Julia Lopez MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2025 · Rights of Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I should like to know what steps the Foreign Office is taking to protect women and girls in this country. There can be no better candidates for deportation than non-UK nationals who have violently raped children here. After the Casey report into the gangs scandal last week, Ministers promised that they would do everything they could to deport the men involved. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that he has already told Pakistan that British aid and diplomatic visas will be withdrawn if convicted rapists are not taken back?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Unemployment Levels · Hansard source

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  To cut spending and balance the books, Labour has to get people off welfare, but the Chancellor’s job tax and the Deputy Prime Minister’s unemployment Bill mean that there are fewer jobs for them to go to. Some 285 more of my constituents are out of work than last year, and since the Budget a quarter of a million jobs have vanished. A rise in public sector roles in the same period is probably masking a far deeper crisis going on in the private sector. There is no joined-up thinking. Has the Secretary of State warned her Cabinet colleagues that their policies are making her job impossible?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Unemployment Levels · Hansard source

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  3. What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of recent trends in the level of unemployment.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I am afraid there is simply not enough time. That failure is now being used to justify the loosening of abortion laws still further due to a recent uptick in cases of women being investigated. I have looked carefully at the arguments being pushed for decriminalisation, and with those from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), I see that the bogeyman of the US right is back. Apparently, unless we agree to these amendments, evangelical religious groups paid for by US cash are going to start rolling back women’s reproductive rights in this country. This is utter nonsense. We are in the UK, and we have a very different and a more balanced national conversation. This is not pro or anti life. It is not extremist to want protections for viable babies, and it is not anti-women to say that coercion or dangerous self-medication should not be outside the reach of the law. We also see the argument made that this is solely a woman’s health issue and nobody but she should have a say over what happens to her body, but that is to ignore a very inconvenient truth that has always stalked the abortion debate: this is not about one body; there are two bodies involved. Like it or not, this House has a duty to consider the rights of a woman against the safety and morality of aborting the unborn viable child without consequence. It is not extreme or anti-women to say that a baby matters too. I accept that new clause 1 does not decriminalise a doctor or third party carrying out an abortion outside existing time limits, but let us step back and ask why we have criminal law at all. It is not simply to punish, but to deter. The former Justice Minister Laura Farris has expressed concerns that the challenge of prosecution for infanticide will become greater. She has also raised similar concerns about prosecuting coercive partners if the termination is no longer a criminal offence.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I was also expressing my concerns about other amendments that have been tabled, but I believe the hon. Member is none the less proposing a substantial change that deserves more than a two-hour debate among Back Benchers. As MPs, we are not here simply to express our opinions of an ideal world or even to focus only on highly distressing cases; we are legislators, and no greater legislative duty exists than to make sure that what we do in this House does not lead to unintended consequences in the real world for the most vulnerable. In two hours of debate on a Tuesday afternoon, we are being asked to rewrite a profound boundary in British law that protects the unborn child. That is not responsible lawmaking; it is a procedural ambush. It is telling that not even the promoters of decriminalisation in this House can agree on the form it should take. That ought to make each one of us pause, because it speaks to the challenge of moving beyond principle to real-world application. It is worth our recalling previous efforts to amend Bills in this way and their consequences. The temporary pills-by-post scheme brought in during the crisis of the pandemic was made permanent by an amendment hooked, with little notice, on to an unrelated Bill, and what have we seen since? We have seen women accessing pills under false names and gestational dates, and taking them far beyond the recommended 10-week limit, and viable babies have been lost after late-term abortions. That is not women’s healthcare; it is legal and medical failure.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak against new clauses 1 and 20, which represent rushed changes to our abortion laws of profound consequence not only for the unborn child, but for women themselves. My fear is that, if passed, these new clauses would undermine the ability to prosecute abusive partners who force women into ending a pregnancy, inadvertently lead to more dangerous and highly distressing at-home abortions, and risk reducing the status of an unborn child to a legal non-entity. I also wish to put on record my deep unease about the continued attempts to lasso unrelated legislation with amendments on abortion. Whether or not one supports liberalisation, we should all be able to agree that these amendments represent substantial change to the existing law.

