Joshua Reynolds MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is about choices, but will he accept one of the choices that the Chancellor has made? Even though hospitality employs less than 7% of people in the UK, since she has come into office, the number of jobs lost in that sector is almost 100,000—50% of total job losses? The Chancellor has made a choice in the Budget, and that choice is to lose swathes of jobs throughout hospitality, including making many young people—whose first jobs are often in the hospitality industry—unemployable.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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  Let me be clear at the outset that the Liberal Democrats support the Bill. We do so because we recognise that British businesses need backing to compete globally, and both the industrial support package and the export finance package have vital roles to play in that. The increases proposed in the Bill represent a major expansion in Government capacity and give us the opportunity to ensure that that expansion serves our priorities as a country: supporting small businesses, driving green growth and maintaining proper democratic oversight. Small business owners have told me that the current system simply does not work for them. UK Export Finance’s processes are designed for larger transactions, larger businesses and those that are already exporting. UK Export Finance’s criteria state clearly that in any one of the last three years at least 20%, or in each of the last three years at least 5%, of a business’s annual turnover needs to be made up from export sales, but those thresholds mean that businesses trying to break into the export market, or those growing still quite modest export activity, cannot access support. As we expand UK Export Finance’s capacity, let us make sure that the commitment made is about not just bigger deals and bigger companies, but making UK Export Finance work for smaller businesses—the backbone of British exports—with simpler application processes, lower eligibility thresholds for SMEs and dedicated support teams made up of those who really understand SMEs the best. As the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) said, we also need to understand the elephant in the room, which is that we are discussing expanding capacity of UK Export Finance at precisely the moment when British exporters face unprecedented challenges with our largest trading partner, the EU. The Chartered Institute of Export and International Trade has documented the impact, saying that among the smallest firms—those with six employees or fewer—the value of their exports to the EU fell by 30% after the trade and co-operation agreement was struck; meanwhile, firms with more than 107 employees were largely unaffected. The Institute of Directors’ January 2025 “Policy Voice” survey found that 54.8% of businesses that previously exported and have stopped cited as a reason the UK’s trading relationship with the EU. More than half of former exporters surveyed gave up because of the barriers to trade with Europe. We are not talking about businesses that have failed to break into distant markets; we are talking about established exporters abandoning our nearest and largest market because the barriers have become insurmountable. The priority for small manufacturers is assistance in navigating customs declarations and rules of origin to sell in Europe. These are markets they have served for decades, which is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a fundamental reset of our relationship with Europe—a new bespoke UK-EU customs union that would cut through red tape, boost gross domestic product by an estimated 2.2% and generate roughly £25 billion in tax revenues, according to the House of Commons Library.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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  In reality, we need to look at the positions that were on the table at the time. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do the positions that both our parties took when the votes were happening. Obviously I was not in the House at the time, but I recall watching and listening to colleagues on the Labour Benches opposing various things that we put forward. The proposal that the Liberal Democrats are putting forward today would add £25 billion a year to the revenue coming into the Treasury. That money is not to be sniffed at, and it should be supported across the whole House. In discussing the doubling of UK Export Finance’s capacity to £160 billion, we need to ask ourselves whether that extra money is going to address the export challenges that British businesses actually face. Despite the fundamental barriers to the markets, the Government’s answer is simply to expand capacity, without addressing whether that capacity will be able to reach the businesses that need it most. While I appreciate that, according to its 2024-25 annual report, UK Export Finance put in £14.5 billion of new finance, that only supported 667 UK businesses to grow and invest. UK Export Finance’s business plan for 2024 to 2029 clearly states its five-year milestones, including that it wants to support an extra 1,000 SMEs to export every year until 2029. That target was introduced under the previous Government, but it has not been amended under the current Government. Considering that there are 5.7 million SMEs in the UK and that facilitating export is a critical tool for economic growth, that number seems pitifully small. I would value the Minister’s thoughts on whether that target of 1,000 is his target and whether it can be improved. It is my hope that the Bill will ultimately support a more ambitious target for UK Export Finance. It would be stronger if we acknowledged the reality of supporting small businesses and removed the practical barriers that stop SMEs from exporting. That brings me to my final point: parliamentary oversight. We are to spend £20 billion on industry assistance and guarantee up to £160 billion for export finance. This House deserves more than just retrospective annual reports. Fundamentally, these are political decisions about which sectors succeed, which regions benefit and how Britain competes globally. We need to have regular parliamentary scrutiny of spending decisions, transparent criteria for allocating support and proper impact assessments that show whether the funding is actually working. The assessments must show not just how much has been spent but whether it is reaching the businesses that need it the most and delivering the economic growth that we were promised. We support the Bill. The Government have brought forward legislation that recognises that British businesses need backing, but British businesses need proper industry and export support that is strategically directed, environmentally responsible, democratically accountable and rooted in the challenges that they actually face. I hope that the Bill will deliver that.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Vaccination rates among the over-65s are not where we would like them to be, so will the Secretary of State adopt an emergency vaccination scheme in village halls, supermarkets and—if needed—jab vans to get to the people who have been missed?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Jimmy Lai Conviction · Hansard source

