Julia Buckley MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 9 Dec 2025 · Railways Bill · Hansard source

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  I am surely the luckiest MP in this House, as I represent the charming, thriving border town of Shrewsbury. We are in a strategic location: we serve as a hub for Shropshire, we are on the edge of the industrial west midlands and we are the gateway to Wales. Our railway is a major transit point for Welsh services operated by Transport for Wales. With 2.2 million passengers, I am told that we are the second busiest station in Wales. There is also much latent demand for more services. However, under privatisation, we have been on the edge of other people’s maps for too long. We are the last stop on the west midlands line, and the last major station from Wales. It has held back our investment and limited our inter-city services, such as the much missed direct train to London. While our railway station is a beautiful grade II listed building, with a fabulous team of staff, led by the wonderful, long-serving manager Shelley Hall, we need our station to be more than a museum piece. In order to increase services, we must first have our master plan for bringing together infrastructure upgrades. The Railways Bill provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Shrewsbury station to fulfil its true potential under Great British Railways. We have such latent demand for additional services that when TFW upgraded our service to Birmingham to four carriages—it used to have two carriages, and 81 people standing—ticket sales went up by 18% overnight. Imagine how many more tickets we could sell to passengers at Shrewsbury when a nationalised service joins up routes and opens up opportunities for my residents. We may have 2.2 million passengers at Shrewsbury, but I am keen to support a new breed: the wannabe passengers, who want to make the modal shift away from cars and on to our rail network, and who need to travel for work, study or leisure, but for whom there are no seats or services yet. They need earlier, later and more frequent trains. In Shropshire, we still dream of that direct train to London, which would reconnect us to the capital. Research shows that it would add £9 million a year to our local economy. It is not just me who thinks that rail investment in Shrewsbury could unlock bountiful economic growth. I was delighted yesterday to see the report published by Midlands Connect for DFT entitled “Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury: a corridor for growth”, showing that connectivity between the two centres will boost regional economy, benefit productivity and support employment sectors. This corridor supports major employers, such as the i54 enterprise zone, the Battlefield enterprise park and Shrewsbury business park, as well as future developments in Shifnal and Telford. Those sites alone support more than 4,000 jobs and require improved access to rail, bus and active travel infrastructure. Enhancing that transport corridor will also deliver benefits for Wales because of the cross-border gateway and the freight connections between our two nations, and growth in this area aligns with priorities over the border. In the Budget, the Chancellor committed £445 million in investment over the next 10 years specifically to support transport infrastructure in Wales, highlighting the importance of major investment in cross-border rail activity. As the major border rail hub between an already nationalised Transport for Wales and a soon to be nationalised West Midlands Railway, Shrewsbury offers to be the strategic link that ensures the success of GBR. Only when our regions and devolved nations can co-deliver two nationalised rail systems seamlessly for passengers at hubs like mine will we have succeeded. The Great British Railways Bill was written to improve services in places like Shrewsbury, and Shrewsbury has been waiting for Great British Railways—not least my wannabe passengers, who are still hoping that it will unlock employment and economic opportunity for them. Shrewsbury will become the beating heart of our reinvigorated railway.

