Julia Lopez MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this gets to the nub of the challenge? The BBC has a unique social contract with the public. It has the licence fee because people trust it to produce high-quality, impartial, trusted content. That is precisely the reason we have the BBC. If there is a sense from the public that that trust is being lost, that is a fundamental challenge to the BBC’s future. With Russia and China putting ever more money into their own state broadcasters, this represents a much wider challenge than just one for us here in the UK.

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State has talked about her support for mutualisation, but it has never been clear to me what that actually means. Could the Minister give us more details?

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  Would the hon. Gentleman accept that, whether or not he is a supporter of the licence fee, fewer people are choosing to pay it, so we have a problem that needs to be dealt with, regardless of one’s view on the licence fee and its future?

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend will recognise, as I do, that one big challenge in relation to the BBC is that many of those who are most opposed to its further commercialisation are the other public service broadcasters, who worry about disruption to their own revenue streams, particularly in relation to advertising. That is why it is tricky to come up with an alternative to the licence fee.

• 18 Dec 2024 · BBC: Funding · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Lady agree that the BBC’s unique currency is trust, and that one of the challenges in recent years is that people have lost faith in the BBC as an organisation that produces impartial news? One challenge that I saw in the last Parliament was that the BBC was reducing local and regional journalism, even while protecting some very large salaries for its biggest stars. That is one of the reasons why people are losing faith that the BBC is investing in journalism in the way that it should and in the way that people expect from a public service broadcaster.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Immigration and Nationality Statistics · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Immigration and Nationality Statistics · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that some excellent work on the issue of data and immigration has been done by our hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), who has been a cheerleader for getting the kind of information that would help us inform public policy? As he is talking about social housing, does he share my concerns that the Labour Government seem to be moving away from some of the provisions we put in place to prioritise British people for housing?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Fireworks: Sale and Use · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for bringing this issue to Westminster Hall. As we have already heard, fireworks can be a very polarising subject. Like many other Members, in the run-up to this debate I have had countless emails from animal lovers in my constituency who want to see certain fireworks banned, and noise limits and other restrictions introduced. However, I have also had briefings from fireworks fans and lovers of our bonfire night traditions who worry about moves to change the law. Someone who has always understood both sides of that debate is Alan Smith and it is on Alan’s behalf that I speak today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley has said, Alan is the son of my constituent, Josephine Smith. She was a beautiful 88-year-old lady from Harold Wood, who lost her life in a house fire after a lit firework was stuffed through her letterbox in October 2021. Alan is in the Gallery today and I am very grateful to him for his courage in highlighting an issue that has caused him and his family such pain and trauma. Alan recently came to Parliament to speak to me, and I know that he has also spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley. He described the role that Guy Fawkes night always played in his happy family when he was growing up; it was one of the few times in the year when everybody got together. Each year his dad, Derek, would go to the shop to buy a little display box, a pack of sparklers and maybe a pack of rockets, as happens in many families; Josephine would make the jacket potatoes; their two ponies were put in their stables and the cattle put