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  Carmen Lau is a Hong Kong democracy campaigner, and a constituent of mine. Earlier this year, her neighbours received letters asking them to take her to the Chinese embassy in exchange for £100,000. Last month her neighbours also received fake sexually explicit photographs of her, with a Macao postage stamp. May I ask the Foreign Secretary when she last met Carmen to discuss those concerns, and how she can reassure Hongkongers living in Britain that they will be safe?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman understand that his Government are yet to abolish the hereditary peers—

• 9 Dec 2025 · Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry · Hansard source

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  What steps will be taken across Government while this inquiry is ongoing to ensure that the victims of these horrible crimes are given proper support during the process?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  It took the Government a year and a half to confirm that they were going to scrap the two-child benefit cap. What estimate has the Minister made of the number of children who, during that time, were unnecessarily kept in poverty because of it?

• 3 Dec 2025 · OBR: Resignation of Chair · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor announced in the Budget that she would legislate for only one assessment of the fiscal rules every year, instead of two, which is the case at the moment. In the light of the change in the OBR’s leadership, will the Minister commit today to seeking the views of the incoming chair of the OBR about the economic and fiscal impact of that decision before the Government plough ahead with it?

• 19 Nov 2025 · Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) on securing the debate. When I woke up on this cold Wednesday morning, I did not think I would learn so much about the manufacturing in all our regions—and when there are so many Members from Stoke-on-Trent in the Chamber, how could we not learn so much about ceramics? Specialist manufacturers do not operate in a vacuum; they need certainty to make investment decisions spanning years—often decades—and they need to know that the Government understand their sector and will back it for the long term. I welcome the fact that the Government have listened to British business and reinstated the industrial strategy, and I am pleased to see it focusing on many of the same sectors that the Liberal Democrats have prioritised for so long: life sciences, clean energy, professional business services, aerospace and automotive. Obviously, the background to that is disappointment from the previous Government’s decision to scrap the industrial strategy in 2021, pulling the rug out from under businesses that had planned on the basis of Government commitments. However, I am disappointed that not enough attention has been paid to the agrifoods industry and the rural economy. Agricultural technology was one of the 11 priority sectors that Liberal Democrats identified in our industrial strategy. Recognising and supporting that sector will help make food healthier, safer and more affordable. Agrifood tech is not a niche industry; it is about applying the same precision engineering we have for aerospace and pharmaceuticals to the sector that feeds our nation. It is disappointing that the Government have relegated it to a handful of mentions in the White Paper. We cannot have this debate without discussing the issue that keeps specialist manufacturers awake at night: energy costs. Many other Members mentioned that we have some of the highest industrial energy prices in the world, and measures to bring them down will always be welcome news. When Nissan tells us that its Sunderland plant has the highest electricity cost of any of its plants worldwide, Britain’s competitiveness is obviously going to become an issue. That lack of competitiveness will harm our regional economies in the future. Britain’s businesses are not only struggling in this sector. When it comes to regional economies and these specialist manufacturers, they do not just rely on affordable power for themselves and their factory floors; they also need it for the companies that supply them, such as local services and the businesses that form the ecosystem to allow them to be viable. It is also important for the hospitality sector and small and medium-sized enterprises, so the Government