Laurence Turner MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 15 Apr 2026 · Strategic Defence Review: Funding · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister look at the sorry tale of Glenart Castle Mess in Longbridge, Birmingham? This is armed forces accommodation not from decades ago; it opened in 2017 at a cost to the taxpayer of £36 million. It was built with 95% flammable external cladding, and the fire defects within the accommodation have now been judged to be so severe that the facility will be closed for up to a year at further great cost to the taxpayer. This was hopelessly mismanaged by the previous Government. The armed forces personnel who work at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in Birmingham do an essential job, and they deserve better.

• 26 Mar 2026 · National Savings & Investments · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister’s statement and the way in which he has addressed the House. I want to pick up on the important question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns). The administration of a deceased loved one’s affairs is a lengthy and difficult process at the best of times. It will come as a tremendous shock to many of our constituents to learn that matters that they thought were settled are in fact not so. We can also all think of examples of public agencies that have promised tact and sensitivity, but have not always followed through in practice. Will the Minister look at individual cases that we might raise with him as constituency Members, and will he meet with groups of Members who have constituents affected by the issue?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Resident Doctors: Industrial Action · Hansard source

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  I declare an interest as chair of the GMB’s parliamentary group. The week after next, there will be another strike, when GMB members of the BMA’s own staff go out on industrial action, as has already been referenced. Their employer’s offer is 2.75%, which is lower than the 3.5% for doctors that the BMA called a “crushing blow”. Does the Health Secretary agree with the GMB union when it says: “These strikes have laid bare the BMA’s ongoing hypocrisy”?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member talks of the national interest, but does he agree that it was disgraceful that Gazprom was allowed to acquire an interest in the North sea in the years after 2011, without a word of protest from his party when it was in government?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an outstanding case. Does he also agree that gas is an important feed stock in a number of critical industries, such as the production of ammonia, which is essential in the agricultural sector?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  The motion in the right hon. Lady’s name states that “balances will never rise faster than RPI inflation”. She was a senior Treasury Minister. Does she share my regret at the decision to suspend routine methodological improvements to the retail prices index, which led to the gap between the RPI and the lower consumer prices index rates more than doubling?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Student Loans · Hansard source

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  Is it not also the case that kids from working-class backgrounds were increasingly shut out of traditional apprenticeship routes under the previous Government because of the artificial entrance requirements, which employers said were blocking them from hiring the best? Employers said that those requirements should be scrapped, but the Department for Education blocked that under its previous management.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation · Hansard source

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  It is clear that the NHS barcode prioritisation system broke down, but the problem is not limited to NHS letters. I want to highlight the Government’s Tell Us Once service following a bereavement. Many hon. Members will know the urgency and distressing nature of that correspondence, so will the Minister—who has been extremely active in dealing with constituency concerns—look at the issue of prioritisation of non-NHS letters?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Fur: Import and Sale · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) for securing this debate and for all her work to bring her private Member’s Bill to the House. It stands in the tradition of the private Member’s Bill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle) in 1999, which paved the way for the banning of fur farming in the UK just one year later. I welcome the Government’s animal welfare strategy and the Government’s commitment to looking at the fur issue through the working group, but we in this place should be clear that there is no such thing as cruelty-free fur. The domestic farming of fur has been banned since the year 2000, which raises an obvious question: why should we be content for fur to be imported from overseas, when we believe that it should not be produced on our own shores? It is the inherently cruel fruit of an immoral trade. The European Food Safety Authority published an exhaustive scientific study last year, which found serious harm to species such as fox and mink across a range of issues, including severe stress and self-harm. The EFSA was clear that most of the welfare consequences cannot be prevented or substantially mitigated in the current cage system. It is important to address the claims made by the proponents of fur and the industry interests who defend fur farming. A ban on imports would not be without precedent. In fact, in the year 2009, the European Union put in place a ban on seal product imports, primarily from Canada. At the time, I had the privilege of working with Humane Society International, which is now called Humane World for Animals, to challenge the legal attempts to overturn that ban. I am very glad to say that it remains in place. Article XX of the World Trade Organisation’s general agreement on tariffs and trade clearly allows bans on the imports of products if they are “necessary to protect public morals” or “necessary to protect…animal…health”. As others have said, fur is not a natural product. In fact, so-called real fur is so heavily treated by carcinogenic chemicals that it produces seven times as much carbon as faux fur. The other claim made by organisations such as the International Fur Federation, which is headquartered in the UK—a short walk from Parliament—and the British Fur Trade Association is that indigenous communities depend for their economic livelihoods on these exports. This is a complete canard. The overwhelming majority of fur imports are from European factory-farmed locations. Imports from the Canadian hunt, which is not today dominated by indigenous communities, represent a minuscule fraction of UK fur imports. It is also necessary to address the so-called certification schemes promoted by organisations such as WelFur and Furmark. The fur industry knows that the UK public is repelled by fur farming, so it tries to hide the cruel reality behind sanitising but meaningless labels. The labels do not challenge the cage system, which the EFSA found was incompatible with animal welfare standards. They create the appearance of oversight while leaving the practices unabated. It is a very 21st-century form of greenwashing of archaic butchery. When the Minister responds, I hope that she can give the House an update on the timelines in which the working group will conduct its business. I also ask the Government not to accept the validity of these self-interested, industry-promoted certification schemes. I place on the record my appreciation for one of the organisations that has led the campaign against the fur trade in the UK over many years: Respect for Animals, originally founded as Lynx. It was founded by Mark Glover, who was joined by Nicki Brooks and Richard Bissett. They do outstanding work. Three years after the election of the last Labour Government, the law was passed to ban the domestic farming of fur. I hope that we can work to a similar timetable to end the import of fur products under this Labour Government, consistent with their commitment to animal welfare.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Type 1 Diabetes: Infant Testing · Hansard source

