Julia Buckley MP: speeches

Speeches

• 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?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Minsterley village has recently seen its rural outreach post office service withdrawn with just two days’ notice. The unplanned closure affects three villages. No explanation or consultation was given to residents, the postmaster, the council or the three Members of Parliament, in clear breach of the principles of engagement set out by the Government. Will the Leader of the House please raise with the relevant Business and Trade Minister my residents’ serious concerns and ensure that the Post Office is fulfilling its obligations to rural communities such as mine?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source

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  Forgive me, but I must make some progress. We have also forced the water companies to deliver on their five-year investment plans for sustainable urban drainage to rectify the inadequate infrastructure, which has not kept pace with capacity over the past 30 years. In Shropshire, which I represent, that means an additional investment of £500 million to rectify our sewage drainage over the next five years. I have been an MP for only a few months, but in that short time I am proud of the Government’s swift and decisive action to immediately curtail the excesses of the privatised water industry. In my constituency of Shrewsbury, we have significant sewage outflows in the town centre, as the beautiful River Severn completely loops round the centre, with over 30 combined sewage overflows. Underground, we have inadequate Victorian infrastructure, which has been ignored under our cobbled streets. The Water (Special Measures) Act could not come quickly enough for my constituents in Shrewsbury. It has already delivered all three asks of the Liberal Democrats in today’s debate: we have taken urgent action; we have legislated to protect consumers against sewage dumping; and we have ensured that the public have the information they need. No one can question this Government’s commitment to cleaning up water. The only question is why the Liberal Democrats voted against this important Act.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his amusing intervention, but more important is the measure in the 2025 Act that bans bonuses when the high standards of our environmental protections are not met.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source

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  I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your excellent chairmanship. Our important Bill has not just banned bonuses, but introduced criminal liability, which will mean that, finally, chief executives and senior leadership figures can end up in prison for up to two years. We have also introduced mandatory electronic sensors, which monitor the overflows in real time. This is objective data that is measured in real time, and, crucially, as this is an important question from the Liberal Democrats, that data is available to the public.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Sewage · Hansard source

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  I thank the Liberal Democrats for securing this important debate. They are asking the Government today for three key commitments: to take urgent action to end the sewage scandal; to provide greater protection against sewage dumping; and to ensure that the public know when rivers are clean and safe. I have some great news for the Liberal Democrats, because we have pretty much delivered all that already. This Labour Government acted urgently to bring forward the Water (Special Measures) Act—it was one of our first pieces of legislation in our first King’s Speech and became law this February—to end the disgraceful behaviour of the water companies. The legislation does exactly what it says on the tin: it puts our disgraceful water companies into special measures, just like a school that has failed its Ofsted exam. The Government are wading in to ramp up regulation and enforcement of these companies. We will ensure that their focus is back on consumers—their experience, their service level and their bills—so we have been working on additional regulation. The Liberal Democrats talked about a lack of resourcing, but from what we have heard today—this is also in the Water (Special Measures) Act—it is very clear that the polluter will pay and that water companies’ fines will come back into the EA to put the much-needed resourcing where it should be.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Road Safety and Active Travel to School · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) on securing this vital debate. I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group for cycling and walking, which he chairs. Cycling is a key priority for my constituency of Shrewsbury, where 68% of pupils aged 10 and 11 were trained under the famous Bikeability scheme at school. Unfortunately, in our historic town, we have in recent years allowed the car to dominate most of our neighbourhoods to the detriment of road safety. Just last month, on 20 March, I met the young people on the Shrewsbury youth council at the Grange Centre in Harlescott, and listened to their feedback on our Shrewsbury Moves plan for more active travel. They told me they do not feel safe cycling on the roads due to the speed of drivers and lack of cycle paths. Does the Minister agree that investment in segregated routes to create that all-important separation between cyclists and motor vehicles is vital to enabling and encouraging more people to cycle and walk short journeys, such as across my congested, yet beautiful town of Shrewsbury?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Last weekend in my constituency, our Shrewsbury Moves festival celebrated progress towards our 10-year plan to implement more inclusive and integrated public transport across our beautiful medieval town. What additional transport is the Department making available to historic and economically thriving towns such as Shrewsbury in order to combat congestion by enabling more integrated public transport?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Farming · Hansard source

