Joy Morrissey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source

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  I would like to ask the Home Secretary about the historical sexual abuse and child sexual abuse of Sikh women and children. The Sikh community has said that when Sikh girls went to the local authority or the police, they were told—even by the media—that it was an “ethnic problem”, or that it was an “Asian problem”. I welcome the fact that the Home Secretary will be recording data, but what data will that be? Will Sikh girls who have been abused no longer just be told that it is an “Asian problem”?

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a wonderful point about the fact that early intervention is underfunded, but such funding actually reaps huge benefits for students. I should declare that I worked at the Centre for Social Justice, where we looked at early intervention as one of the most important ways of turning around the lives of children. Especially for children with special educational needs, early diagnosis and early intervention can make all the difference in their not falling behind when they enter main education. It is rare that I support additional funding, but I do for early intervention because it is life-changing. The years during which we can change a child’s life are those from four to seven. It is such a small window during which we can erase trauma and help with any disability, but that will help them for the rest of their lives, so early intervention makes all the difference for such children in the long term. I ask the Government to listen: to listen to the children, families and schools telling them that SEND funding is not making it to the children who need it; to listen to the local authorities that need clarity urgently on the future of high-needs blocks and the statutory override; to listen to the parents of children at independent schools who are being ripped from settings that work for them because of an Education Secretary who will not listen to the evidence that those schools are the right place for those students at this time; and to listen to the primary schools that are now short of teachers, but are trying to provide SEND support for these children at the most vital stage of their education. It is time for the Government to listen and to make the changes our children with SEND so desperately need.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Violent Offenders: Early Release · Hansard source

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  The Victims’ Commissioner says that the early release of prisoners risks victim safety, so will the Lord Chancellor explain why she is putting violent offenders ahead of victims?

• 22 May 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to be responding to business questions as we march on to the recess. I know that the Leader of the House has had a challenging few weeks, but I want to start by thanking her for everything that she has done to advocate for Members in this House. This morning, we have learned that the Government have been prevented from signing their Chagos surrender deal by the High Court. When will the Prime Minister come to the House to explain this latest humiliation and masterclass in how not to negotiate in Britain’s interests? I know that Members across the House often say things in the Chamber and elsewhere that they regret. I know, too, that the Leader of the House has said that she regrets her words on rape gangs, but it is for the victims of those rape gangs to decide whether those regrets are enough. It is time for the Government finally to take action on this scandal. Will she grant a debate, in Government time, on the rape gang scandal, and commit the Government to the national inquiry that the victims deserve? At the previous business questions, I called on the Leader of the House to ask the Chancellor to U-turn on her disastrous economic policies. Since then, things have got even worse. This week, inflation, which stood at 2% when Labour took office, has surged to 3.5%. Today, public sector net borrowing hit £20.2 billion, the fourth highest figure for the month since records began. We have had a disastrous Budget followed by an emergency one, and it looks like the next one could be catastrophic. It seems that the Deputy Prime Minister has also had enough of the Chancellor’s economic policies. The difference is that we on the Conservative Benches want the tax raids on businesses and households to be reversed, but the Deputy Prime Minister wants more tax and more spend. Yesterday, the Prime Minister would not rule out more tax rises either. I think that we can all see what is coming: £40 billion of tax rises last autumn was never going to be enough for this Government—a Government who are tough with the vulnerable, but weak with the unions. The Deputy Prime Minister may be on leadership manoeuvres, but it is quite a shopping list of new taxes that she is after—although, curiously, further taxes on second homes were not included. It is the people who save hard for their retirement and build businesses who are next in the firing line for the tax-raid obsession of this Labour Government. To pensioners, farmers and business owners we can now add savers to the list of people whom this Government seem determined to make poor. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate, in Government time, on the Government’s economic plans, so that the Deputy Prime Minister can also come and set out her tax plans for the House. I would be very interested to see the tag-team operation there. If the Deputy Prime Minister is otherwise engaged, perhaps we could turn our attention to yesterday’s welcome U-turn from the Prime Minister. I understand that he has always been gifted with the most flexible of principles, but it was quite a sight yesterday to see him admitting to promising a U-turn on punishing pensioners without any date for that U-turn, or an explanation of whether it would benefit all or just some pensioners. Crucially, we did not hear an apology from him. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on the winter fuel payment U-turn, so that the Chancellor, or the Prime Minister, can come to this House and apologise to pensioners and set out when they will give pensioners the certainty that they can heat their homes next winter? Let me conclude—[Hon. Members: “More!”] Ah, thank you. We are watching the Government in a slow-motion car crash, with no economic plan but to tax and spend as fast as they can. It is not the gingerbread man; it is tax, tax as fast as they can. We are watching a Prime Minister who is having to undo the decisions of his own Government in the space of just months but who cannot bring himself to apologise. The Government are already showing that they have failed to learn the lesson of all socialist Governments: they eventually run out of everyone else’s money. This Government seem determined to run out in record time, and the only losers will be the British people.

