Joy Morrissey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I am not aware of any other legislation that has received the same recommendation three times. That represents a substantial warning. The Bill, either deliberately or unintentionally, will lead to realignment with the EU and once again leave our country beholden to others’ decisions on regulatory standards. It will hamper our businesses in this fast-changing world, making them less agile and less competitive and making us poorer as a nation. It gives Ministers too much power—a fact that in this House should always be pause for thought, no matter who governs. I urge the Government to think again.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the “blockers”. These are people who live on floodplains, who have been waiting years for a GP surgery and who have never had any of the key infrastructure that they asked for delivered. They cannot have property built in certain places because of floodplains. That is not acknowledged in this Bill, which makes no provision for those residents.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent point, because the same thing is true in London. We have seen London housing targets decline for the Mayor of London, who has not met any of his housing targets, and all those extra housing numbers have been forced on to the outer counties surrounding London. I am not sure that is fair or will produce the housing that people need.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We have given way to infrastructure, including HS2, motorways and data centres across the entire green belt with very little community consent, and now, with this new Bill, all community consent seems to be going out the window. How can we protect the vital green space in my constituency, which provides the lungs of London and which will be destroyed because everyone will want a piece of the small bits of green belt we still have left?

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about temporary accommodation and the lack of housing availability. But why have the housing targets for London, which has some of the highest levels of unmet social housing accommodation need, not been raised to deal with overcrowding?

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  We have seen with HS2 an example of planning authorities being taken over in a way that was not the traditional compulsory purchase process. HS2 has been allowed to take over properties, and not pay market value or even take possession. People are still waiting for compensation—their homes devastated, losing everything because of HS2’s ability to take over.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point on key infrastructure. Not only are we waiting for GP surgeries in my constituency, but we need a sewerage upgrade across my patch. We cannot even have new homes put in, because they cannot be attached to the sewerage system in its existing state. His point is valid: until infrastructure is put in place we cannot put homes in these new areas.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and one that I was going to make. This is about choices, and it is about the most vulnerable—the disabled pensioners who we did not have a way to test for. There was no mechanism to protect them, and I am very glad that my right hon. Friend chose to protect the most vulnerable disabled pensioners. By protecting everyone, we ensured that the most vulnerable were protected, and that was a tough choice that we made when in government. To be honest, I expected a Labour Government to make the same kind of choice, to protect the most vulnerable disabled pensioners, who have been negatively impacted by this choice. I would have expected better from a Labour Government.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, although the Office for Budget Responsibility contradicts what he is saying. The truth about this Government is that they talk a tough talk, but they are the masters of outsourcing every tough decision for others to make. We see that in the tough choices they have forced on small businesses across this country—whether to stop hiring, cut staff, raise prices, or close altogether in order to deal with this black hole that the Chancellor has created through her socialist spending spree—but we saw it first in stark terms in the way that the Government treated pensioners. The Chancellor chose—yes, chose—to make pensioners make the tough choice between eating and heating. She was not able to be tough with the train driver unions, and she was not able to be tough with the Energy Secretary to stop him wasting £8 billion on GB Energy or £11 billion on overseas climate aid, but she was able to be tough with the pensioners of this country. She is a Chancellor who can be tough with the weak, but melts before the unions and her Cabinet colleagues. This is a Government who have abandoned evidence-based policymaking, such as by attacking parents who send their children to independent schools, engaging in a tax raid despite the clear evidence that it will damage the life chances of young people in both the state and the private sector.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I think our record speaks for itself—we had 14 years. It is very interesting that the Labour party talks about tough choices. For pensioners, turning off the heat—being made to choose between heating and eating—is a tough choice. That is a choice that this Labour Government have made for the most vulnerable.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend makes a good point. When we try to do the right thing, oftentimes we make a choice that has adverse consequences. What is telling about this decision was that an impact assessment was not published in advance. Many Members from all parts of the House were not fully aware of the consequences or impact of this policy, whereby 10 million pensioners have lost out this year while coping with rising energy costs and rising prices. Nearly 3 million of those pensioners are aged over 80. Some 1.6 million pensioners with a disability are now losing out. This was a choice that the Chancellor could have avoided by being tough with her Cabinet colleagues or the unions, but she chose to be tough with the weak. This was a choice where the evidence pointed to a terrible impact, but she chose to be tough with the weak. This is a weak Chancellor in a Government who put ideology before evidence and politics before people, but it is never too late to change.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  This winter, pensioners across Beaconsfield, Marlow and the south Bucks villages felt abandoned by the Labour Government. Many across this country voted for a Labour Government in good faith, thinking that they would actually have a reduction in their energy bills of £300, only to discover that many pensioners were going to lose their winter fuel payment, which is a lifeline to pensioners, who have served their communities and worked hard their whole lives. It was brought in by a Labour Government and never abolished during the entire time that the Conservatives and the coalition were in power. There is a reason for that: it is fair, equitable and ensures that no one is left behind. The reason why it was not scrapped before is that a means-tested mechanism was not in place, so it was quite shocking to see that the first act by the new Chancellor was to scrap a winter fuel payment that Labour initially brought in without an impact assessment.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is about transparency and keeping our promises to the British public, and it lays bare the truth about this Government.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  It is clear that we did not get rid of it in the first place, and we had 14 years. The interesting thing that we keep hearing—

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his contribution and for his advocacy on this issue. [ Interruption. ] I will respond as I go through my speech; he has made a very sound point. This is about tough choices. We all have to make tough choices, and being in government is hard. Those of us on either side of the House who have been in government know that it is difficult, but we make choices, and then we are held responsible. Conservative Members understand that, because we were held responsible.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Energy Consumer Support · Hansard source

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  Consumers are concerned about the rising energy price cap. What will the Secretary of State do to strengthen existing energy schemes and initiate new schemes? Will it include delivering the £300 reduction in energy bills that Labour promised during the general election?