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  I have just explained that it was 12,000 lower since the start of the previous Government, so by the hon. Gentleman’s own admission, presumably that is a catastrophic failure. So let us support our farmers to deliver their high-quality food to high environmental and welfare standards into more markets, such as by the Government’s new procurement policy—

• 13 Mar 2025 · Farming · Hansard source

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  That is most interesting. That is exactly the direction of travel—to make farming more productive and profitable, we must embrace innovation. Let us take support measures, such as the Government’s new procurement policy to “back British farming” from DEFRA, which will promise that 50% of public-funded catering must come from local farms that meet our high welfare standards. That means that every meal in every hospital, on every Army camp and in every prison will be supplied with at least 50% local produce from British farmers. I cannot wait to see the impact that will have at Royal Shrewsbury hospital and Nesscliffe Army camp in my constituency. I am sure that Opposition Members have questions about yesterday, because following yesterday’s announcement from DEFRA, several farmers got in touch with me with questions about the proposed changes to the SFI schemes. I was glad to reassure any farmer who has applied that their grant will be forthcoming, as all submissions will be honoured from the budget, which has now been completely maximised—in contrast to last year, when the previous Government were unable to distribute the funds to desperate farmers, wasting £350 million. Under this Government, the entire budget has been committed three weeks before the end of the financial year, helping over 57,000 farmers. Ministers have clearly set out their approach, which will take on board feedback from farmers on the complexity and inconsistency of the previous schemes, and aim to provide a more carefully managed programme. The new, improved SFI scheme will reopen this summer with a larger budget and a more targeted approach, delivered in a fair and more orderly way, ensuring value for money for taxpayers and investing in food production and nature recovery projects. In my professional career before coming to this place, I worked for over 20 years to design, develop and deliver EU grant funding schemes such as these. In my professional experience, the most impactful schemes are those with a robust strategic objective, that are multi-annual in nature and take regular opportunities to review and improve technical specifications with feedback from applicants. I welcome this review and launch—

• 13 Mar 2025 · Farming · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to be able to contribute to this debate, given that I have 350 farmers in my constituency of Shrewsbury, which is famous for its food and drink sector, and not least for the nation’s favourite market. Shropshire overall has more farm holdings than any other county in the UK. I am very proud of some of our produce, and in particular I am proud of a new technology that is being used in our area of outstanding natural beauty, which is unlocking hilly and rocky terrain for new productive land use. I have had the privilege to be invited to visit so many of our farms, and work alongside local support networks such as the Shropshire NFU, the Country Land and Business Association and our farmers support fund locally. Overwhelmingly, my farmers tell me one key message: farming is tough. Profit margins are so tight and they have struggled for years with high input costs—such as energy, fertiliser and animal feed, up by 44% since 2019—while food prices from the big six supermarkets have been decreasing since Brexit, leaving us with some of the lowest prices in Europe, further compounded by terrible trade deals with New Zealand and Australia. Low productivity in farming is not just an academic description; it is a harsh reality for the 12,000 farm livelihoods that were forced out of business since 2010. To help us comprehend the scale of sectoral collapse under the previous Government: that means that more than 850 farms went under every year of their Government —16 farms closing every week. It has left farming with the lowest profitability of any sector in the UK. This has to change. For the sake of our hard-working farmers, and for the sake of our vital food security, we must revitalise farming with productivity, new technology and sustainability.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister outline what steps the Department is taking to help increase trade with the Asia Pacific, and in particular the Philippines, where a major local company in my constituency, Beaver Bridges, is hoping to expand and grow significantly, with the trade support of this Government?

• 6 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I am proud to represent historic Shrewsbury, with our grade II listed building, but it is currently not being used to its full potential as the gateway to our magnificent town. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Transport to make a statement about ensuring that the transition to Great British Railways allows for unlocking our beautiful railway assets for public and commercial use, which would transform our station quarter?