• 16 Jun 2025 · School-based Nurseries · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State monitor the number of private nursery closures? If so, can she tell us how many have closed since the Budget?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Local Authority Funding · Hansard source

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  As an outer London borough, Havering has been hugely disadvantaged by a funding formula based on outdated population figures. We heard today that the Mayor of London himself is concerned that this Labour Government will level down London altogether. Will the Minister confirm that the fair funding review will report by this summer—I have been told that previously by a Minister—and will specifically address the disparities between inner and outer London?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Chinese Embassy Development · Hansard source

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  Things that seem politically and economically expedient at the time can become things that Governments regret very much in the long term, as I found when I was the telecoms Minister having to lead the £2 billion strip-out of Huawei from our 5G infrastructure. It took only a few minutes for the Prime Minister to change his position on the Chinese embassy after a call from President Xi Jinping. The Minister has said he cannot answer any questions on the substance of the issue, but on a planning level will he commit personally to having a secure briefing ahead of making any planning decision, and also to publishing and sharing with this House details of all the representations he has received on the planning application, including those from his own Government?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) ably recalled, the Minister’s superiors told us that there would be a run on the pound unless pensioners took a hit on winter fuel. Given that every economic indicator was worse last year, can the Minister tell us whether the pound is safe with this U-turn, or whether this is just another example of his seniors’ talking utter bilge to justify their terrible decisions?

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  Does my right hon. Friend agree that not only are the measures inadequate, but they potentially open a big new route for inward migration? At the weekend, the Paymaster General suggested that the youth mobility experience scheme that we have with the EU was comparable to the scheme that we had with Uruguay. That involved 500 visas a year. We read in the papers today that the EU is asking for hundreds of thousands of youth visas. Is my right hon. Friend as concerned as I am about the possibility of this being a back door to very substantial migration?

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

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  If that is outside the boundaries of what is acceptable, I will withdraw the comment. My second lesson is that when Labour negotiates, Britain loses. We have already seen it in this Parliament, from the Chagos islands to the backroom deals with the unions. It is ideological naivety dressed up as serious and sober diplomacy. Labour thinks that signing a deal is the same as securing a good one. It is not, and all that will become clear. Let us remind ourselves that Brexit was never a rejection of Europe and its people. It was a demand for democratic control over our laws, our borders, our trade and our future.

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

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  Next week, the EU and the UK will meet in London for a much vaunted reset of our post-Brexit relationship. If that delivers real benefits for our country, that is great—let us hear them—but forgive me, because I am a doubter. I have learned two lessons from my miserable direct experience of how Labour operates. First, do not trust the Prime Minister. Between 2017 and 2019, I and others watched him, as the shadow Brexit Secretary, twist every parliamentary rule to block what the British people voted for. That was not principled opposition; it was sabotage. In so doing, he connived to empower Brussels in a way that directly and actively undermined our national negotiating position. He was not alone in that endeavour, but it was a spectacle that disgraced this House.

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

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  I was deliberately careful to adhere to the rules of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I hope my intent was clear. Let me be clear. I do not think that the Prime Minister is a straight dealer. He says what suits him, poses as a man of decency and hopes—

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

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  What is the hon. Member’s analysis of why growth projections have been halved since Labour came in?

