swimming heroes and their work prove that swimming facilities are not luxuries; they are lifelines, and they produce incredible outcomes for Eastbourne. As a town, we stand ready to work with the Government to pioneer the future of the country’s swimming facilities, and the discussion is always open for us.

• 20 May 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is absolutely right; it is critical not only that victims’ rights are strengthened, but that victims have the knowledge of those rights and entitlements so that they can invoke them, enforce them and, fundamentally, benefit from them. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park has been urging the Government to make permanent the pilot scheme that affords victims of rape and other sexual offences a record of their sentencing remarks free of charge. She has campaigned on this issue for years, not just since the populist bandwagon has been in town, like some others in this House. With the pilot scheme ending imminently, we must not return to a world in which some victims are charged up to a staggering £22,000 just to see a write-up of their case. This is exclusionary justice, delivered at an eye-watering price. As well as campaigning for the pilot to be extended, we would therefore push the Government to expand it to cover a far wider pool of victims and survivors. On a similar note, as a constituency MP, I encourage the Government to take steps to encourage not just written but audiovisual records of court proceedings to be made available to victims and survivors. A mother came to a recent constituency surgery to share with me that her son, who has special educational needs and is non-verbal, was restrained on home-to-school transport, and legal proceedings were kicked off as a result. The mother did not get to see the video evidence of the incident until the court case, and has had no access to that harrowing and traumatic evidence since. She ought to have the right to it, so I hope the Government will be able to help us on that matter. A third gap is on national insurance contributions. We need support for victims’ charities, who have said that the hike in contributions in the Budget will take their services and the victims who rely on them to the brink. A fourth gap is on family courts. We need measures to prevent abusers from using parental alienation proceedings to perpetrate their abuse. A fifth gap is on the court backlogs, which leave so many victims in the lurch for years—when can victims expect to see measures to tackle them? In conclusion, the Liberal Democrats are concerned that these gaps in the Bill risk overshadowing many measures that I know Ministers have been working hard on. We look forward to supporting the Bill and its efforts to ensure that victims are heard, protected and respected. We will challenge the Government to go further and faster to ensure that victims and survivors get the support they deserve and that they do not pay the price for the neglect they were subject to under the previous Government.