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  May I pause to pay tribute to those Back Benchers who were not able to contribute today? The passion about this issue is evidenced by the number of Conservative Members present. Two minutes was an inadequate amount of time in which to describe the distress that many of their constituents feel. I will try to encapsulate what I have heard them say, but it will not do justice to the amount of anguish that rural communities are feeling. In this solar farm debate we are talking about an attack on rural communities. It is an attack on farmers, on tenant farmers and on the English rural way of life. I did not hear people complaining about solar farms being built in industrial areas or on rooftops; I heard complaints about 3,000-acre solar farms destroying the countryside, destroying villages, and being built with no concern for the communities they will leave behind. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson). By securing a debate on this important subject on the Floor of the House she has done the House a tremendous service. Moreover, my hon. Friend has done much more, and she deserves recognition for that. She has worked tirelessly on the issue over a number of years, fighting for her constituents. I can testify to that, as I was the designated Whip when we were in government; no Member, from any part of the House, bothered us more on the issue of the importance of protecting rural communities from solar farm expansion. She secured vital changes from the last Government to limit where solar farms could be built—changes that this Government have now undone. Solar has a role in our energy mix, including on rooftops and in south-facing industrial areas, but it carries significant costs and brings a dependency on China and forced labour supply chains that are questionable and should concern us all, despite what the Lib-Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello), may say.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  In a moment—I want to make some progress. While none of that has been made clear, we have heard from quite a lot of Back-Bench Labour MPs that we will have a wonderful new trade deal and a great new visa system for young people, which gives me pause. Either we are not being told fully what is going to happen at this summit, or there is such anticipation for back-door EU realignment that the Labour party cannot contain itself, and its Members cannot help but tell us what they are planning on doing. My biggest concern in all this—forgive me for wanting reassurance from the Dispatch Box—is that the outcome of the summit might involve concessions of jurisdiction to the European Court of Justice, or the application of any of the principles of supremacy of EU law. I would like a guarantee from the Minister, on the Floor of the House, that that will not be the case. There can be no question of the European Court of Justice being brought back via the back door through dynamic realignment with EU law. I want to hear reassurances from the Minister that nothing will be discussed or renegotiated at this summit that would tear apart all the work we did, through the withdrawal agreement and the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023, to ensure that our laws have supremacy over EU law. That was the point. Many of us voted for Brexit because we wanted to see our sovereignty and our borders restored; we wanted to see our laws brought back under our sovereignty. We want to ensure that we honour the commitments that we made, with both the Retained EU Law Act and the withdrawal agreement, to move forward with the EU. I welcome trade deals all over the world; I want us to be as successful as we can be. Praise where praise is due: if the Labour party has achieved a trade deal, fine—I am happy to acknowledge that and to say “Well done”. We should be trying to get trade deals with any country that we can. The reason I am asking for assurances from the Dispatch Box is that I have seen the Labour party change its view on so many things: on Brexit, on Trump, on scrapping winter fuel payments, on energy bills—

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman should allow us to fulfil the deal to which we are committed. We have put in place a trade deal and the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. Unless there are new negotiations to be had, what exactly is the purpose of the summit? I was going to end my speech, but the hon. Gentleman has inspired me to continue. The Government’s amendment relates to NATO, but NATO has nothing to do with the EU; it is a completely separate entity. Talk of dynamic realignment on defence came about after we left the EU. Ensuring an ever closer Union, through military, policing and social policy, has always been part of the plan of the European Union. That is welcome to internationalists, Liberal Democrats and Labour Members. I am sure that they would all love to have another way of binding us to the EU. NATO is separate; it has one document that has been agreed in the post-war period—