• 18 Nov 2025 · UNESCO: 80th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) on securing this important debate, and colleagues on the excellent contributions we have enjoyed so far. We are very fortunate in Shropshire to be home to the Ironbridge Gorge, with 10 heritage sites forming the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Forty years ago, in 1986—when I was just starting secondary school—it became one of the first locations in the UK to be designated a UNESCO world heritage site. That recognised its unique and unrivalled contribution to the birth of the industrial revolution in the 18th century. However, flooding is a persistent threat to Ironbridge and all along the River Severn, as we were unfortunately reminded this weekend. We recently had severe flood events, in 2020, 2021 and 2022, with storms such as Dudley, Eunice and Franklin. In each flood, at least two of the museums were breached, and water was waist high, leading to land slips and road closures, which of course deter visitors to the sites, and causing lasting damage to historic structures and the Wharfage area. To combat flooding, Government funding has supported local authorities to implement stabilisation and flood defence measures, including piling, improved drainage and river bank protection, to mitigate the risk of more landslides and damage from heavy rain, high groundwater levels and recurring river floods. As chair of the River Severn Partnership caucus and lead on the Environmental Audit Committee flood resilience report, I have worked consistently with stakeholders to approach this issue holistically. That means shifting the mindset, and Government resources, away from reaction and more into prevention, preparedness and co-ordination. I hope the Minister will work collaboratively with our colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that heritage sites, and particularly UNESCO sites such as Ironbridge Gorge, are prioritised in the consideration of flooding resilience. I will ensure she receives her own copy of the flood resilience report to help in that endeavour.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a really important point about the need to use these planning processes to align our transport infrastructure plans and ensure that they align with our ambitions around housing developments. Nowhere is the lack of public transport infrastructure more important than in rural constituencies such as mine, where we have my thriving town of Shrewsbury. We have 65,000 residents, but we had no buses after 7 pm or on a Sunday, until now. Thanks to a pilot, we will now have a night bus for the month before Christmas that will run hourly between 8 pm and midnight, giving a boost to our local economy. Does she agree that we must not wait 10 years for such excellent news? We must plan ahead to align both our transport policies and our development plans.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Cross-border Healthcare · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) on securing this important debate. Cross-border healthcare affects us in Shropshire because our Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust serves not just 353,000 residents across Shropshire but a further 70,000 residents just over the border in Wales, including the hon. Member’s constituents in Powys. He will be aware that, for many years, the trust languished at the bottom of the national league tables. We had the worst waiting times for both elective care and emergency treatment, as well as for ambulance pick-ups. Worse still, when we finally got an ambulance, it would then spend many hours waiting outside A&E because there were not enough beds to treat urgent patients. Much of that was documented in the TV programme “Dispatches” two years ago, which was a blow to the morale of our hard-working NHS staff. Since then, I am delighted to report, there have been radical changes at the Royal Shrewsbury hospital in my constituency. Thanks to a significant capital investment project of more than £320 million, we have been the recipient of a hospital transformation programme to improve health and care services across the piece for Shropshire, Telford and mid-Wales. We are now one year into that construction project, with more than half the structure completed—a four-storey building at the front entrance. I visited last week, and the whole area is unrecognisable from when I gave birth to my daughter there in a very old, outdated ward. The new infrastructure will provide much-needed modern facilities and clinical space to improve care for everyone, and it will interconnect with the refurbished existing hospital. In September we opened the next phase of majors and resus as part of refurbishing the emergency department. This has seen the space in the old A&E transformed; we have doubled the number of bays, improved and upgraded “fit to sit” space and created a new ambulance assessment area. We will be opening two new wards this winter, providing new facilities for gastroenterology and colorectal services, and providing more joined-up and improved services between surgical and rehabilitation teams, often out in community hospitals. Following the delivery of a modular ward unit by the treatment centre entrance, on 8 December we will celebrate a new acute ward with 56 additional beds, which will have a major impact on flow out of the emergency department. That will be felt in shorter waiting times. Since the first phase of improvements took place, the impact on our hospital has already been significant. Waiting times are down, and we have moved up more than 20 places from the bottom of the league tables. Staff morale is climbing and recruitment is buoyant. I am so proud of our hard-working NHS staff and, in particular, the hospital transformation programme led by Matt Neal and our new chief executive, Jo Williams. I am incredibly grateful for the support of the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, whose investment is not just saving lives but improving lives across my constituency and beyond into Wales. I hope the Minister will visit the hospital to see it for herself when the project is completed. I have every confidence that the work to improve the Royal Shrewsbury will continue to transform the hospital, our community and health outcomes for all our residents. It is right that a major hospital serving cross-border communities be prioritised for investment in this way.

• 16 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Will the Leader of the House join me in welcoming this week’s record investment in flooded communities, and ensure that our local community volunteers—such as the Shrewsbury Quarry, Minsterley and Coleham flood action groups—are supported as per the recommendation in the Environmental Audit Committee’s flood resilience report, published this week?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is giving a very detailed speech. Would he agree that we already have the annual carbon budget audit, which looks each year at exactly those emissions and was what drew to our attention the growth in this sector and why we need to focus exactly on driving down emissions from the aviation sector, which led us to the SAF mandate? Does he acknowledge that we already have a mechanism for this, which has helped us to get to where we are today with this excellent Bill?