• 20 May 2025 · Economic Growth: South Yorkshire and Derby · Hansard source

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  I am aware that Derby’s economy was blighted last November by a foul smell said to be emanating from its local water treatment works. Similar is true of my constituency, due to the failure of Southern Water’s air scrubbing system. Will the Chancellor ensure that the spending review grants the Environment Agency the resources it needs to crack down on smell nuisances so that the water companies get a grip on the matter, for the benefit of local growth and our economy?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Criminal Injuries Compensation · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more that the burden of bureaucracy should not be on the victim. Having spent almost two years going through a police process as a victim, and then a very traumatising Crown court trial, the last thing that I wanted to do was rush to fill in application forms for compensation before the imminent two-year deadline from reporting to the police, which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) described, was about to be hit, so I did not apply. For exactly the reasons that the hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) described, it takes more than two years to process a crime. In my case, it took many decades, and I still process those crimes today. The system is not conducive to that healing process. A question that I asked was essentially, “Is this system for real? After dragging me through what is a shocking, adversarial and dehumanising criminal process, you’re going to ask me to jump through more hoops just to prove that what has happened to me has happened to me? You can go and take your paperwork and stick it where the sun don’t shine.” The sun shines in Eastbourne a lot, as many folks in this room know, so it did not have to go far. In scenarios where a court case has happened, and where the evidence has already been presented once, it must be possible for the criminal injuries compensation scheme to access that evidence with the consent of the victim and make some kind of compensation assessment without dragging the victim through another legal ordeal from square one. I would be interested to understand what exploration the Government have undertaken in this area. Inefficiency costs time, and, to the point made in an intervention by the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), who is no longer in her place, no victim should have to wait years and years for their claim to be assessed, as is too often the case today. Alexis Jay, in her IICSA report, also suggested that, in cases where proceedings have already gone to court, there could be merit in empowering a judge to order the payment of criminal compensation from offender to victim. I would be interested to know what assessment the Government have made regarding the merit of that suggestion too. Secondly, the scheme must be more visible, because so many victims are unaware of it. Fewer than four in 10 victims recall being told by the police about the scheme, according to the Victims’ Commissioner. Significant numbers of victims and survivors are therefore missing out on the compensation that they need to rebuild their lives. I was not told about the scheme by the police; I was first told about it by an incredible child abuse solicitor, Dino Nocivelli, who I was connected with through a friend of a friend. As has been said already, awareness should not rely on who someone knows. The system is failing victims and survivors by leaving them in the dark. Thirdly, victims and survivors must receive the support they need to navigate the system. I have touched on some of the complexities, as have other hon. Members. In my case, although I did not end up applying, I discussed the scheme with my ISVA—independent sexual violence adviser—from SurvivorsUK, Alan Robertson, to whom I pay tribute. ISVAs play a critical role in giving survivors the practical guidance and confidence to navigate our justice system, of which the criminal injuries compensation scheme is a part. One of my key concerns, which I have expressed several times before, is that charities report that their capacity to provide support is being diminished by the national insurance contributions hike and the cut to core funding for police and crime commissioners. Those are debates that the Ministry of Justice will need to have had with the Treasury. Some charities that provide such guidance and support to victims have told me, and said publicly, that these measures are tantamount to a 7% real-terms funding cut.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Criminal Injuries Compensation · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) on securing the debate. I commend him on behalf of my party, and I am sure everybody in this room, for the bravery that he exhibited in sharing his own story of victimhood and engagement with the criminal injuries compensation scheme. Victims and survivors in Eastbourne and beyond deserve dignity, respect and meaningful support when someone has violated their safety, their rights, their property and the law that is there to protect them. While no amount of compensation can take away the damage that such acts cause to those victims and survivors, compensation can, as has been described already, represent a powerful acknowledgment from the state about what happened to an individual survivor, and the sum awarded—to be spent on whatever it might be—can contribute towards their healing. Often it is spent on trying to access court transcripts, even though they are extremely expensive, or on therapy to overcome some of mental impacts of the crime. For too long, victims and survivors of crime have been trapped by not only the trauma of their experiences but a criminal injuries compensation system that fails to recognise their suffering in a fair and humane way, often retraumatising them. The criminal injuries compensation scheme has become a maze of bureaucracy, and is unknown to swathes of victims and those who support them. I think we can all agree that it is in urgent need of reform. First, the scheme must be simplified in order to make sure that it is as accessible as possible to victims and survivors. When people like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) encourage people to apply if they feel entitled, there should be minimal barriers. Submitting a claim involves a lot of paperwork. According to the Victims’ Commissioner, 40% of victims feel as though they have to secure legal advice to apply for this compensation. That often means giving away a share of their relatively small amount of compensation, which has not been uprated in line with inflation. I would argue that, in cases where there have already been criminal court proceedings, even one additional sheet of paper to fill in is too many. As a survivor of abuse myself, which I have spoken about in this Chamber, in the House and elsewhere, I personally found the prospect of the criminal injuries compensation scheme process too much to engage with.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Non-disclosure Agreements · Hansard source

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  I hope not to take the full 10 minutes, but it is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) on securing this important debate on the use, or indeed the misuse, of non-disclosure agreements in cases of civil harassment, discrimination and abuse. The Liberal Democrats, like all of us in the Chamber, believe in a society that upholds transparency and fairness, and protects individuals rather than shields the institutional reputations of the powerful. As we have heard, and as the #MeToo movement uncovered, when NDAs are misused they represent a systemic failure to prioritise the rights of victims and survivors over the convenience of the powerful. We must remember that the original intent behind NDAs was to protect sensitive business information and ensure confidentiality in legitimate commercial dealings, but there has been significant creep. They were never meant to be weaponised as tools to silence victims, particularly women, as the hon. Members for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) and for Luton North (Sarah Owen) highlighted, to suppress evidence of wrongdoing or to allow perpetrators to evade accountability, but bad-faith actors have transmogrified them, and too often now, NDAs are used in precisely that way—to bind victims of harassment, discrimination and abuse into silence and to isolate them. We hear stories of the loneliness of the many victims who speak off the record. Ultimately, they are denied justice. This happens across many sectors, including the creative industries, as my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) and the hon. Member for Luton North said; the NHS, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) described; and the retail and hospitality sectors, as the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) said. Imagine for a moment the plight of a new mum who worked in the financial sector, but who returned from maternity leave to face mistreatment and eventually her employment was terminated.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Shoplifting · Hansard source

