Joshua Reynolds MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2026 · Draft Register of Overseas Entities (Protection and Trusts) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Company Law) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Efford. Tackling economic crime and financial secrecy is vital for our economic and national security. The registration of overseas entities is an important step in improving ownership transparency, and we welcome any measures that make it work better in practice. However, I note with concern the temporary removal of the LLP address reporting requirements. The Government have stated that the reason is that Companies House systems are not yet equipped to receive and process that information, but that raises broader questions about pace and resourcing in Companies House more generally. We have known for a significant period of time that it has been underperforming, under-resourced and not doing what it should be in the appropriate manner. Having some transparency and clarity from the Minister would be beneficial. The Government must set out a clear and binding timetable for when the LLP reporting requirements will be reinstated, and ensure that Companies House receives the investment that it needs to deliver the reforms that Parliament has already passed. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Park Home Owners · Hansard source

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  I thank my constituency neighbour for that point. It is incredibly important that everybody responds to the consultation, so we must encourage more people to do so. The financial cost of the 10% commission is only part of the story. We have heard time and again about unscrupulous site owners who have used intimidation to drive residents off their pitches. There are fewer bad actors who own sites than there were a number of years ago, but some still know that if they intimidate residents and force a sale, they will get a 10% commission. We see that time and again. In my constituency, one owner bought a site for £200,000. They then intimidated countless park home residents, who sold their properties, and made that £200,000 back within less than 12 months. That is the business model of unscrupulous site owners. We need to think about where the 10% commission came from. It has not always been 10%: it was 15% a number of years ago, so it is an arbitrary number. I pay tribute to Sonia McColl OBE and the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign. Over decades, she and the campaign have done what many in this place only wish we had been able to do. They secured two legislative changes: ending sale blocking, and shifting pitch fees from RPI to CPI, which the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) spoke about. Sonia and the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign have driven lots of the work that is happening here. Another petition is going to Downing Street later today. I was lucky to be able to present one to Downing Street last year, and I know that many of us are willing to submit them in future. We need to be honest about what we are going to do. There is a consultation on the table, but lots of residents have been consulted before. I ask the Minister for a clear timeline for when we will see action, when we will have a conclusion with published responses, and when the 160,000 residents will get the fair deal that has been promised for so long but postponed for much longer.

• 20 Apr 2026 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister is using words such as “may”. What she has outlined is incredibly important, but Lords amendment 342 obviously goes further than “may”—it insists that diversion orders will involve those necessary consultations. Will the Minister commit today to making sure that the police will have all these statutory duties, not just that they may have them, and that the consultation will be required?