• 10 Sept 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on British buses. Today’s debate is so important to the people of Shrewsbury, as we have lost over two thirds of our bus routes in the past 10 years. We are one of the largest towns in the UK, with over 65,000 residents, yet we have not seen a Sunday bus for over a decade. We also have very few evening bus services, which is holding back our nighttime economy, despite being a glorious tourist destination. The new bus powers for franchising will be a game changer for local councils such as ours in Shropshire. They will give us the opportunity to introduce new bus routes if they are considered to be socially necessary, such as that all-important Sunday service or some additional stops to widen access to our current hospital bus route and the new health clinic facilities coming down the track. It is our belief that these social routes could eventually build up their passenger numbers and ultimately become economically viable in their own right. To that end, I wish to speak in support of the Bill and new clause 45, which seeks to bring forward requirements on transport authorities to deliver the minimum level of off-peak and nighttime bus services. That could transform access to employment for many of the residents in my constituency. We have only a handful of bus services after 6 o’clock and only one single bus at 8 o’clock, yet we are the county town and host to the county’s health, governance, economic and education services, as well as being a major employer for a county of 350,000 residents. Shift workers, NHS staff and those working in hospitality—as well as those of us who enjoy hospitality—need those buses to run beyond 8 o’clock. The Shropshire bus services users group has consistently campaigned on the need for evening and the all-important Sunday bus services. Until now, no commercial company would take the risk, but within the last year, bus routes added by my local authority using Government bus service improvement plan money have led to increased passenger numbers and become embedded in our network. To overcome the reticence of private companies to widen their routes at economic risk, the local authority is ready to do that, where legislation allows and where passenger data indicates that all-important demand and socially necessary routes. The new clause would support Shropshire council by underpinning the need to re-establish evening and Sunday bus services, giving the impetus to widen those routes. To conclude, I wish to remind the Minister, as I do in every speech, that my beautiful town of Shrewsbury lost its Sunday service a decade ago under the last Government, and that it is in both our hands to ensure that we reinstate it under this Labour Government.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  In Shrewsbury, we are delighted to see the extra Government investment in our local police force, which has enabled us to reopen our town centre police hub this week. It is essential to keep our town centre safe and reduce response times. Can we have a debate on how important it is to have police hubs in the town centre in places like Shrewsbury?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Pavement Parking · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this important debate. The plight of pavement parking affects all our constituencies and, as we have heard, causes particular distress for pedestrians with young children, disabilities or sight loss. The statistics we have heard today are, frankly, shocking: that 65% of residents, and 73% of disabled residents, want councils to take on these powers, and that 80% of parents would be more likely to walk to school if there was no pavement parking. I have also heard that 93% of local councils have had complaints from members of the public on this issue. In my constituency of Shrewsbury, the issue crops up time and again. We have some beautiful historic streets that can be narrow to navigate. We are blessed with a mature population that wants to stay fit and healthy and walk into our beautiful town centre, but it has become increasingly dangerous and the pavements are not safe. I have been contacted by severely affected residents on Bell Lane, Torrin Drive and New Park Road. I would like Members to hear directly from residents on Whitemere Road. They say: “We live a few doors down from Mount Pleasant primary school, it’s becoming an absolute nightmare and is so dangerous. They park on footpaths anywhere they can, blocking drives, and access to other larger vehicles trying to get through. The state of the footpaths is terrible due to the weight of some of the cars. I have tried the Council but they say it’s up to the police. And the police tell me it’s up to the Council. Who is responsible?” Until we get clarity from our Government, that is the question we all have.

• 16 Jul 2025 · Further Education Institutions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for this excellent debate. Does she agree that colleges like mine in Shrewsbury have achieved their “outstanding” status because of the breadth of training and qualifications that they offer across a wide rural area? Do the Minister and the Department need to recognise those twin challenges? One challenge is offering qualifications from supported internships right up to level 4 degree qualifications, and there is a massive rural challenge as well. Those twin challenges must be considered.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q So it would be significantly more difficult for you without the Bill? Matt Gorman: It would be much more difficult to produce in the UK; all the investors and fuel suppliers we talk to say so. There are huge advantages in doing that—for jobs, growth and energy security, as well as for decarbonisation .