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  My constituent lives just 500 metres from the Tesco Express store in Eastbourne where she works. She does not feel safe leaving as a result of the retail crime there and so gets a taxi back home in the evening. Will the Minister explain not just what the Government can do to help protect shop workers like my constituent, but what can big business such as Tesco do to better protect the employees who do such an important role for them and for their communities?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Modern Slavery Act 2015: 10th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more with the hon. Member. It is critical that we educate children about the risk factors and what to look out for, and also educate the folks who are spending time supporting those children—whether they be parents, guardians, carers, teachers or others—to better identify this and then be able to tackle it before it escalates into something that is completely irreversible. We must also ensure that our rightful pursuit of a low-carbon economy is not done on the backs of the slave labour of the Uyghurs. This echoes the powerful call of my constituent Dorit Oliver-Wolff, who survived the Holocaust. She has written to the Prime Minister, telling him how her father was sent to Siberia for slave labour and never returned. Dorit has since committed to spending her time saying, “Never again,” and we must fight to ensure that that is the case. This debate will help to get us there.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  Heartbreakingly, last week St Wilfrid’s Hospice in Eastbourne announced many redundancies, citing the national insurance increase as a reason. I have just received a message from Mrs Robinson at Motcombe school, which faces increased costs due to a catering supplier passing on the cost of the NIC hike. If the Chancellor will not increase the digital services tax to fund a reversal of that hike, how will these organisations be supported to keep doing their great work?

• 19 Mar 2025 · Miscarriage of Justice Compensation · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your inaugural chairmanship, Mr Turner. I look forward to speaking in the debates that you chair in the weeks, months and years to come. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion Preseli (Ben Lake) on securing this debate, the focus of which strikes at the heart of our justice system: principles of fairness, accountability and, ultimately, the duty of the state to right its wrongs. There are no two ways about it: those who have been wrongfully convicted are not merely victims of an unfortunate mistake; they are victims of a gross failure of the state. These individuals have lost not only their liberty, but their livelihoods, their families, their reputations, their dignity and much more. For all the talk of compensation today, no amount of money is able to restore a loss of such profound dimensions. On the subject of compensation, the miscarriages of justice compensation scheme was set up with the best of intentions to ensure that those who have suffered the gravest injustices are properly compensated. However, as we have heard both in the Chamber today and beyond, that system has perpetuated the injustices it was meant to put right. How? We have heard that in cases where a person’s convictions are quashed, our system forces them to jump acrobatically through legal hoops to access even the most basic financial redress. We have heard about the case of Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison following a conviction that transpired to be unsafe. He had to wait years beyond that for his first tranche of compensation, and he is still waiting for the rest. Such waits and injustices are a national disgrace, not least because they are experienced by so many across our country. The hon. Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) mentioned the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who also suffered such gross injustices after being wrongly convicted in the Horizon Post Office scandal. People like Kathleen Crane, the former sub-postmistress at Old Town post office in Eastbourne who was wrongly convicted of fraud and made to “pay back” £18,000 that she never owed before her conviction was overturned last year. Despite the injustices that those caught up in this scandal faced, the Horizon convictions redress scheme and the Horizon shortfall scheme—the two special compensation schemes—have been paying out compensation at much too slow a pace, which is a great dishonour to those who were unfairly convicted. I thought the Business and Trade Committee put it aptly when it said of the process that it was, “akin to a second trial for victims”. Many folks in this Chamber and beyond, across party political divides, have long campaigned for a fairer approach to addressing miscarriages of justice. The Liberal Democrats are proud to have been part of that tradition, and we continue to be. We believe that when the state wrongfully convicts an individual, it has a moral and legal duty to provide full and proper compensation without unnecessary bureaucratic barriers, or barriers that undermine fundamental maxims of our legal system. That is why urgent reform is necessary. We must ensure that compensation is granted promptly without retraumatising legal battles, and must ensure that it reflects not just the financial cost, but the emotional and psychological toll of wrongful imprisonment. When the state gets it wrong in such a profound way, it must have the courage to put things right. I conclude my remarks by touching on an insightful comment made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about victims and survivors. What we are talking about today, being passionate about correcting these injustices, is not incompatible with supporting those victims and survivors who are brave enough to come forward, who report what has happened to them to the police, who take what has happened to them to the court, but who ultimately do not get the conviction they hoped to secure. To have a criminal justice system that works for those victims and survivors, it is critical that everybody can have confidence in how it functions on both sides of the dock and both sides of the courtroom. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s take. Again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion Preseli for securing this debate.