• 25 Mar 2026 · Victims and Courts Bill · Hansard source

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  I will speak to Lord’s amendment 2, which requires the Secretary of State to issue an appendix to the victims code setting out how the code applies to the families of British nationals who are the victims of murder, manslaughter or infanticide abroad. This is not a new argument in this Chamber. I tabled amendments on Report to make precisely this case, I secured an Adjournment debate last year, and I have raised questions with the Minister several times. I thank her for the work she has done with me and others on this topic. It is also important to thank the charity Murdered Abroad, and specifically Eve Henderson who has been working on this issue for a long time, as well as the late Baroness Newlove who, in her time as Victims’ Commissioner, worked with Murdered Abroad and me to ensure that the amendments tabled to the Bill were workable in the view of the Victims’ Commissioner. Murdered Abroad is a campaign made up of bereaved families who have turned their grief into a distinct call for change. Families who are part of Murdered Abroad all have one thing in common: a family member of theirs, a British citizen, was murdered while they were outside the UK. Their calls ask for one simple thing: equal treatment. They are asking for the structured statutory support that any family would receive if tragedy struck on British soil, because a British life lost is a British life, no matter where in the world that loss occurs. Each year around 80 families receive the news that one of their loved ones has been murdered abroad. Sometimes that is via a police officer, but all too often it is from a journalist who has found out the news first and is asking for comment. When tragedy strikes, it sends any family into an unimaginable position, but when it happens outside the UK, families are left with so many other complications they must contend with. They must navigate foreign legal procedures, untranslated documents and distant court proceedings with patchy and often inconsistent support from their own Government, all at a time of trauma, vulnerability and mourning. Matthew was sitting in a bar when two door staff rushed over and grabbed him. They were joined by two more, who threw him down a metal staircase. At the bottom, witnesses saw them kicking and hitting him. A UK post-mortem identified over 20 injuries on Matthew’s body. When his mother called the FCDO, she was told that he died of alcohol consumption. That same morning, newspapers in Greece ran the headline, “Teen Drinks Himself to Death”. Matthew’s mum had to fight tooth and nail to get a family liaison officer. She also had to fight tooth and nail for translation support to get documents in English. They ended up being paid for by Derbyshire police, because the FCDO would not pay for them. Alison and Paul’s son Danny was killed in Amsterdam in 2022, aged just 22 years old. They explained how navigating lengthy and complex Dutch judicial procedures in foreign languages, while also having to arrange matters such as repatriation without any support, was an immense challenge. All the while, they were dealing with the trauma of their son having been killed. That loaded on to them and their daughter an untold amount of stress at a time when they needed support from our Government. In such circumstances, the Government should be supporting families in any way they can. Let me be clear about what Lords amendment 2 does and does not do. It does not seek to interfere with foreign judicial systems and it does not place unworkable demands on the FCDO. What it does do, however, is establish a statutory baseline, ensuring that bereaved families have access to the support and guidance that any other family of a homicide victim would receive. Lords amendment 2 inserts an appendix into the victims code which states that families must be provided with specific guidance explaining what support they can access. It explains that they must be given information by the British Government about how the foreign criminal justice process works—not getting involved in that process or interfering with it, but explaining what families can expect. It outlines that they should be given a dedicated family liaison officer to support the family at the worst time. Some police forces do that already, but many do not. We have heard that many police forces will tell families they are not entitled to a family liaison officer. Only immense pressure from families makes those police forces back down and give them the family liaison officer they need. When everything else in the world has gone wrong, it should not be up to these British families to have to push the police to give them the family liaison officer they should be entitled to. The amendment outlines that the Government must provide translation services for such families. Far too many families tell me that they were told by the Government to use Google Translate to get death certificates translated into English. That is not acceptable—that is not something we can accept ever again. One family told me recently how they found out through Google Translate that their son’s organs had been removed from his body. It is not acceptable that Google Translate told them that. We cannot accept that and the Government need to go further to provide translation services for families. The Government’s position, set out in a letter to Members on 23 March, is that the amendment would “raise expectations” that cannot be met and that it risks “confusing the legislative framework”. Those arguments are remarkable. We are talking about an appendix to the victims code, laying out what support families can expect from the British Government. The suggestion that setting out in statute what support a bereaved family can expect will somehow undermine the coherence of the entire victims code does not stand up to scrutiny. And it is not just me and the Liberal Democrats saying that. The Victims’ Commissioner must believe that too, because she was pleased that the Lords successfully voted for the amendment. I cannot understand how the amendment would raise expectations that cannot be met and confuse the legislative framework, and neither can the Victims’ Commissioner. I do not understand how the Government can think that. The Minister points to guidance published in January 2026 as evidence of the Government’s commitment. I welcome that guidance, but guidance is guidance. Guidance is not the law. Guidance can be ignored. It has no real enforcement mechanism. If the Government genuinely believe that families deserve support, we must ask the question: why do they not say so in statute? Last month, I met families from across the country whose loved ones were murdered abroad. Among that group were families who lost loved ones this year, after the new guidance had come into force. The guidance has not protected them. They have fallen through exactly the same gaps that were in the system before the guidance. The reason is clear: guidance is not statutory; it is a guide. It can be ignored and it too often is. What we need is a statutory appendix to the victims code setting out what support victims will receive, and how the Victims’ Commissioner and her team can support it. There is a lack of consistency. Some families are given a family liaison officer and some are told they cannot receive one. That is the problem we are looking at and we must do better. I will ask one question of the Minister about transparency in the needs assessment carried out by the Victim Support homicide service. What criteria are used to decide on a family’s needs following homicide abroad? Neither the Victims’ Commissioner nor Murdered Abroad charity members are able to find out what results are coming through and what criteria are being used. That is why families so often feel that there is a lack of consistency and accountability.