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  Thank you for calling me to speak, Sir Alec. I am grateful to everyone who made the petition and the debate possible. In the short time available, the best service I can provide is to represent just some of the 181 Northfield constituents who signed the petition, in their own words. My constituent Charlotte said: “As a child, at the age of 10, I was misdiagnosed with a stomach bug by my GP. I was later on that same night in a coma… My parents told my GP that I was showing signs of the 4 Ts—toilet, thirsty, tired and thinness. That same night, I nearly lost my life. The doctors and nurses prepared my parents for the worst, but thank God—I survived the coma, and was blessed to still be alive.” Sadly, these are not just cases that have occurred in the past. Only a few short years ago, another constituent had to take her young child to accident and emergency. In her words, “The A&E doctor ran the usual diagnostic tests and said: ‘Go home, continue the penicillin, and let them rest.’ I refused. Something in my gut told me this wasn’t right. The doctor then agreed to do a glucose finger prick test, which showed dangerous blood glucose and ketone levels. If I’d have taken him home that day then they wouldn’t be with us. That haunts me, and I never want another family to live through the trauma that we did.” I am sorry to my other constituents whose stories I cannot recount in the few minutes available, but the common thread that unites them is some pre-existing awareness of type 1 diabetes. Children’s chances in life should not hang on that probability. Extensive reference has been made in this debate to the ELSA study, undertaken and led by the University of Birmingham and across the city. The two-year results of that study show that a national screening test programme is feasible, with high levels of acceptance and returns. I warmly welcome the Minister to her place. When she responds, I will be grateful if she can update the House on the process by which the external advisory committee could reconsider the case for a new infant screening programme.

• 5 Mar 2026 · Official History Programme · Hansard source

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  I draw the House’s attention to my vice-chairship of the all-party parliamentary group for archives and history. I strongly welcome the statement that my right hon. Friend has just made to the House. For more than 100 years, the Official History Programme provided valuable insight on matters such as war, peace and social policy. The Pilling review concluded that it should continue, so it is a welcome update that new works will be commissioned. Will the House be further updated on progress on the commissioning of those new works?

• 5 Mar 2026 · Official History Programme · Hansard source

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  1. If he will commission new works under the Official History Programme.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that Birmingham’s exit from section 114 status is an important moment for the city? Does she further agree that it is time to start scaling back the central Government intervention?

• 5 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am thinking about the hon. Member’s arguments about clause 64(3). Does she not think that there may be circumstances where higher charges actually help to get private investment into the railways? For example, GBR could agree to fund infrastructure improvements in exchange for an operator paying higher access charges over an agreed period and, through that mechanism, recoup at least some of the costs of that welcome upgrade to the network.

• 5 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think I agree with at least most of what the right hon. Gentleman says. The issue is whether actual payments are made, but we questioned the noble Lord Hendy in the Transport Committee on this matter, and he agreed that there needs to be some data accountability where there are delays. I am sorry to detain the Committee on this matter. As is sometimes said, man is born free and everywhere he is in trains—I just wanted to get that one on the record. I thank Committee members for their time.