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

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  Brexit allowed us to introduce a points-based system and that is what we did. I will accept that mistakes were made in the introduction of that points-based system, but the key is that we can tweak and tune that to accommodate the needs of our economy and those of the people we represent. The British people could feel the world changing around them and they knew instinctively that the UK needed to be nimbler, faster and more accountable in responding to those currents, be they the movement of people or the regulation of businesses. We will not let it be said that there have been no Brexit benefits, because that is simply not true. For a start, we no longer hand between £11 billion and £12 billion a year net to Brussels. We have secured trade deals, including from the fast-growing comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership nations. Whatever we think about last week’s US-UK tariff deal, we are not paying the same prohibitive trade taxes as the EU. We are setting our own course in areas such as AI, financial services and agritech. Those are not abstract wins or nostalgic impulses; they are real opportunities for a modern, outward-facing Britain. If next week’s summit can ease practical frictions, that is all well and good. I want what works for British people. However, I am worried that Labour does not know what it wants, only that it wants a deal. I am worried it does not grasp what the EU will demand in return. And I am worried that Labour thinks slick comms matter more than real outcomes for the British people. Today, we lay down a clear marker. On immigration, there should be no youth mobility scheme. It might sound harmless, but let us not be naive and have partial free movement by stealth. On defence and regulation, we want no dynamic alignment, and I am fascinated by the Minister’s refusal to say anything further on that matter. If Labour really thinks it has a great deal, there is a simple thing it could do, which is to bring that deal back to this House for a vote.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Criminal Injuries Compensation · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling an incredibly important debate. I came upon this issue recently in dealing with the case of a 10-year-old boy in my constituency who was shot in a quiet residential street. It has taken five years to get him compensated for the injuries that he suffered, which will be lifelong. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about the sheer length of time that it takes to get victims compensated, the bureaucratic and sometimes impersonal approach, and the inadequacy of the sums being received by people, particularly children, who have received lifelong injury?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hair and Beauty Sector: Government Policy · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for that important intervention. As I was preparing for the debate, I read about some of the police operations in Manchester, where they have been cracking down on this kind of activity. The frequency with which they found that these were fronts for illegal businesses—often with links to international crime gangs—is deeply worrying. That is one reason why I want to raise the profile of this issue. We cannot lose legitimate businesses from our high streets, because what fills the void is something that none of us wants in our communities. What can be done? I know how this works: the Minister sits in the Department for Business and Trade, not His Majesty’s Treasury, so he cannot give any substantive answers on the fundamental mistakes being made on tax policy. However, like any Business Minister worth his salt, he will probably share my concerns and wonder how best to get the Treasury to change course. He might even find this debate quite helpful to his own lobbying, just as the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), and his officials did when I gave him evidence about the crisis now engulfing the early years. Here are some practical asks that my salons would like the Minister to make of the Chancellor: VAT reform, with a reduced rate for labour-intensive services; the restoration of business rates relief and the overhaul of the outdated business rates system, particularly for high street premises; the revival of apprenticeship incentives; and revisiting the measures in the October Budget. Look, the Government should use global market turmoil as an excuse to mask Labour’s mistakes if that is what it takes, but let us get a U-turn on these economy-shrinking tax takes. They are not working. Confidence and employment are down. Growth projections have been halved. The tax take is going to shrink, and that will translate into a smaller pot for public services. Members do not need to take my word for it; the International Monetary Fund said so just yesterday, confirming its view that the UK’s growth prospects have been cut because of domestic factors. To conclude, this debate must serve as a reminder that Government do not create growth—businesses and people do. Those businesses are now often paying increased rent, utility bills, professional fees, VAT and covid debt interest and, since April, giant hikes in business rates and the cost of employing people. It is just too much. People work to incentives, and right now the incentive to start a business such as a hair and beauty salon, grow it, take on staff with full employment rights and train apprentices is simply not there. The Government say they care about growth, communities and employee rights, but their actions—I hope by accident rather than design—are crippling the very people who grow things, give heart to communities and employ people. I say to the Minister: use this debate and take these real stories, these stark warnings and the sector’s clear-eyed solutions straight to the Treasury—before it is too late.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hair and Beauty Sector: Government Policy · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of Government policy on the hair and beauty sectors. It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. This debate is about giving a voice to the thousands of small business owners crushed by the weight of tax demands. They are frustrated and exhausted —penalised, it seems, for doing everything by the book. They are expected to keep taking personal risks, to employ others and to pour all they have into building businesses and serving customers, even as the rewards for doing so shrink year after year. Those assumptions have bred a troubling complacency in Whitehall that these businesses will always just be there to tap up, and the crisis now gripping the hair and beauty sector is a stark example of the consequences. High street hairdressing and beauty salons offer jobs and training to thousands of young people. These businesses are disproportionately led or staffed by women, many of whom need flexible hours to balance their caring responsibilities. We all know these people, because we have been served by them—even counselled by them—sometimes over many years. However, today salons are under threat. The combination of the pressures they face is turning into a crisis, and the result will not just be a loss of revenue to the Treasury.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hair and Beauty Sector: Government Policy · Hansard source