• 17 Mar 2025 · Domestic Abuse Offences · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is critical at a time like now, when we have heard about the scale of the national emergency of domestic abuse, that victim support organisations are adequately funded. I have met representatives of a number of organisations, including Victim Support, that in light of cuts to police and crime commissioner core funding and the national insurance contribution increase are facing a 7% real-terms funding cut. We should be funding these organisations more, not less, at this time to support constituents such as those my hon. Friend has mentioned. There might be some challenges to my proposal. A challenge that was put to me was, “Josh, might this not lead to the very sentencing inflation that the Government are trying to avoid now to ensure that our prisons do not fill up so quickly?” My response to that is twofold. First, domestic abuse, as we have explored in this debate, is already an aggravating factor in sentencing. It already carries a greater sentence. I am proposing that we enhance the front end, as I said earlier, not just the back end. My second response to that challenge is that the Crime and Policing Bill that the Government put before this House very recently—Second Reading was last week—creates a number of brand new offences. They are offences that I completely agree with and commend the Government for, including assault of a shop worker and a dedicated offence of spiking. These are the right things to do, but if we can do that for those crimes, surely we can do it for the crime of domestic abuse. I remember in the Crime and Policing Bill debate several Members, particularly on the Government side, praised the trade unions for their campaigning to get the offence of assault against a shop worker over the line. I agree that great campaigning by trade unions helped to achieve that, but the survivors and victims of domestic abusers do not have such a union. We in this House are their union, which is why we must campaign for a dedicated offence of domestic abuse to protect them. I am pleased and proud that so many have rallied around this proposal to create a specific set of domestic abuse offences in the law. Women’s Aid, ManKind Initiative, Refuge, Victim Support and many more charities and support organisations in this space believe that this needs to be done. I am really grateful to many of my Liberal Democrat colleagues, who are sitting around me now, for backing this proposal, but also to those across this House; I am particularly thankful to Members on the Government Benches who have privately reached out to me to express their support for these proposals, and I know a number of them have expressed that support to their Front Benchers as well. I am grateful to lots of our media outlets for getting behind this and for platforming the campaign, in particular the team at “Good Morning Britain”, which helped me launch this campaign and the Bill I am holding in my hand to make this proposed offence closer to a reality. I am also thankful for the many warm and constructive conversations I have had with Ministers, including the Minister for victims the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), the Minister for safeguarding the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) who I met a couple of weeks ago, and the Minister for prisons Lord Timpson, but also for the exchanges I have had with the Solicitor General and the Secretary of State for Justice in this Chamber. I appreciate that constructiveness, but I am really keen now for more than warm words: I am keen for action. Victims and survivors need and deserve the recognition that the creation of a brand new specific offence of domestic abuse in law would create and I stand ready to work with anyone in this Chamber and beyond to make it a reality.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Arbitration Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank everyone to whom the Minister rightly gave recognition, particularly the behind-the-scenes officials whose work we do not often see, but without whom such landmark legislation would not be possible. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Arbitration Bill, inasmuch as it represents a significant step forward in modernising and enhancing the arbitration process in the UK. With over 5,000 arbitrations a year in England and Wales, worth about £2.5 billion a year to the economy in fees alone, arbitration has long been a critical alternative to traditional court proceedings, providing a more efficient, cost-effective and flexible way to resolve disputes. One of the Bill’s key merits is its effort to streamline the arbitration process, which can be complex and protracted. By introducing these clearer guidelines and enhancing the powers of arbitrators, the Bill will help us to secure quicker resolutions, reducing delays and backlogs in the justice system. This is crucial for businesses that seek fast and decisive outcomes to disputes. Of course, arbitration is part of a wider family of alternative dispute resolutions that help to take pressure off our courts. Recognising this, I pay tribute to legal professionals and firms in Eastbourne that work day in, day out, to facilitate many of these alternative dispute resolutions, including Heringtons, Cramp & Mullaney, Hart Reade, Gaby Hardwicke, Stephen Rimmer, SO Legal, Hobson & Latham, Mayo Wynne Baxter, Lawson Lewis Blakers, Cornfield Law, McCarthy Webb—whose services I have used—and many more. We are pleased to support this Bill for the reasons that I and many other Members have discussed. It will ultimately help to position the UK as an attractive destination for global arbitration, reinforcing its status as a leading centre for business and legal expertise, whether we are talking about the financial capital of the UK or the sunshine capital of the UK, Eastbourne, with its legal expertise, to which I have just alluded. The Liberal Democrats are pleased to back this Bill, and I am proud to support it. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed. Business of the House (Today) Ordered , That, at this day’s sitting— (a) notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Union documents), the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motions in the name of Secretary Jonathan Reynolds relating to Terms and Conditions of Employment not later than two hours after the start of proceedings on the Motion for this Order; (b) the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motion in the name of Lucy Powell relating to Scrutiny of European Statutory Instruments not later than one hour after the start of proceedings on that Motion; such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; proceedings on these motions may continue, though opposed, until any hour, and may be entered upon after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply. —(Anna Turley.)