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q My second question is about your role at Heathrow. We heard from earlier witnesses that, because the generation fuels are drop-in fuels, they are fairly confident that they could rely on existing infrastructure for storage and so on. As the person in charge of Heathrow, our largest airport, how confident are you that existing infrastructure and storage spaces can accommodate drop-in fuels? Matt Gorman: Very confident, from everything we hear from fuel suppliers in this space. Looking at the different bits of infrastructure, starting briefly with aircraft and engines, the main aircraft and engine manufacturers are in the process of certifying all their aircraft to run on 100% SAF. In a sense, we do not have to worry about that problem immediately, because—apart from dedicated flights—we do not have 100% SAF flowing through pipes, but that is clearly their goal. I forget the exact dates, but I think that by the end of this decade they will all be doing it, if not before. On pipelines and aircraft infrastructure, one of the main reasons that we have focused on SAF is that it requires upstream investment in production facilities, but it does not require changes in airport infrastructure or planes. That means that as soon as you can start producing SAF, you can start cutting carbon. As an illustration, at Heathrow, partly in anticipation while waiting for some of the Government market signals to develop and kick in, we introduced a landing charge incentive—a financial incentive. It started at 0.5% a couple of years ago, and now 3% of all the fuel being used at Heathrow is SAF, which has dropped into our systems without any issues. I should also say that 17% of the total global production of SAF is now uplifted through Heathrow.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I have two questions. The first relates to your role on the board of Sustainable Aviation. You referred earlier to the key part the Bill plays in decarbonisation and reaching net zero. On behalf of that board, from the wider sector perspective, do you think that it is possible to reach net zero by 2050 without the Bill? Matt Gorman: That is a good question. We have not studied it in those terms. We have published a plan to get to net zero, and there are four key tools in the toolkit. SAF is one; zero-emission and hydrogen-powered aircraft are others. More efficient aircraft and more efficient operations deliver a huge amount, and there are greenhouse gas removals for anything that we cannot cut within the sector. SAF is important. We have always said that a combination of a mandate requiring production and incentives to stimulate investment in the UK is important. We are delighted to see the Government progressing with the Bill: we would like it to be passed as soon as possible, and we would like the consultation on the implementation to move forward. I would simply say that SAF is very important and that the Bill is very important to driving UK production.

• 2 Jul 2025 · EU Trade Agreement: Economic Impact · Hansard source

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  Which of the sanitary and phytosanitary and agrifood requirements does the Secretary of State expect to be removed on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland as a result of the SPS agreement with the EU?

• 2 Jul 2025 · EU Trade Agreement: Economic Impact · Hansard source

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  7. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the UK-EU trade agreement announced on 19 May 2025 on the economy in Northern Ireland.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government · Hansard source

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  I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for launching last week’s consultation on the fair funding review 2.0. It was a beautiful moment for those of us who represent rural constituencies such as mine in Shrewsbury, because the consultation will ask councils to put forward evidence that explains the additional costs of delivering services across a rural area—the all-important rural sparsity. What does it mean? It means that in Shropshire, we have to travel distances of up to 40 miles. Imagine every person driving for social care and every school transport driving to a special needs school. That can cost up to eight times more than under an urban council. We must think about our demographics. On average, we are nine years older than the rest of the country. The pressure that that puts on social care means that more than 80% of our budget is already spent just on social care. I worked in local government for 25 years. My job was in local government funding at the regional and local levels, and I can say that everybody who worked with me—from every party and in every rural council—has been lobbying for 20 years for this kind of fairer funding for rurality. My plea goes out to those who are listening that they will engage with their local councils and ask them to send the evidence to this consultation, because this Labour Government are listening to rural areas and delivering for them.

• 19 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Thanks to Government investment in Royal Shrewsbury hospital, we are doubling the size of our A&E and adding 120 extra beds to our wards. While the construction site is taking up space in the car park, my local trust has arranged a free park-and-ride bus for NHS staff. Does the Leader of the House agree that my trust’s best practice example could lead the way for other hospitals to encourage modal shifts by providing free bus passes to NHS staff, leaving parking spaces for patients?