need to do more to ensure that small businesses across all those sectors have access to better energy deals. There cannot be a thriving specialist manufacturing area when broad business in the region is struggling. Manufacturing is reliant on skills, and specialist manufacturing sites cannot be run without people with deep technical knowledge. When I speak to businesses across the country, they tell me that after energy bills and tax, skills comes out as their most pressing issue. Multinationals have the choice of where they put their facilities across the world, so we need to ensure that they are in Britain. That means that we need the talent pipeline, and not just the talent density, to ensure that that we are at the front of manufacturing in the future. The Liberal Democrats have set out a comprehensive approach to reforming skills that includes replacing the broken apprenticeship levy with broader flexibility in the skills training levy, guaranteed apprenticeships paid at least at the national minimum wage and lifelong skills grants so that adults can learn to use new technologies as they evolve. I will briefly touch on two areas where specialist manufacturers are facing significant challenge, the first being trade. These are international sectors, and if the Government are serious about backing British business, they must show more ambition on trade with Europe. We would do that by negotiating a new UK-EU customs union, because our specialist manufacturers face red tape and friction when they trade with our largest and closest market neighbours. That makes them less competitive and increases costs. Secondly, there is the national insurance contributions—the jobs hike. The Government must scrap that damaging measure, because making it more expensive to employ people is counterproductive. I conclude by pressing the Minister to work cross party to ensure that we get a fix for those issues and asking him about national exporting. We are hearing concerning news from the Department for Business and Trade about its plans to reduce its international export team by between 27% and 38%, and in particular reports about cuts to the Latin America trade support team of up to 54%. I would appreciate the Minister’s views on that, as that is an area we must focus on to ensure that Britain is competitive and is exporting. Given that we must support our small businesses to export, those reductions cannot be correct.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies · Hansard source

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  The Minister talks about SME exporting. Is he aware that, although UK Export Finance has unveiled what it believes is a fantastic and ambitious plan to support 1,000 SME exporters a year by 2029, there are 314,000 SME exporters in the UK at the moment? I would not have thought that 1,000 a year out of 314,000 is very ambitious.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Shopkeepers in Maidenhead town centre tell me how pleased they are to see neighbourhood police officers doing their regular patrols, but those outside the town centre do not see those patrols as regularly and struggle more with shoplifting as a result. What is the Minister doing to tackle that, so that we have more neighbourhood police in communities, and not just in town centres?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Budget: Press Briefings · Hansard source

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  Businesses in Maidenhead tell me that what they want to see in the Budget—the one bit of speculation that they want to hear at the moment—is for the Chancellor to just leave them alone. That is an outrageous thing for them to have to think, and it is because of what they think the Chancellor will do at the Budget. Given the damage that has been caused by our current Brexit deal, does the Minister understand that we could look to generate £25 billion a year for our economy by negotiating a new EU-UK customs union? It is very simple.

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

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  The Minister is right to say that we want as many individual components of these SMRs as possible to be built in the UK, as well as the final SMRs themselves, but what work is he doing across Government to ensure not just these SMRs, but the world’s SMRs are built in the UK?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill · Hansard source