• 28 Jan 2025 · Public Confidence in the Justice System · Hansard source

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  Confidence in the criminal justice system can be achieved only if support for victims and survivors is adequately funded, but charities such as Victim Support, whose services I have personally benefited from, have said that for them, the hike in employers’ national insurance contributions amounts to a real-terms budget cut of 7%. Victims need more support, not less. Will the Secretary of State fight to reverse that damaging cut and help restore victims’ confidence in the criminal justice system?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  A new hospital in Eastbourne would help to drive economic growth in my town and across rural Sussex, but years of Tory tumbleweed and, I am afraid, yesterday’s announcement mean that it will not be delivered and built until 2041. Will the Chancellor accelerate the release of funds to the Department of Health and Social Care to bring forward the building of our new hospital, to support patients in Eastbourne and beyond, and of course to support wider economic growth?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Drones: High-security Prisons · Hansard source

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  The word that was missing from the shadow Justice Secretary’s question just now was “sorry”. A National Audit Office report said of the then Conservative Treasury’s investment in prison maintenance and security that “capital budget allocations for prisons have been well below the level needed.” Who was a Treasury Minister at that time? None other than the shadow Justice Secretary. Today’s report is the latest chapter in a catalogue of Tory prison failures that scuppered their mission to reduce reoffending, and therefore let down victims of crime. Will the Minister tell us about a new approach to better empower governors with the investment and the autonomy needed to properly invest in prison maintenance and security? What investment will he make in prison officer recruitment through programmes such as Unlocked Graduates, which are critical to help drive security in our prisons?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  In Eastbourne, we are blessed with 94 beaches, but our water quality has dropped from “excellent” in 2015, to a low of “satisfactory” under the last Government. At the same time, Southern Water has made significant amounts of money—with more than £2.9 billion in dividends, and the chief executive receiving £183,000 in bonuses this year and a salary of £765,000. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the last Government allowed that to happen, and will he apologise for what they allowed to happen to our water industry?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Economic Investment · Hansard source

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  Local leisure and sports facilities, such as the Sovereign centre where I learned to swim, deserve more long-term investment. I want Eastbourne to be able to invest its £20 million from the towns fund in such facilities, but it will not be unlocked by the Treasury until 2026. Will the Chancellor commit to accelerating the unlocking of that funding, so that we can invest in facilities for local families and people in Eastbourne much sooner?