in another field; and the dog would go into the house, with the radio on. When raising his own family, Alan always had a fireworks display in the garden, or they attended a local organised display. His experience was like that of countless of our constituents. However, on 28 October 2021, those happy memories and traditions were upended. Around 9 o’clock, he was woken by his wife, Lisa, with the words he still hears every day: “Al, your mum’s house is on fire.” When he rushed to Josephine’s home, he recalls, he saw emergency services outside the building, and then saw his mother’s body being brought, lifeless, in a fireman’s arms. The scene, he says, was like a horror movie. A fire officer later came over to say that they found a firework just inside the door. Early the next morning, the family were told that arrests had been made: an 18-year-old and 15-year-old had deliberately put a firework through Josephine’s door. They were later charged with arson and manslaughter. During the trial at the Old Bailey, CCTV of the night in question was shown. It showed teenagers laughing and joking with the salesperson. I have seen the CCTV with Alan, and it is very worrying. The conversation from the two youths included the following: “People are going to get terrorised tonight,” and “We are going to throw them at the police.” The person manning the shop goes on to say, “You can hold them, throw them, do what you like with them.” Alan’s entire family were distraught. Two stupid boys had been sold fireworks by a man apparently with years of experience in selling them, and full knowledge of the boys’ intentions. Both those young people are now serving custodial sentences. A further trial had to take place for the shop owner and sales assistant. As Alan says: “The two youths were stupid, irresponsible thugs who had not had the best of childhoods and were not even thinking when they caused havoc in our lives that night.” In contrast, the retailer “was a grown man with years of experience in selling fireworks, yet still decided to sell them to a minor who had stated his intentions to ‘terrorise’.” Fireworks4Sale, the shop involved, was fined in the region of £17,000. The seller himself was fined £1,200 and received a six-week sentence, which was suspended for 12 months. The actions of the shop that night made Alan question whether the laws and regulations for the sale of fireworks are robust enough. That brings me here today to debate the petition that Alan started, from his grief and desire not to see future tragedies like that which led to the loss of his beautiful mother. The debate around the use of fireworks creates a great deal of division, but despite the tragedy Alan can still see both sides of the argument. He says: “Arguing and insulting each other is not the way to a sensible and mutually agreeable solution to the problem.” He asks for “a sensible, respectful debate, so those that wish to enjoy fireworks on the few important days of the year can do so. And in turn, those who have pets, PTSD, mental health issues etc only have to manage their situation on a handful of dates a year.” The fireworks used to take Josephine’s life were bought on a whim on a local high street. Alan asks whether a more robust licence requirement might have prevented her death. The Minister has kindly agreed to meet me and Alan in the new year. Before then, I want to ask some brief questions on Alan’s behalf. First, fireworks can currently be used from 7 am to 11 pm, 365 days a year; would a 4 pm to 10 pm window be more acceptable? Secondly, the safe distance from F2 fireworks is 8 metres, and the safe distance from F3 fireworks is 25 metres; given that the vast majority of UK gardens do not meet that minimum size, is it safe to use them in private gardens? Thirdly, fireworks can be bought easily on the high street—it was an impulse that resulted in Josephine’s death—so do regulations around high street sale need to change? Fourthly, even when fireworks are set off legally at organised displays, organisers often do not take into account the surroundings, so should there be safe buffer zones around such displays? Many debates have taken place over the years, and the response is often that the industry is already heavily regulated and that the regulations are adequate. I therefore ask on Alan’s behalf, and on behalf of everybody whose constituents are affected by this: is now the time to look at the issue much more deeply, so that future tragedies, like that which affected Josephine, do not happen?