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  I wish to speak to my new clause 12. Each year hundreds of families get a knock on the door from the police who must deliver the worst news that a family can ever hear: the news that one of their closest relatives has been murdered. However, about 80 families each year receive the news that a family member has been murdered while abroad. That can be via a police officer, but the news often comes from a newspaper, or from a journalist who has found out and has reached out to the family directly. In many cases when British citizens are murdered abroad their families are left to deal with unimaginable grief for their loved one, all while facing the full weight of an unfamiliar, bureaucratic and different system, and they do that alone. They have to navigate foreign legal procedures, untranslated documents and distant court proceedings with patchy, inconsistent support from their Government, all at a time of trauma, vulnerability and mourning. This is where new clause 12 come in. It seeks to add an appendix to the victims code so that this group of bereaved families, who currently fall through the cracks in our system, will no longer do so. The principle underpinning this Bill is clear: victims deserve to be at the heart of our criminal justice system. They deserve information, support and the opportunity to be heard. These are not privileges; they are fundamental rights. Yet there is a cruel anomaly: if a British citizen is murdered on British soil, their family receives structured statutory support through victim liaison officers, aid, court procedures and counselling services, but if the same British citizen is murdered abroad—while on holiday, working away or studying in another country—their family is so often left to navigate an overwhelming maze of foreign bureaucracy, often in a language they do not speak, with inconsistent and inadequate information from the Government, who should be standing behind them. Ruth’s sister Faye was killed in 2019 while in Nigeria, where she was working for a non-governmental organisation. She was shot alongside her boyfriend in a double homicide. Ruth and her family were left to deal with an overwhelming number of agencies without proper support to understand who had responsibility for what, with limited communication and poor casework consistency from the British authorities. Vital information, such as the arrest and subsequent death of a suspect in custody, which the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office knew about, took years to reach Ruth and her family. They have still not obtained a full and accurate account of what occurred on the night of Faye’s murder. Alison and Paul’s son Danny was murdered in Amsterdam in 2022, aged just 22. Alison and Paul have explained how navigating the lengthy and complex Dutch judicial procedures in a foreign language, while having to arrange matters such as repatriation without any support, was an immense challenge. They have described being in a state of turmoil and trauma, and are uncertain how they managed to endure the circumstances. They have outlined how the stress took a significant toll on both them and their daughter. Theresa’s husband Stephen was killed in a violent attack by a gang while on holiday in Spain in 2009. His two teenage sons sustained permanent injuries in the attack. Stephen’s body was repatriated to the UK and was held by the coroner in a mortuary for eight years before the inquest was held. The inquest concluded with a verdict of unlawful killing, at which time the body was released to his wife and children—eight years after his death. Stephen’s family received no support from the UK for repatriation, travel and understanding the trial in a foreign country and in a foreign language. Stephen’s wife, Theresa, recounted how she and her family had been living through a nightmare—not only of having to navigate the complex judicial system in Spain, but of feeling retraumatised by the lack of support they received. Andrew’s son was murdered abroad when he was 18 years old. He says that, despite the FCDO having a duty to care for UK citizens, the family received minimal support. The FCDO provided poor and inconsistent communication, leaving the family without clear updates at critical stages. The family was forced to navigate a foreign judicial system with no help in understanding procedures, local laws or rights, which added to their distress and confusion. They received no structured aftercare or follow-up support, despite the psychological impact of such cases. These horrible incidents are not isolated. They show a broken system that fails British families at their most vulnerable moments. New clause 12 aims to address this by adding an appendix to the victims code setting out how the code applies to close relatives of British citizens murdered abroad. It states that the appendix must provide specific guidance explaining how families affected by murders abroad can access support, including clear information about foreign justice processes, which are often complex and distressing for bereaved families, in unfamiliar legal systems. This can include dedicated liaison officers, translation services and guidance on how to deal with foreign authorities. I have spoken to far too many families who were pointed to Google Translate for death certificates and descriptions of judicial processes in foreign languages. That is simply not good enough in our country. Under the new clause, families would also be entitled to emotional and practical support, including specialist bereavement counselling. Some police services across the country do this really well, but others do not do it at all. Let me be clear about what this amendment does not do. It does not seek to interfere with foreign judicial systems, and it does not place unrealistic expectations on the FCDO. What it does is establish as a baseline a statutory framework that ensures bereaved families have access to the same quality of support and information here at home as any other victim of homicide would receive. The Murdered Abroad campaign is made up of bereaved families who have turned their grief into a really powerful call for change. They are not asking for any special treatment. They are asking for the same structured statutory support that families would receive if tragedy strikes on British soil. The families who suffer these specific horrors should not be forgotten because the crime goes beyond our shores; a British life lost is a British life no matter where in the world it happens. Compassion in the face of tragedy is not optional but a duty, and new clause 12 provides a way to fulfil that duty. I thank right hon. and hon. Members who have supported it, and I ask everybody to vote for it this evening.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Maternity and Neonatal Care · Hansard source