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  That is precisely one of the issues I wish to highlight in today’s debate. This avenue of employment is being closed down for too many young people, because hiring apprentices has become far too expensive. I am sure other hon. Members are seeing apprentices being shed across their constituencies because the sheer cost of employing them makes it too difficult for salons to retain them. That is a terrible loss for those young people and for salons that need those skills and that skills pipeline. As I was saying, the result of salons closing will not just be a loss of revenue to the Treasury: it will be young people without an apprenticeship; high streets where the empty units left behind are filled with front businesses—perhaps a dodgy nail bar, a vape shop or a barber that may not be playing by the rules; customers who lose a service that they loved and that gave them a sense of place; and entrepreneurs who wonder why on earth they bothered to do the right thing and who now question whether this country is the right place to put their energies. I will set out the challenges facing these businesses, explain why we should all care and, finally, share with the Minister the asks from my local salons, so that we can keep these vital businesses alive, with the benefits that flow to us all. Let me start by setting out some of the pressures on high street salons. Salons have weathered some extraordinarily difficult years with the pandemic. Take Wyndham Hair in Hornchurch, a business that has been operating since the late 1970s. Owners Johnpaul and Jane returned from covid burdened with debt due to the stop-start nature of operating restrictions. They restructured and streamlined, and are now debt-free and at their most efficient, but the business offers little more than a wage. Why? Well, VAT is a major factor. Johnpaul and Jane chose to employ staff rather than rely on self-employed workers. That offers better security for their employees and quality control for them, but it comes with a financial penalty: as an employer, they pay VAT on services. Meanwhile, mobile or home-based businesses, or salons staffed entirely by self-employed workers, often avoid that. Those operating outside premises also duck regulatory costs such as those for trade waste, music licensing and more. That creates an unfair playing field. It is a bizarre situation, because we can effectively have two businesses, identical to all intents and purposes, operating under two different tax systems. Hair and beauty is a labour-intensive sector, and around 60% of costs are wages. As I heard from Toby from the Salon Employers Association, salons trade in skill, not goods, and cannot reclaim VAT on their biggest cost, which is people. That pushes legitimate businesses to the brink and rewards those operating in the grey market. Self-employment is a legitimate business choice, but employment tribunal case law demonstrates that it is increasingly being used as a means of avoiding tax and employment laws. Without VAT reform, the British Hair Consortium forecasts that there will be a 93% drop in direct employment in the sector by 2030. That is not a typo; that is an emergency. The long tail of covid and VAT were existing challenges. Rent and utilities increases also created pressure. Let us now add into that mix Labour’s disastrous October Budget, starting with the withdrawal of business rates relief. During covid, Conservatives supported high street businesses with grants and rates relief but, as of April, those have gone. Coal House Cuts in Upminster now faces a rates bill of £2,000, up from zero. The Vanilla Room in Hornchurch saw its rates bill rise from £7,500 to more than £18,000. Those are not minor figures; they are bills that keep people up at night. Let us add in the increase in employer national insurance contributions. There is something pernicious about what the Chancellor has done here. Because of the change to thresholds, the NICs hike is hitting the types of business that employ a large number of lower-paid or part-time workers. For the Utopia beauty salon in Hornchurch that means a rise in employer NICs from £750 to £1,000 a worker. Many of its workers are single mums providing for their families, and it has already had to let go one of its tight-knit team. Because Utopia’s suppliers are facing exactly the same pressures, it is seeing cost increases of 5%, and energy and utility bills have trebled. I am seeing an unmistakable theme in my constituency work: female business owners, with many female employees, are approaching me for the first time. I have been an MP for nearly eight years, and these are the types of people who never get in touch with their MP. To put some numbers on it, over 80% of the workforce in hair and beauty are women; 86% of businesses are female-owned; 40% of the workforce is part time, compared with 25% in the wider economy; almost one in three workers is under 30, so it is a young workforce; and 45% of the sector’s jobs are in areas with the highest levels of unemployment. I want to say something that does not come easily to me because I loathe identity politics: it is hard to ignore the impact, let alone the irony, of a Chancellor celebrating herself for being the first woman to hold that office, while simultaneously hammering sectors that employ, serve and are often led by women.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hair and Beauty Sector: Government Policy · Hansard source