• 19 Jun 2025 · Water Safety Education · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for securing this important debate. Shrewsbury is famous for being looped by the beautiful River Severn. It is a source of beauty, nature, tourism and livelihoods for my town, but also, unfortunately, the scene of 14 deaths in the last 10 years. Overwhelmingly, those deaths occurred at the weekends or in the evenings, by men, sometimes after a night out or because of mental ill health, and sometimes because of those two factors combined. In April 2022 there were two river deaths in quick succession: Toby Jones and Nathan Fleetwood. Those deaths brought the town together, to say that we had had too many such deaths and that we needed to look at the issue as a community to see what could be done. Our local stakeholders and councils came together and launched a water safety campaign. They set up the new Water Safety Action Group, funded by West Mercia Police. We set up safer route signage along the river; got funding for increased solar lighting and rescue throw lines; set up free online water safety courses for schools, colleges and clubs; and we had a poster campaign in pubs and clubs. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham and Beckton (James Asser) will be delighted to hear that we created videos, to be broadcast in pubs and put out on social media, that told the story of what could go wrong. We also educated bar staff about not overselling alcohol, when too much is too much, and we trained them in mental health response, working with our street pastors. We had free training from the RNLI on waterside response schemes, helping our local businesses. We got funding for CCTV, and we set up the Shrewsbury rangers scheme and taxi marshals to help people to get home safely late in the evening. I am really proud of my town—of how we took this issue on and said, “We don’t want this to happen in Shrewsbury.” I am proud to the House that the number of deaths has reduced slightly. I pay tribute to our local stakeholders, who responded so quickly and thoroughly to what we considered to be an emergency, and supported our local community. I thank Shropshire council, Shrewsbury town council, our business improvement district, West Mercia police for its funding and support, our street pastors, the fire and rescue service and our local residents’ “Make Our River Safer” Facebook group. Together, as communities, we can help to move the dial.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Shrewsbury has waited 10 years for a Labour Government to bring forward this Bill. Over the course of the last Government, our county of Shropshire lost over 63% of our bus routes, meaning that two out of three buses have been withdrawn. That was due to the savage privatisation that forced bus companies to pursue profits over passengers. For my residents, this meant that bus routes were stripped away from villages and they are now cut off from vital health and education services, work and leisure. It means that we have no buses after 6.30 pm anywhere in my constituency. It also means that we have no buses anywhere on a Sunday. In fact, in Shrewsbury we have not seen a Sunday bus for 10 years. I do not know how familiar Members are with my wonderful, beautiful constituency, but Shrewsbury is a market town of 65,000 residents. It is the county town of Shropshire and hosts health, public and cultural services for 19 market towns and 400 villages, yet we are the only county town in this country not to have a Sunday bus service. It is a disgrace, and it is a painful symptom of the impact that the last Government had on public services in towns like mine up and down the country. The lack of evening services puts severe constraints on our night-time economy and the potential for residents to get home safely after work, travel or an evening out. Not everyone can afford to run a car or is medically able to drive. The population in Shropshire is nine years older than the national average, so many older residents have given up their vehicles and find themselves stranded in the evenings and at weekends. In some villages, they are left completely socially isolated. One of my constituents, Christine Hart, is in her 70s, lives in a residential suburb of Shrewsbury, and is a very active volunteer in her local community. Following her knee replacement operation last month, she became reliant on buses. She could not be happier with our new on-demand electric minibuses in her area funded via the Government’s bus service improvement plan. She is such a convert that she plans to keep using them even after her recovery. However, she explained to me that although she could get to a 5 pm doctor’s appointment, she has no way of getting home because there are no evening buses in Shrewsbury. I am regularly contacted by employees who tell me that by the time they finish work at 6 pm, they cannot get across to the bus station to catch the last bus home. We are preventing residents getting to and from employment, putting a real block on economic growth. This is corroborated by my local chamber of commerce, which runs a quarterly business survey with its businesses. We receive regular feedback every single quarter that the primary barrier to recruitment is the lack of bus services that run early enough and late enough to support people—young people in particular—to access employment opportunities. My sorry tale from Shrewsbury is of a beautiful place that is very often cut off from the communities and individuals without a car, and the last thing we want to encourage is even more congestion in our historic town centre. We must try to rebuild our public transport system, which was dismantled by the Conservatives during their time in office. They should hang their heads in shame for every one of the 5,000 miles in bus routes that they cancelled in towns like mine, for every youngster who cannot access a job opportunity, for every pensioner who cannot visit their family on a Sunday, and for every village cut off from public services. Ten years is a long time to wait to be reconnected to the outside world, but the good people of Shrewsbury will today be celebrating as we debate this Bill, which will give back to local authorities the power to run services for passengers, not just for profit. The Bill has a clause that allows for socially necessary routes to link up medical, educational or public services to the local community at stops and times that empower them, not just the operator. By changing the law to move away from exclusive privatisation, we can move forward to a responsive, community-led model for our public transport authorities. The Bill will not just improve lives in Shrewsbury, but transform lives, aspirations and the wellbeing of my residents, who have waited a decade for a Labour Government to give us back our Sunday service.

• 21 May 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. The Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway is on track to link north Wales and my Shrewsbury constituency directly to London, with five trains daily, strengthening cross-border travel and fuelling this Government’s mission to drive economic growth. With 15 Members from constituencies along the route already on board, will the Prime Minister support our journey and urge the Office of Rail and Road to give WSMR’s open access application the green signal?

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

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  Will the Leader of the House join me in welcoming tomorrow’s launch of the national celebration called Love Your Local Market? It is a two-week campaign where markets upload their details to a map, and we can promote their businesses, food and culture as a key driver of local economic growth, such as my fabulous indoor market in Shrewsbury, voted the UK’s favourite market for the third year running.

