Josh Fenton-Glynn MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Jun 2025 · Thames Water · Hansard source

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  This is another example of the previous Government’s failure to get a grip of our water system. Meanwhile, just last week this Government fined Yorkshire Water £350,000. My constituents are really upset to see their water bills going up. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he will never let our national infrastructure get as bad as those on the Conservative Benches did?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Care is an issue that matters deeply to me, but the problem with care is not that we are not getting cheap labour from elsewhere; it is that we are not paying care workers enough. That is one of the things that a national care service would seek to solve. Why did the SNP waste so much money—£28 million—on its failed national care service, rather than working across the House in good faith to deliver the care that people need?

• 3 Apr 2025 · Waste Incinerators · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) on securing this debate. Much like him, I am going to tell a story about companies using the courts to ride roughshod over local people’s opinions. I rise to speak about a proposal for an incinerator in Calderdale; my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden) and I feel like we have spent months banging our head against a brick wall about it. The incinerator is to be built on the border between our constituencies, and while it will be located in Halifax, I speak with her permission, as Members will be well aware that fumes from such incinerators do not respect constituency boundaries. The story of this incinerator is also a cautionary tale about the way that wealthy companies can ride roughshod over the wishes of the local community. The Calder Valley Skip Hire company was given an environmental licence by Calderdale council in 2022—a decision made on the basis of the legal advice that the council got about the rules that left it powerless to intervene or refuse. I know this because I was a council member at the time. The local community, however, appealed that decision and reviewed the finding. The planning inspector reversed the decision to grant the application on the basis of the risk to health and the lack of good information about the impact of the valley and vegetation on smoke dispersal. That meant that the company could not go ahead with it. So far, so good—the system is working as it should and the courts are upholding standards. However, rather than making changes and appealing the decision, the site owners just withdrew the application and resubmitted it as a fresh application, showing no respect for the community or the decisions that had been made. The council, with similar legal advice to the advice that was received last time, then went ahead and granted the application again, and the decision is being reviewed again. The incinerator in Calderdale has been opposed many times by our local communities and local councillors, particularly Councillor Adam Wilkinson. It has received more than 900 objections and has been objected to by both the local MPs. Unfortunately, when unscrupulous developers wish to seek legal options, they attempt to water down communities’ voices and force them into submission. Frankly, there comes a point when our job in this Chamber is to stand up for our local communities, and to say that enough is enough. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South for securing today’s debate, and I will continue to speak for my residents in Calder Valley and Halifax on this issue, because, frankly, some things are more important than the profit of a company.

• 19 Dec 2024 · Budget: Family Farms · Hansard source

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  Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker. Our hard-working farmers across Calder Valley want to earn a living from farming, not use their land to avoid tax. After 14 years of neglect by the last Government, which undercut farmers in trade deals, the sector is, however, becoming increasingly unprofitable. I welcome the Labour Government’s new deal for farmers and the 25-year road map to making farming profitable again. Can the Secretary of State assure me that Calder Valley farmers will get their fair share in this new deal and in the new improved countryside stewardship higher-tier scheme next year?

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

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  I welcome this legislation and this debate. Nothing typifies this Government’s job of cleaning up the mess left after 14 years of the last lot than the need to clean sewage out of our rivers. The need in Yorkshire is greater than in many other places. Yorkshire Water holds one of the worst records for sewage discharges among water companies. Last year, it spilled sewage into rivers across our region 464,056 times. Of those, a staggering 4,125 discharges were into the River Calder, which runs through my Calder Valley constituency, making it one of the most dumped-in rivers in the country. Both numbers had increased since the previous year, yet Nicola Shaw, the chief executive of Yorkshire Water, took home just over £1 million in remuneration, £300,000 of which was a bonus. To put that in context, she earned £2.22 per sewage spill into a Yorkshire river last year. If that is a reward for good performance, one dreads to think what poor performance looks like. In Calder Valley, and across the country, we have had enough, and this Bill rightly reflects that. This Bill gives us an opportunity to hold water bosses and their companies to account, not only through fines and clear regulations but through measures that will allow the criminal prosecution of irresponsible bosses. I welcome this Bill, but I also recognise that it is just a start, an opening step to get our water system back on track. As we continue with our whole-system review, I hope Ministers will also look at the broader impact of water companies, including the cavalier way in which they dig up our roads for weeks on end. Indeed, a road in Hebden Bridge and Todmorden has been dug up to mend a sewer, but businesses are suffering while little work is done over the weekend. More pertinently, in Calder Valley early results from studies by Yorkshire Water into what it can do to alleviate flooding show that in areas like mine, water companies and their assets have a real impact on flooding, so I hope my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will consider looking at the broader role of water companies. In closing, after 14 years of Tory failure polluting rivers across Calder Valley, I am proud to support the Bill and end the sewage scandal. We are serious about our environment, getting our country back on track and cleaning up the mess left by the Opposition.