• 9 Dec 2024 · Primary School Breakfast Clubs · Hansard source

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  Nurseries and the small businesses that provide before and after-school clubs are being whacked by national insurance increases, and there is little clarity from the Government about how these breakfast clubs will work, which has the potential to undermine another part of their business model. What representations has the Education Secretary made to the Chancellor to deal with the massive hole that she has blown in her plans?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  I was interested by the train drivers’ pay deal, where the Government actually went back to the deal that we had made and undid the productivity commitments that we put in. Why would the Chancellor front-load spending on the NHS before the Health Secretary even has a plan for how he will use that precious cash, therefore risking billions being wasted? It makes no sense, and everyone outside this place and all those inside it, apart from the Labour Members who are gleefully wafting their Order Papers around, can see that. The Chancellor is asking for an extra £40 billion in taxes from the British people, and it is largely being taken from some of the most productive, entrepreneurial people in the country: the people who provide jobs and who do the right thing. I worry deeply that their good money is going to be poured into the public sector and benefits without any noticeable improvement in public services, and that when that happens, the Chancellor is going to come back for more. The incentive for anyone in this country to be entrepreneurial, to stick their neck out, to take the risk of employing people or to build true wealth for this nation will diminish. We will then find ourselves in a downward spiral, ever more unable to withstand external shocks and ever less appealing as a country in which our young people will want to stay to create, to innovate and to build. As we know, a big chunk of that £40 billion is coming from the sneaky rise in employer national insurance—something the Government obscured from their plans in July—but let us start with the pain that the Chancellor’s choice on NI is causing her own Cabinet colleagues. She has blown holes in the budgets of every major Government Department. The Health Secretary now has problems with GPs, pharmacies, social care and hospices. The Deputy Prime Minister has councils telling her that they have to find over £1 billion extra to pay providers for their services. The Culture Secretary has charities, tourism businesses and cultural venues telling her that they have major problems. The Education Secretary has had to raise tuition fees by £400 million because universities are telling her that they now have a hole in their budgets of exactly the same size. It goes on. I want to talk about the pain that this policy is causing to my constituents, particularly the lowering of the NI threshold, which is whacking the kind of businesses that employ a lot of young lower-wage workers, parents getting back into the workplace and people who are picking up extra jobs to make ends meet. Let me give some examples. The first is a local after-school club provider employing 34 people and offering wraparound clubs that help out hundreds of Havering families. It is the kind of club that makes that work/family juggle survivable. Because of the NICs hike and the lowering of the threshold, its bill is going to rise from £10,851 to £26,040 annually. The last thing it wants to do is to lose staff or hike fees for local families, but it cannot see a way around that. Another example is an outdoor activities business that gives young people across London the most amazing opportunities. Its costs next year are going to increase by £70,000 as a direct result of the Budget, and it now worries that it will not be able to fund the young people’s bursary that is providing over 1,300 disadvantaged kids in the region with outdoor experiences. A third is a home care business that looks after older people in Havering. Its branch in Hornchurch faces paying an extra £100,000 a year, making it loss-making from April. That is absolutely crazy.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  No, I am afraid there is simply not enough time. Finally, I want to mention a small private school in my constituency. Its pupils are some of the most vulnerable and deprived in our capital, as it is an alternative provision school. First, the Labour Government hit it with VAT. Now they are going to hit it with NICs and wage increases. Either it absorbs that cost or it passes it on to the local council. Those are four businesses from Harold Hill to Hornchurch providing critical services to my constituents, employing young people and giving working families opportunities. Now they are going to be hit by tens of thousands in extra costs, and that is before I even talk about the GPs, the pharmacists, the dentists, the charities, the shops, the restaurants and the pubs. It is for them that I am going to wholeheartedly—

• 4 Dec 2024 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor’s Budget has created a right mess. No matter how regularly the Prime Minister bleats that he is fixing the foundations, it is a mess of Labour’s own making, date stamped 30 October 2024. The OBR has forensically dismantled the Government’s pathetic fallacy of a £22 billion black hole, but even if it had not, my constituents are not stupid. If the Chancellor was as worried by the state of the public finances as she said she was, why would she increase borrowing by £32 billion annually, undermining our financial resilience? Why would she make the choice to splurge cash on union pay rises with no productivity commitments? Why would she make a series of decisions that would lead the OBR to downgrade its growth forecasts since our April Budget?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Migration and Border Security · Hansard source

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  In the previous Parliament, Labour consistently voted down stricter border laws and signed bleeding-heart letters trying to prevent the deportation of criminals from this country. In government, they have cancelled restrictions on family routes and removed the offshore processing options. I therefore confess that I am deeply sceptical that Labour will be successful in controlling immigration. The Iraq deal sounds promising as a headline but, truly, what difference will £500,000 to the Iraqi Government make to the volume of channel crossings?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In recent weeks, the number of channel crossings has been far higher than the Home Office expected, which is why we have seen Ministers rapidly approving new asylum hotels. We are told that the situation is temporary, because asylum claims are apparently now being processed faster and people are being moved through accommodation faster too. What reassurances can the Home Secretary give my constituents that the faster processing of asylum claims, with no deterrent in the system, will not simply act as a massive incentive for more people to come here on small boats?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Lower Thames Crossing · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will be aware that it was the vision of the Thatcher Government in the 1980s that took the area of Docklands and transformed it into Canary Wharf. There have been similar attempts over the years to do that with the Thames estuary, because there is such enormous economic potential; it would be transformative for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, for mine and for the entire region. It would reflect a dearth of ambition if we did not see the same level of effort and ingenuity going into this project, because the project would be transformative. This is not just about daily problems for our constituents; it is about that economic transformation, which would have a lasting impact for our country.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I spoke to some of the DCMS stakeholders who went to the investment summit, and they came away worried. They see a Government who absolutely milk their stardust, but all they hear is new taxes, new employment regulations, other Departments riding roughshod over DCMS interests and delays to decisions. Can the Secretary of State be specific? When she says that she is “putting rocket boosters” under the creative industries, what does that mean in practice?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State believes that it is not good policy that counts, but good vibes: the violent indifference that led to a booming creative sector is no longer; the culture war is over; and we, the vanquished, submit ourselves for re-education along with the rest of the public. The problem is that every DCMS sector tells us that they want more than vibes; they need decisions and they want a Budget that will deliver. Can she tell us whether she is among the panicked Ministers who have written to the Chancellor about the Budget and their spending asks, and which has she listed as her priority?