• 21 Nov 2024 · Condition of Local Roads · Hansard source

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  The safety and condition of our roads are hugely dependent on those who drive on them, but too many vehicles illegally use our roads without tax, without registering their details with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, and without their MOT. I thank Jamie from Seven Sisters garage for sorting my MOT out last week. Will the Secretary of State meet industry experts, such as Eastbourne’s very own Alan Wood of the National Persistent Evader Database, to discuss their solutions to tackling this problem, and making our roads safer?

• 6 Nov 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  The returning tide of populism that we have seen today is a sobering reminder of what can happen when people feel that the system has not been delivering for them. This reality makes fiscal events, such as a Budget delivered by a new Government, so critical. A Budget is more than just an annual accounting practice; it represents an opportunity to reassure our communities that they can trust us—all of us—to recognise their needs, aspirations and concerns. A Budget is an opportunity to meet those needs and to inoculate our communities and our country against the populist contagion that has invaded yet another host today. Against that backdrop, I will shamelessly share some of Eastbourne’s needs. Eastbourne needs support to tackle homelessness, which has meant that our food bank was the country’s busiest last year. I therefore welcome the £230 million announced in the Budget for homelessness prevention, and I hope the East Sussex floating support service can benefit from it, but we have been let down by the lack of emergency support to help councils like mine with the unsustainable cost of temporary accommodation, as so eloquently described by the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi). Eastbourne also needs services at our local hospital, where I was born, to be protected. I welcome the NHS investment announced in the Budget, but I am disappointed that the status of investment in our hospital via the new hospitals programme has still not been confirmed. This means that local mums, who in many cases are having to travel more than 20 miles to have their babies, are still unclear about what investment their hospital will get. Our significant population of local pensioners and I have pleaded with the Government to review their decision to remove the winter fuel allowance from many pensioners who need it. It is unacceptable that those calls have been ignored. Our local businesses need additional support to thrive, yet the increase in employer NICs will make it harder for them to survive—especially many of our hospitality businesses, which I am proud to represent as a patron of the Eastbourne Hospitality Association. Eastbourne’s WASPI women, led by Angela Boas, deserve compensation, which was missing from the Budget. Eastbourne’s SEND families, supported by advocates like Kate Humphries, must benefit from the £1 billion SEND funding that was announced. Overall, the Government have made progress, but they must go further to reassure my community that they will deliver for Eastbourne on all the counts I have described. Failure to deliver will leave my town more vulnerable to the vice of great hardship, and more exposed to the venom of populist predators.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Skills and Employment · Hansard source

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  Eastbourne, as the sunniest town in the UK, is on a mission to be a solar energy superpower. At the heart of that is East Sussex college’s green training hub, which is supporting students, young and mature, to move into that sector. Will the Minister join me in celebrating the hub’s second birthday, and will she come down to Eastbourne to visit the hub and its principal, Rebecca Conroy, and to soak up some Eastbourne sun?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Some 29% of jobs in Eastbourne, the sunniest town in the UK, are connected to the hospitality sector, but many businesses in that sector have expressed concerns about yesterday’s Budget, which UK Hospitality has described as the “latest blow for hospitality”. Will the Minister meet me and local hospitality businesses to discuss those concerns? I declare an interest as the patron of the Eastbourne Hospitality Association.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Sustainable Public Finances · Hansard source

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  The last Government left Eastbourne borough council in a position in which it spends 49p in every pound it collects in council tax on temporary accommodation. We need a solution, because that is not sustainable for councils or families. Will the Chancellor commit to supporting councils with the cost of temporary accommodation, and to investing in preventing homelessness in the first place?

• 24 Oct 2024 · Temporary Accommodation · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady has a crystal ball, because she has again pre-empted something I will say later. I absolutely agree, and I commend her work in her former role as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which I know took a deep interest in this matter. Costs in Eastbourne have skyrocketed. In fact, the council has said that 49p of every £1 that the council collects in its share of council tax is currently spent on temporary accommodation. As a result, Eastbourne borough council has been forced to consult on incredibly tough saving decisions to avoid issuing a section 114 notice, and the picture is similar in other councils.