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

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  I am pleased to hear the right hon. Lady championing her party’s record on the environment. Her colleagues are somewhat less confident, given that only 12.5% of the parliamentary Conservative party have bothered to show up to the debate. Is that because they are ashamed or because they do not have the same confidence as she does in their record on the environment and pollution?

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

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  Will my hon. Friend tell me about her local aviary life?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  Conservative Members talk about being friends of the farmers but for the past 14 years they were not. It shows how little they care that only 18% of their parliamentary party is present for a debate that they have called— [ Interruption. ] Only 21 out of 120 Conservative Members.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  Why is the right hon. Member so dismissive of DEFRA, which is a fine Department whose work those of us who believe in the countryside value? I wonder why he was not so loud when 875 agribusinesses in his region closed in the last 14 years.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Member give way?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate. While she has personal and constituency experience, this issue is a national crisis for people with SEND. That is due in no small part to the huge rise in the number of people with EHCPs over the last few years. In 2018-19 in Calderdale, where Calder Valley sits, 1,068 children had EHCPs. In the last year, 1,761 children did. That is the start of this problem. We then have the transport plans, which are put together at the last minute. That means that we end up with September stress for SEND parents, who are trying to create a stable school environment for their kids but who find out only at the last minute when they are coming in. On that point, I pay tribute to all SEND parents, who work an extra job in looking after their children, and to some of the charities that do brilliant work in supporting them, including Unique Ways in Calder Valley, which is a fantastic charity. I recently heard a particularly distressing story about SEND provision in Calder Valley. Two children had their epilepsy triggered by stress, and their parents and teachers struggled to provide the support that they needed.

• 26 Nov 2024 · COP29 · Hansard source

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  I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. My constituency is at the mercy of climate change, as the floods showed at the weekend. It is deeply frustrating for many of my constituents to hear the Opposition fail to grasp the urgency. We are on the frontline of the impact of climate change, but we also want to be on the frontline of the response, so many of my constituents welcome the warm homes plan. What is he doing to ensure that we have the workforce to deliver that plan, particularly in constituencies such as mine that have houses that are quite hard to retrofit?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Storm Bert · Hansard source

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  This weekend, much of my constituency was under a severe flood warning. Businesses, roads and homes were flooded. We were luckier than in previous years in terms of severity, but in places it was agonisingly close, with rivers centimetres away from breaking their banks. Calder Valley has had two major floods in the past decade, and the fact that we avoided the same level of destruction this time was in no small part because of the work of local flood wardens, natural flood management organisations such as Slow The Flow and Calderdale council. I pay tribute to them. It is almost a decade since the serious floods in Calder Valley on Boxing day 2015. We had further floods in 2020. While the Environment Agency has carried out flood prevention works in Mytholmroyd and Brighouse, it has not even made a start on planned schemes in Hebden Bridge and Elland. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the plans we have upcoming and get some action from the Environment Agency? My constituents are understandably really anxious.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Independent Water Commission · Hansard source

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  My constituents do not think that Yorkshire Water is doing a good job. Last year, sewage was discharged into the River Calder 4,125 times. The same year, Nichola Shaw, the boss, chose to take home a bonus of £371,000—or £90 per discharge. We have also had three major flooding incidents in Calder Valley over the past 15 years. Regulations do not cover water companies acting against flooding. Will my right hon. Friend look at the breadth of the current regulations and at what water companies can do about flooding?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This week is Flood Action Week. In Calder Valley, where we have had several major floods in the last 15 years, my constituents are all too aware of flooding and its impact; indeed, we have spent much of the last few days under a flood alert. Although Yorkshire Water has been active in supporting anti-flooding measures, could we have a debate in Government time on how regulation could be used to ensure that flood prevention is part of the statutory role of water companies?

• 18 Jul 2024 · Clean Energy Superpower Mission · Hansard source

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  It is great to see my right hon. Friend in his place after over a decade of leadership on this issue, talking about climate change and really making that difference. If we are to be a clean energy superpower, we need to learn from good examples and better practice wherever it is. In Calder Valley, Together Housing is a good example of a housing association that is doing well in putting solar on roofs and taking advantage of microgeneration. However, I am sure he will agree that one problem for those kinds of projects is that the national grid is not up to scratch. Key to being a clean energy superpower is getting a modern national grid. Will he also agree to visit some of Together Housing’s projects, which keep bills down and put solar panels on roofs?