Kevin Bonavia MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Members of the Committee may have heard of the case Pepper v. Hart, which showed that courts do look at what is said in Parliament. What we say here does matter.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister talked previously about guidance, but that is not the proposal in this amendment. The amendment would put in primary legislation a figure that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East said, is set in law until Parliament decides to change it—is that not bonkers?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. In my first public meeting after my election, residents in Knebworth called for more fast train services. We got some, but there has been poor reliability. Will she meet me to discuss those issues?

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

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  I totally agree with my hon. Friend that this Government are supporting people across the whole country, including Scotland today, and I really hope the Scottish Government use the money they have been given well. Returning to the Opposition motion, were they also opposed to our country being left a £22 billion black hole by the last Government? Where they also opposed to the disastrous Liz Truss mini-Budget, which included £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts, and which shocked the markets, crashed the pound and skyrocketed mortgage rates? Were they also opposed to the last Government’s spring Budget, which included myriad damaging unfunded promises in an attempt to flash the cash at the public ahead of an election? If they do now oppose all the above, they must agree with me that we have to restore economic stability by funding our pledges. That means finding money, and if it is not through this measure, would they tax working people or make another black hole? We have to face down the reality of these choices for what they are. It is overwhelmingly clear that the shadow Cabinet, who were exiled into opposition this summer, have not learned a single thing. They have made £6.7 billion in unfunded spending commitments in just four weeks. At least we can be grateful that they are not in the position to do more damage at the moment. Turning to what the funds raised from this measure will do, are the Opposition opposed to investing an extra £25.6 billion to fix the foundations of our NHS or cutting waiting times with 40,000 extra elective appointments a week?

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

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  I say to all Members of this House that people have to see these measures in the round. This Budget will support all our businesses in the long run. Are the Opposition now opposed to protecting the triple lock, increasing carer’s allowance, freezing fuel duty, paying workers properly and supporting local councils? Are they opposed to boosting education funding by £6.7 billion and hiring 6,500 extra teachers, who our children desperately need to secure their future? If they are opposed to those things, they are not listening to the British public who, in my constituency of Stevenage and in hundreds of other seats, voted at the last election for a change from years of Conservative chaos. Change with Labour will bring a decade of national renewal to fix our public services from the ground up. Businesses can only have the confidence to invest in the UK if we bring stability to the economy, put money into the pockets of customers and develop thriving public services for the workforce that will in turn improve productivity for businesses. Business confidence was demonstrated by the record-breaking £63 billion in investment secured for the UK economy at the international investment summit. Under Labour, Britain is open for business. Today, the Conservative Opposition are asking us to pretend that we can grow our economy and rebuild our public services without saying how it would all be paid for. This Tory Opposition, with their motion today, show that they have learned nothing from 14 years of Tory fantasy economics. The shadow Chancellor brought up fantasy economics, and his party delivered that for 14 years in government. Today we have a Labour Government. The country voted against fantasy economics in July, and today I will vote against it too.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Children and Bereavement · Hansard source

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  The motion is that we have considered the petitions before us, and I hope everyone will agree that we have considered them well. Let us hope that there will be beneficial progress as a result of today’s discussions. I once again thank the petitioners. I add my thanks to everybody who has spoken in the debate. This issue clearly has resonance across the whole House and across parties, and we have learned a lot from the personal experiences of Members. We heard from the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) about his own experience of child bereavement, from the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) about the experience of a bereaved parent, and from the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) about the experience of the friends of children losing their parents. They are all big personal experiences. I was not going to mention my own personal experience, but hearing from others today reminded me of what happened 26 years ago, when I lost my father to throat cancer when I was 20. At the time, I had a younger brother in his teens and a mother who had to cope for the family. This debate made me think, “What if I had the support that many people have today, and what if that was there for everyone?”, so I am grateful to hon. Members for sharing their experiences. How many hundreds of thousands of experiences like those are out there? I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) for sharing the experiences that MPs hear in their surgeries all the time. They were very harrowing, and we must take them as best we can, but we must learn from them and think about how we can join things up. As she said, the state, in all its forms, is a corporate parent. I also thank the other Members who spoke. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O'Brien), whose cross-party approach I appreciated. I thank the Minister for having such an open mind on this issue and for confirming that the Government will take forward what we have heard today in both the cross-departmental working group and her own Department. I will monitor that work and will help the petitioners to do that too. Finally, I thank the petitioners themselves. They have put this issue on the agenda, and we are all grateful to them for doing so. As Members of Parliament, we will do what we can to keep it there. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered e-petitions 636718 and 624185 relating to children and bereavement.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Ministerial Code: Policy Announcements · Hansard source

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  I was elected to keep the promises that we made in our manifesto. The Conservative party broke nearly every promise that it made in its 14 years in government. Does the Minister agree that it is only right for this Government to confirm that we will honour the pledges we made at the election?

• 8 Oct 2024 · SEND Provision: East of England · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for securing the debate on SEND provision in the east of England. Accounts from hon. Members today show acutely that, although we aim to highlight our local situation, there are similarities in issues and themes in SEND provision both regionally and nationally. For me, this subject has been the most spoken about since I was elected Member of Parliament for Stevenage, and for a good reason. I ran an online campaign in my constituency to encourage residents to tell me their SEND provision stories, an unfiltered account of the frontline reality. I used those accounts to raise awareness of issues faced by SEND students and families in a recent Westminster Hall debate on SEND provision in Hertfordshire. I have used subsequent opportunities in the Chamber to lobby Ministers to help address the situation. Ultimately, our primary function as MPs is to elevate the voices of those who elected us to this place. As I did in the last SEND debate I participated in, I want to raise an account from the frontline, which I did not get the chance to highlight last time. A distraught mother told me: “My son was permanently excluded whilst we were awaiting the outcome of his EHCP—which left me to look after a traumatised, out-of-school, six year old, organise a new school, fight for his EHCP, look after my daughter, work my busy job and prepare practically and mentally for a tribunal. With NHS waiting lists for a diagnosis sitting at two years, I eventually funded a diagnosis 10 months later. He was deemed suitable for specialist provision but no places were available.” That family was left traumatised. Such blatant accounts tell a clear story: the diagnosis and EHCP processes are hard to navigate and too slow, and placement in a suitable school is a postcode lottery, where too many cases can easily fall through the net. The problem cannot be fixed by simply holding our local authorities’ feet to the fire. We have to recognise the position they have been put in over the last 14 years, with soaring demand, plummeting budgetary power and mass reductions in staff. I want to thank the frontline staff, who work so hard in tough conditions, to get results for children who deserve an education just as much as their fellow pupils. Their lives and their futures matter.

• 9 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her answer and to the Minister for School Standards for her response to last week’s Westminster Hall debate, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern), on SEND provision in Hertfordshire. As the Minister will recall, there are many heartbreaking experiences faced by children and young people in Stevenage and across Hertfordshire, where waiting times are much higher than the national average. Will the Secretary of State therefore consider a fairer funding settlement for SEND provision in Hertfordshire when she is next able to do so?