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  This group of clauses establishes new criminal prohibitions on promoting tax avoidance arrangements. Clause 161 creates personal criminal liability for company directors, limited liability partnership members and shadow members. We of course support the Government in preventing tax avoidance measures, but we are concerned that some boundaries may not have been drawn correctly. We support the idea that aggressive tax avoidance measures need to be prosecuted, but there is a question about the breadth of criminal liability and the absence of safeguards. Clause 161 extends personal criminal liability to directors, members and shadow members—individuals exercising informal influence, but without formal responsibilities—where an offence is committed with their consent or due to their negligence, but it creates some problems. The shadow member concept creates uncertainty, including about who exactly will fall in scope. If the neglect standard is brought, it could catch directors for oversight failures, rather than for active wrongdoing. There is also limited guidance from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on how it will apply these sanctions in practice. Will it draw a distinction with deliberate promotion of aggressive schemes, or will it have a counteract for technical advice where boundaries were genuinely unclear? Will individuals be pursued proportionately, or will criminal sanctions be viewed optimistically? I would be interested to see whether the Government are willing to provide annual parliamentary reports on prosecutions—numbers commenced, convictions secured, categories of responsible persons prosecuted, and examples of conduct that does or does not meet the threshold. The Liberal Democrats back strong action against tax avoidance promoters. These schemes undermine fairness in the tax base. However, criminal liability based on neglect is broad, and prosecutions could happen for oversight failures, rather than deliberate wrongdoing. The definition of shadow members also lacks clarity. I would welcome the Minister’s clarification on those points.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The infected blood scandal represents one of the greatest treatment disasters in NHS history: more than 3,000 people died, and thousands more live with HIV, hepatitis C or lifelong trauma. Yet even now victims’ families face the indignity of inheritance tax on compensation payments meant to acknowledge that profound suffering. The clause gives the Treasury the power to provide inheritance tax relief where victims or affected persons have died before compensation payment was received. That policy is intended to develop fair and consistent treatment for grieving loved ones, but it is entirely discretionary, with no timeline, no consultation requirements and minimal parliamentary oversight. Amendments 47, 48 and 46, in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot, look to fix that. First, amendment 47 would ensure that all the regulations face proper parliamentary scrutiny through the affirmative procedure, ensuring that they get the correct amount of parliamentary oversight and the scrutiny that is required. Amendment 46 would require the Chancellor to make regulations within 60 days mandating consultations with victims’ organisations and the Infected Blood Compensation Authority—people who actually understand what the families are going through. Crucially, it would establish practical support, dedicated helplines and assistance in evidence-gathering through outreach to bereaved families. That matters not just because of the number of people who have died while waiting for compensation, but because their families have already endured decades of suffering, medical records lost and destroyed, and broken promises. They should not also have to face the labyrinth of the tax system without the support they need. Amendment 48 would require the Treasury to demonstrate how it meets key objectives: that for any victim faced with inheritance tax on their payments, the treatment is fair, regardless of the timings; and that administrative processes do not create additional distress. These amendments are not intended to distract from the clause, which we support; however, without the safeguards that they propose—without timelines and the correct accountability—we will see delay and delay. The families have waited decades for support, and the amendments aim to help to get them that support and the fair treatment that they deserve. The Government’s policy paper was unequivocal that compensation must be a matter of entitlement rather than charity, and our amendments 47, 48 and 46 would ensure that those promises were kept and not kicked into the long grass. I hope that the Committee will support them when we press amendments 47 and 46 to a vote later.

• 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?

• 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.

• 9 Jul 2025 · Trial by Jury: Proposed Restrictions · Hansard source

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  Last year, I was on a jury. We all know that we need to get the court backlog down, but my experience at Reading Crown court was that the availability of jurors really is not an issue. Many of us sat there for hours upon hours, and several jurors were dismissed on the Thursday, having never set foot in a courtroom. Before we restrict the number of jury trials, what work have the Government done to actually understand the utilisation of jurors to see how many are being used and whether they could be used more effectively?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Private Contractors: Justice Services · Hansard source

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  In 2013, Serco was fined £68.5 million for overcharging the Government for electronic tagging, but it was still awarded the new £200 million contract in 2023. Given the Secretary of State’s comments in March that the performance of Serco was “not good enough”, can the Minister explain what a private company actually needs to do for the Government to see it as unfit to hold a contract such as this one?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Private Contractors: Justice Services · Hansard source

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  3. What steps she is taking to ensure that private contractors delivering justice services are held to account.