• 14 Mar 2025 · HS2 Mitigation Projects: Inflation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend mentions the cost relating to infrastructure. One of the huge impacts that goes unrecognised is the impact on roads and road surfaces. Not only are many areas of Buckinghamshire on a flood plain, but our roads get a huge amount of use, which is compounded by the HS2 traffic. Does he agree that that is not compensated for by the HS2 fund in any way?

• 14 Mar 2025 · HS2 Mitigation Projects: Inflation · Hansard source

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  May I say, on behalf of two of the Buckinghamshire MPs, that we stand in solidarity in support for scrapping HS2 altogether? It is never too late for a real cost-saving Minister to scrap the whole thing.

• 14 Mar 2025 · Arm’s-Length Bodies (Review) Bill · Hansard source

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  On the point about arm’s length bodies and their accountability to Parliament, does my hon. Friend agree that it would be useful to have a mechanism to bring them to Parliament to hold them to account, not just through their annual accounts? If there is gross negligence in a Department or an arm’s length body, particularly those that deal in medical or other delicate matters, or if there is some issue that needs to be brought to the fore, we could have a mechanism for them to come to Parliament so that there could be direct parliamentary accountability. Although it is said in theory that those bodies are accountable to us, there is no evidence to show that that is the case.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Businesses across Beaconsfield, Marlow and the south Bucks villages are facing crippling costs from the Government’s national insurance tax raid and the Employment Rights Bill. Can the Secretary of State reassure or advise my businesses? Should they stop hiring, cut staff, increase prices, or all of the above?

• 26 Feb 2025 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  claimed to move the closure ( Standing Order No. 36). Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put. Question agreed to. Main Question accordingly put.

• 26 Feb 2025 · Family Businesses · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to stand here today on behalf of businesses in Beaconsfield, Marlow and the South Bucks villages. These small family businesses are the backbone of our economy. They are the job creators, they play a vital role in helping our communities, and they deserve our support in this House. Yet it is now clear to businesses in my constituency that they find themselves with a Labour Government who simply do not understand business. This is a Government who seem to think that just by saying the word growth over and over again, it will magically happen. The truth is that businesses create growth, not hot air from the Chancellor. This Government are seriously damaging businesses with a national insurance tax raid that will destroy jobs and put at risk thousands of businesses. Time and again, business owners have warned of the consequences, but they have been met with a wall of silence from the Government. Why? Because this Labour Government simply do not understand business or the consequences of their actions. At the end of last year, I hosted a roundtable of local, family-run, multigenerational businesses. They have been at the heart of our local economy for decades, but now they are struggling not just with the national insurance threshold increase or the differences that the Employment Rights Bill will bring in, but with skills shortages and the economic uncertainty that that will cause. Now, thanks to this Government’s tax raid, they are being forced to make impossible choices: to cut back on hiring, reduce investment or close their doors altogether. Let me give the House just one example. I met the owner of a proud family business that has been serving Marlow for over 88 years. He told me plainly that this Government’s policies will make it harder for businesses such as his to survive. His story is one I have heard time and again. This Government do not seem to get that, in lowering the employment national insurance threshold so dramatically, they have made it almost impossible for businesses that employ lots of people to operate in the low-margin sectors.

• 26 Feb 2025 · Family Businesses · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes an excellent point. The policies are damaging; it is a hostile environment for businesses and entrepreneurs who make a difference and who grow the economy and our tax base. That is who this Government are hurting: the people who will make this country great and grow us out of any of the economic issues that we are having now. By hurting entrepreneurs and small businesses, we are cutting ourselves off from growth. Again, growth is not some mythical thing that the Chancellor refers to; it is something delivered by hard-working small family businesses in this country. Not only small businesses but all service-level jobs in our economy are affected. Care services, retail, hospitality, events—they are just a few of the sectors where businesses increasingly face the impossible choice of cutting jobs or shutting their businesses. Of course, it is not just through national insurance that the Government are raiding businesses or burdening them with over-regulation. Businesses already reeling from the national insurance raid are facing higher business rates, an Employment Rights Bill that is destined to lower employment and the destruction of family farms. Just yesterday, the British Chambers of Commerce described the stark reality of the “powder keg of costs” facing British businesses. In the avalanche of inconvenient facts for the Government that the British Chambers of Commerce unleashed, one stood out to me: 58% of businesses told the BCC that the costs will impact recruitment, meaning fewer jobs at a time when we need the economy to be growing. This is economic illiteracy on steroids. I will always stand up for our local family businesses in Beaconsfield, Marlow and the South Bucks villages. Their message to me has been crystal clear: this Government’s tax raid is damaging to them, to jobs and to growth for the future. I urge the Government to wake up to the disaster they are unleashing on businesses in my constituency and across this House.

• 11 Feb 2025 · Cost of Energy · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. The Conservatives have an excellent track record of putting in renewables. We were the first to bring in the coal-free plan to tackle energy, so that is an important way of moving forward. I would like to continue moving forward with cheaper energy bills to make sure that we protect our energy security while ensuring that costs are low for both the consumer and industry.