• 9 Oct 2024 · Film Industry · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for my first chance at the Dispatch Box formally to congratulate the right hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on her new job following the electoral loss of the erstwhile Member for Bristol West, Thangam Debbonaire—I know it was unexpected. Given those circumstances, it must be difficult to have in a No. 2 someone who has greeted her leapfrog into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport job with all the enthusiasm of Scar when Simba returns to the pride lands. I, for one, am glad that out of the ashes of Thangam’s tragedy, a new era of lion and hyena did not come to pass. I congratulate the Secretary of State on a tremendous achievement. With 100 days of Labour looming, she has the honour on day 97 of announcing Labour’s first decent policy. We know it is decent, because it is a Conservative policy. Do not be fooled: today’s statutory instrument puts into effect the extra support for independent film that we, the Conservatives, brought in at the March Budget. Our announcement followed months of careful work with brilliant organisations such as Pact and the British Film Institute, and it was welcomed by industry titans such as Chris Nolan, Barbara Broccoli, Steve McQueen and Ridley Scott. At the time, the BFI dubbed it “a game changer for UK filmmakers” and British storytelling, and “the most significant policy intervention since the 1990s.” The Chancellor and the Culture Secretary now say it is all part of their plan for growth, but it was our plan for growth. As far as I know, they have not got one. Even their plan for tax seems to be falling apart, as the socialist utopia of opposition hits the reality of governing. The policy was the latest in a seriously successful suite of Conservative-created tax reliefs that mean this new Labour Government inherit a thriving industry to steward. I am genuinely glad that something has finally been announced ahead of the London film festival. It is a tremendous showcase of UK talent that we backed with £1.7 million from our creative sector vision. Through it, we have gifted the Culture Secretary something to say, the Chancellor something to back instead of tax, the Prime Minister another sparkling event to go to and the Home Secretary a new police escort to fund, but it has taken too long. The consistent feedback we are getting from every DCMS sector is simple: what is going on? Where is the plan? If the Culture Secretary gets invited to the latest gallery opening, will she finally commit to continuing the museums and galleries exhibition tax relief at the extended rate, as we committed to in the March Budget? If she gets invited on another rollercoaster, will she give clarity on whether we will secure investment in a new film theme park in Bedfordshire in time for the investment summit? If the Prime Minister gets a bit more time in Arsenal’s exec suite, will the footballing world get clarity on how this Government wish to regulate it? Can she reply to my letter, sent weeks ago, that asked all these questions and more? In her media round this morning, the Secretary of State claimed that Gordon Brown was behind the success of the British film industry. Does the Secretary of State remember that in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2022 and 2024, Labour voted against our film, video game and TV tax reliefs? Does she accept that regardless of the positive investment environment we created, it is the ingenuity of Britain’s film makers, costume designers, writers, runners, researchers, post-production talent and actors who have made the UK the best place in the world to make films? We cannot take it for granted. With the Irish Government announcing last week that Ireland will receive its own boosted tax incentives for films under €20 million, can she commit to keeping a close eye on international competitors, so that we do not lose our edge? Finally, the Culture Secretary’s press release states: “The new measures are the latest in a series of interventions from the government to drive growth, which is creating the conditions for confident investment and trusted partnership with business.” Can she name any other growth measures that Labour has revealed that are not rebadged Conservative policies and announcements, or things that will not drive growth, which is to say, anything announced by Ed Miliband?