• 13 May 2025 · Flooding: Planning and Developer Responsibilities · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) for securing this important debate. As the Member for Shrewsbury, flooding is always a priority for me, as it is for my residents, businesses and local services, because our historic town is encircled by the beautiful yet powerful River Severn. Some of my residents have been flooded over 20 times since 1998, and our active Shrewsbury Business Flood Action Group is providing valuable support for them. They often struggle to find affordable insurance to cope. On funding, I thank the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for investing over £16 million this financial year in projects that protect communities such as mine all along the River Severn catchment. As the newly elected chair of the River Severn Partnership, I am delighted to see a suite of demonstrator projects that will develop nature-based solutions upstream for longer-term resilience. DEFRA is demonstrating its understanding and commitment to the scale of this issue and rising to the challenge. In terms of datasets, which I know the hon. Gentleman is very concerned about, DEFRA already published new online data on the Government website in January that show the updated risk of flood from the combined sources of rivers, seas and surface water. For the first time, surface-water flooding is incorporated into that new national flood risk assessment, and that will help individual residents and businesses to know whether the risk is coming downstream or up through their drain gullies—or sometimes both. In March, DEFRA then incorporated that dataset to update the flood zone planning maps that are often used by local authority planning officers and developers. We now have accurate risk assessments for all development sites, which I know environmental campaigners are really keen to hear. We finally have a Government who understand that we need to stop building on areas at risk of flooding, and we have delivered the data, the mapping and the intelligence to inform those local decisions and uphold that approach. Finally, in terms of local agencies and their responsibilities, I am pleased to inform the hon. Gentleman that I have secured an inquiry through the Environmental Audit Committee to examine flood preparedness and response. It will look particularly at the fragmentation of responsibilities across many agencies, and its impact on budgets and on how we can best co-ordinate. I hope that we can provide some helpful recommendations to the Minister, and perhaps find some efficiencies and ways to work better together towards prevention rather than cure. As with the demonstrator projects along the River Severn, Shrewsbury is once again leading the way.

• 7 May 2025 · Educational Opportunities in Semi-rural Areas · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for securing this vital debate. My concern for Shrewsbury also focuses on educational opportunities for 16 to 18-year-olds, in terms of both funding and geographical access. My local provider map will probably mirror that of many other semi-rural areas: the constituency serves the whole county of 19 market towns, and in recent years there has been a domino effect as smaller schools have closed down their sixth forms, leading to a centralisation in the county. As a result, Shrewsbury Colleges Group now supports more than 10,000 students. It is the sixth largest college in the country, offers a wide range of courses, and was recently graded as “outstanding” by Ofsted. However, the situation presents geographic barriers to those aged 16 and 17 who live across the county in those smaller villages, due to the lack—as we have heard—of public transport. In Shropshire we have limited train stations and we have lost more than 5,000 bus routes in the past 12 years, leaving many young people excluded from opportunities. One example was a hairdresser I met in the village of Broseley. I asked her why she became a hairdresser; she said that she had really wanted to do an apprenticeship in engineering, but there were no buses, and this was the only apprenticeship she could walk to. There is poverty of opportunity, as young people reduce their aspirations to match their transport options. That is depressing enough, but even where there is a bus between towns, the average annual ticket costs £750. It is known locally as the “A-level tax”, and for many families it is completely unaffordable. However, many rural colleges do not receive additional funding to help with the bursaries they offer. Colleges such as Shrewsbury combine both A-levels and FE courses, yet they fall between the two stools when it comes to funding. I urge the Minister to review the anomaly whereby sixth forms and FE colleges receive funding, but where the two are combined, as they often are in rural areas, they miss out on crucial funding.

• 6 May 2025 · Parking Regulation · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that private parking firms are running a racket in this country by adding debt recovery fees on top of already expensive parking fines? Will he join me in urging the Minister to bring forward the new regulatory code as soon as possible and ensure that it includes the ability to prevent the addition of bailiffs’ charges on top of already expensive fines?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Household Energy Efficiency · Hansard source

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  Royal Shrewsbury hospital in my constituency was delighted to receive a £450,000 investment for solar panels, which will see our local trust save more than £1 million by reducing its energy bills in the lifetime of the project. Will the Secretary of State join me in celebrating this excellent start to our nationalised Great British Energy company and update the House on the next steps to get us towards that mission?