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  Safe maternity care depends on adequate staffing, and we on these Benches have been calling for better recruitment and retention of staff in women’s health services for a long time now. Can the Secretary of State outline what specific measures the Government are taking to address the shortage of midwives and specialist neonatal nurses across England?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Great British Energy: Public Sector Renewable Energy Use · Hansard source

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  By prioritising partnerships with schools, we will help to protect their budgets. I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to schools in Maidenhead, and specifically Furze Platt senior school—where I happen to be a governor—which recently partnered with MaidEnergy to install solar panels on the school’s building, thereby doing right by its budgets and by the environment, and setting a great example for the students taught there.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  Local youth provision goes hand in hand with a decrease in antisocial behaviour committed by young people, with even something as simple as a ping-pong table in a closed shop able to make a difference in a community. Will the Minister outline what work she is doing with the Department for Education and the Treasury to ensure that we solve this problem once and for all and we do not just move it on and move people around the place?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman says that a 48-hour time period is unacceptable, yet the Bill does not specify what time period would be acceptable. Does he have an idea in mind of what that number would be? How many businesses has he spoken to about that?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I am glad that the Secretary of State has mentioned trade unions, because that allows me a moment to return to his earlier point about banning fire and rehire. In July, the general secretary of Unite said that what Birmingham was proposing for its bin workers was fire and rehire. If this Labour Government do not like the idea of fire and rehire, when will they tell their colleagues in Birmingham about that?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Jaguar Land Rover Cyber-attack · Hansard source

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  As has been said, Jaguar Land Rover is not the first British household name this year to experience cyber-attacks. In a recent Business and Trade Committee meeting, the chairman of Marks & Spencer said that he wished that somebody would ride in the cab with them for this experience; he felt like there was too much one-way traffic, and not enough dialogue between the Government and the business. Can the Minister reassure us that the Department has learned those lessons? Can he reassure us that Jaguar Land Rover is having that two-way dialogue, and that someone is in the cab with it at the moment?

• 4 Sept 2025 · People Smuggling · Hansard source

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  Will the Solicitor General commit to working across Cabinet to publish the number of people smuggling cases that have collapsed before trial over the past five years, and the reasons why they have collapsed?

• 4 Sept 2025 · Water Company Executives: Accountability · Hansard source

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  The public will have been pleased to hear recently about the bonus ban for water company bosses, but they would have been equally surprised to hear that a water company boss in England was awarded a massive pay increase to £1.4 million, with the public being told that that was not a bonus but a two-year long incentive plan. What further steps can the Secretary of State put in place to ensure that water companies are playing fair, when those are the tactics that they use to circumvent the rules?

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I wonder whether the Minister could help me out, because I feel that I might be having a dream about some strange alternative reality where the hill that the modern Conservative party is prepared to die on is giving unelected peers who are no longer peers the name and title Lord, as if that is the most important issue of the day in 2025. Can he help me—is that actually what is happening? Am I awake or not at this point?

• 14 Jul 2025 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source

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  Leasehold residents of Marlborough House in Maidenhead found that their developer had entered liquidation, leaving £250,000 in section 106 payments outstanding, as well as massive defects in the development. Leaseholders fear that the authorities will ask them for the section 106 money, and that the costs of finishing the development will fall on their shoulders. Given that some developers have poor track records, with dozens of companies going into liquidation, how can we strengthen leasehold legislation to ensure that future leaseholders do not have the same problems as those in Marlborough House?