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  I thank every colleague who has spoken so passionately on behalf of their local businesses and the local people who run them. I hope I have done justice to the local business in my patch for the challenges it is facing. I appreciate all those who supported me in preparing for this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles). She was courageous in admitting that national insurance has become a problem for some of her local businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) raised the importance of hair to the sense of self. I neglected to mention a very important business in my Hornchurch constituency: Bear with the Hair, which helps women who are going through hair loss in relation to cancer treatment. These are the kinds of businesses that are being affected by these challenges. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) and the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) raised the important issue of rogue operators. My real fear is that if we drive some of the legitimate operators out of business in the salons that are regulated, we will simply see more of this kind of activity proliferate. My hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) is always a strong voice on small businesses, and I appreciated his support today. I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) luck with her hair and beauty roundtable. She made the point very well that these taxes are fundamentally counterproductive. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) is always very sound on security and economic issues. He raised the important issue of some businesses being fronts for international crime gangs, a concern that I share deeply. Finally, I would like to say that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is beautiful inside and out—and I finish by saying that this measure is against Labour’s fundamental aims.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hair and Beauty Sector: Government Policy · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is about a series of things hitting these businesses. It is about new legislation, new taxes and the withdrawal of reliefs that had been supporting businesses. I am glad my right hon. Friend intervened, because I was in Hornchurch yesterday speaking to staff at Wyndham Hair. Johnpaul, who runs that business, is one of my right hon. Friend’s constituents, and he told me how supportive my right hon. Friend has been of his local high street, so I appreciate the support he is giving me in the debate. As my right hon. Friend said, this is about a whole range of people sectors. It is not just about salons being hit with these staggering tax bills; it is also about the early years sector. That sector supports many other businesses that require good workers. When I talk to nurseries in my constituency, some of the bills they talk about are just unbelievable. In fact, they are so unbelievable that when I tell people about them, they do not believe it—they think the nurseries must have got their sums wrong, but that is absolutely not true. One after-school and holiday club provider has seen her annual NICs bill go from £10,851 to £26,040. That is a small business, and it is being absolutely hammered. One nursery provider told me that the combined impact of NICs and the minimum wage is adding £30,000 to her payroll costs every month. Those are unbelievable numbers, which risk driving many nurseries to closure. That will dismantle the support network that allows many other women to go into the workplace. The minimum wage is right in principle, but when we force a small salon with razor-thin margins to meet that extra cost on top of everything else, it becomes untenable. When we add to that the looming Employment Rights Bill, many salons are telling staff to go self-employed just to survive. That is not giving people more protections but ripping up the ones they already have. That brings me to apprentices. Salons are letting them go very fast. For decades, this industry has opened doors for young people to learn skills and earn a living, and that ladder is being kicked away. At Coal House Cuts, the owners once proudly trained apprentices; now they cannot afford to. Wyndham Hair used to employ four apprentices; now they have one. The Vanilla Room is getting daily calls from laid-off apprentices, but it too has had to cut learner hours. Its owner, Kerry, told me: “For the first time in 30 years, we just can’t afford to run apprenticeships. Our costs are up £28,000 on apprenticeships a year. How much does the government think salons make?” After I put in for this debate, more stories poured in from across the country. This crisis goes beyond hair and beauty, because I am hearing the same from construction firms—another traditional route for working-class youth. Two vital pathways into work for working-class girls and boys are collapsing. Is this the future that Labour promised—a generation of young people priced out of skilled trades because Westminster could not design a Budget with small businesses in mind? That is surely the very opposite of what this Government say they want, and it is utterly incompatible with their drive to get people off welfare. Because beauty salons are facing so many different costs, they are also cutting back on training, in a sector where customers demand that they are up on the latest technologies. So what will happen? First, there will be job losses and price hikes. One of the challenges for many salons is that their customers face the same economic headwinds, so they are spending less and visiting less often. Then there is the ultimate risk of closures. Every time a salon closes, it leaves more than just an empty unit; it leaves a void in the community—a place of connection, conversation and confidence gone. Speaking to Wyndham Hair yesterday, I heard not only about the services it offers but the support it gave its long-standing clients through covid. Those are the kinds of businesses that these people run. Utopia has clients aged 10 to 97; the 97-year-old goes to the beauty salon because it is her place of sanctuary. When legitimate businesses vanish, they are replaced by shady operations that are often fronts for illegal or exploitative practices. The rest of the high street struggles, apprenticeship routes collapse and tax receipts fall—they will not rise.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T5. Release on temporary licence is denied when people say nasty stuff on Twitter but granted for much more serious crimes. Can the Secretary of State tell me when I can expect a satisfactory reply to an urgent ROTL case that I have already raised with the Prisons Minister and senior civil servants and that affects a grieving family in my constituency?

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 2 Apr 2025 · School-based Nursery Capital Grants · Hansard source

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  On Friday, I met 20 incredible women running nurseries and pre-schools in Havering. They contacted me because they are in utter crisis. Business rates, national insurance and wage bills are all rising, while the Government cap what they are allowed to charge and then do not cover the cost of the free childcare hours being offered. Fees are going up, and nurseries are now at risk of mass closure. The Education Secretary is driving private nurseries to the brink while not providing enough school-based ones to fill the gap, and I am afraid that her talk of hope is absolutely delusional. As a parent with two small children who speaks regularly to the women running those nurseries, watching Labour Back Benchers jeering the shadow Secretary of State for asking questions is absolutely disgusting. What urgent action is the Education Secretary taking to prevent a meltdown in childcare that is going to affect working families across this country?