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister provide assurances from the Dispatch Box as to how the Government will compel councils—like Bradford, which has refused to participate in this inquiry or in a local inquiry—to take part? It may seem self-evident, but councils that are liable for child protection and that are found at fault are probably not going to want to participate in a local inquiry. That is why we are asking for a national inquiry. Will the Minister please set out what the Government are going to do to compel those councils to give evidence so that justice can be served for the victims?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source

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  It is wonderful to follow the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), who is my parliamentary twin, as it were. Our names are so similar that we often get confusing correspondence. He must love that as much as I do. The sewage in our rivers is of great concern to my constituents in Beaconsfield, Marlow and the South Bucks villages, as well as to my parliamentary twin on the Government Benches. In my constituency, I have worked closely with local action groups in Little Marlow and Farnham Common to secure a planned sewage upgrade for the Little Marlow sewage treatment works, through persistent lobbying of former Conservative Ministers and current Labour Ministers. I have repeatedly called for criminal sanctions against water company executives for breaches of their duties, but I have always said that more needs to be done; in particular, I urge the Minister to look again at strengthening the protection for water sports. Earlier this year, I tabled two amendments to the Water (Special Measures) Bill: one to introduce criminal sanctions for water company bosses who fail to report discharges and another to extend protections for water sports to match those for swimming waters. These are serious, meaningful changes needed to further strengthen our oversight of water companies and our waterways. In my constituency, we are rich in water sports along the Thames. We have Marlow Rowing Club, Marlow Canoe Club and the Upper Thames Sailing Club, to name just three wonderful examples, and our local schools regularly use the river for water sports. My secondary schools are out on the Thames on a daily basis, including rowing and using the river, and it would be wonderful to have to protect aquatic sports in legislation.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source

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  On the subject of the Act, it is wonderful to hear the Secretary of State say that he wants to take criminal action against water companies and water bosses, but I tabled an amendment to do just that that was rejected by the Government. Now that the Act has passed, it is interesting that the Government are so keen. Why did they not just accept my amendment, or a similar one? The Act does not mention criminal charges or what they will do, as my amendment did, but it passed without that measure being put in place. The Government are now saying from a point of retrospective gleefulness at the Dispatch Box that they would like to put that in. Is that actually going to happen?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I would like to speak to amendments 2 and 3, tabled in my name. Amendment 2 would further strengthen the Bill by making it a criminal offence for water companies to fail to report discharge from emergency overflows. Amendment 3 would prohibit such discharge in river areas such as the Thames that are used for aquatic sports. I have the privilege of representing the towns and villages of Beaconsfield, Marlow, Bourne End and the south Bucks villages. Unfortunately, we are served by Thames Water, and we have some of the highest levels of fines in the country. We are blessed with a beautiful waterway setting throughout my constituency, including the River Thames. Our area is rich in watersport clubs—the Marlow rowing club, the Marlow canoe club and the Upper Thames sailing club to name but three. Young people from high schools and grammar schools use the Thames for their water sports as well. Amendment 3 would give water used for aquatic sports the same protection as that used for bathing. It would establish clear consequences for water companies and their chief executives where they fail to comply with a clear duty to protect the water in which people practise aquatic sports, particularly rowing. That is particularly true of Thames Water and of the Thames. I appreciate the cross-party support in Committee on these amendments. Aquatic sports are an important part of our sporting heritage in this country, but storm overflow discharge into our rivers has adversely affected the health of participants, creating an ongoing health risk to rowing, sailing, canoeing and other aquatic sports clubs along the Thames and across the country. Many clubs, particularly in places such as Marlow, take their duty of care very seriously, and are having to put in place their own monitoring systems to protect their members. Amendment 3 would ensure that water used for aquatic sports was put on the same statutory footing as bathing water. It is time for water companies to take responsibility for ensuring that those waters are safe to use, and to protect our young people for the future. The amendments set out a reasonable expectation that a water company must not discharge an emergency overflow within a 1-mile radius of an area used for aquatic sports. The definition of such an area is clearly outlined, and further discretion is provided for the Secretary of State to determine such areas where needed. The amendment would bring much-needed support to our vital aquatic sports.