• 5 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  If I have understood the hon. Member’s point correctly, the key is openness and transparency. We need some degree of understanding that, if GBR itself is responsible for delays, that information should be recorded so that improvements can be made. I am not convinced that GBR paying money to itself in a legal or quasi-legal process is the best use of public resources. That transparency is lacking under the current system. The Delay Attribution Board does not publish any records of its proceedings. Some months ago, I made a freedom of information request for the minutes of the board, and the response was that they were too commercially confidential to disclose. Given the vast amounts of public money that are spent through this process at the moment, I think that is a severe limitation of the current system. This is a real opportunity to do things better.

• 5 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. As in previous sessions, I draw the Committee’s attention to my membership of Unite the union. I will speak briefly on the amendments. I welcome the opportunity to talk about an area of narrowly gauged interest of long-standing, although I hesitate to call it tunnel vision: schedule 4 and schedule 8 compensation for planned and unplanned disruption on the network. The delay attribution scheme has remained essentially unchanged since privatisation, and the clause is a welcome opportunity to look again at how it works in practice. Attention has been drawn to the fact that, under the present system, approximately 400 people are employed across the rail industry to attribute delays to either operators or Network Rail. That sometimes happens in ways that defy any common-sense interpretation of good value for money, and there have been eye-catching examples of expensive lawyers gathering in a room to argue about whether a dead pheasant or a dead peacock was a small bird or a large one, for the purpose of the scheme. Depending upon that determination, the costs may be picked up by the taxpayer or by private operators, and I think we can all agree that that is nonsense. I am glad that the Bill, as drafted, retains some degree of compensation scheme. My attention was drawn to the need for such measures recently in my constituency, where there has been a long-standing problem with road surface conditions, including what has become known, infamously, as “Northfield’s big pothole” under the railway bridge that connects Quarry Lane and Coleys Lane. Network Rail pointed out to me that a single bridge strike from a heavy goods vehicle would incur greater compensation costs for just one hour of disruption than the entire cost of resurfacing that stretch of road. Clearly, we need some degree of accountability in the system. However, the amounts paid out through schedule 8 compensation, which is for unplanned disruption in particular, have been enormous. In theory, these schemes should be self-financing, but for all the attention that is paid to dividend payments and profits in the current railway system, the money that leaves the public part of the railway through these compensation schemes has in some years been in excess of those payments. There is a very good case for these changes. I am not sure that amendment 85 is entirely necessary or desirable, on the basis that there may well be circumstances in which a private operator, whether freight or open access, is responsible for delays, for example if rolling stock had not been kept in the required condition. It is sensible for there to be some attribution in the system. As subsection (7) sets out, there is a right of appeal to the ORR. This is a sensible clause, and I am not sure that the amendments are necessary.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Construction Industry Training Board: Funding · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this important debate. I wish to draw the House’s attention to my chairship of the GMB parliamentary group and my membership of UNITE the Union, both of which organise workers in the construction sector. Quality of employment is extremely important. Historically, the two construction engineering training boards had union representation, but over the years that representation has been squeezed away. Does he agree that employee and employer representation is very important on these boards?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Would the shadow Minister follow the logic of his argument as far as to say that the Conservative Government that passed the Railways Act 1993 were ideologically motivated and acted in an ideological manner, given that that Act barred the public sector from taking on franchises?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Railways Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that there is a comparison with the disabled persons railcard, the criteria for which have been significantly expanded? That change is due to be implemented over the coming months, and that has been possible only because there was not a restrictive statutory definition in primary legislation. Our understanding of disability has changed since the legislation was passed, and we would not want to restrict ourselves unnecessarily for the future.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am not sure that I follow the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s argument. Our job here is to look at the network and the service as a whole. This is an integrated, engineering, safety-critical industry of many parts, all of which interact with one another. This is a key point, and we have said it before: sometimes, hard choices need to be made about prioritisation. I fear that if we have the two growth targets sitting alongside each other with no weighting between them, what we will actually get is the status quo. Freight is, of course, essential to the economy and to decarbonisation, and we cannot run the risk of it being squeezed out.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I will speak briefly and specifically on the attempt to introduce a passenger growth target. I think we have had the substantive discussion before, but it is worth briefly repeating the key points. The railway, arguably, is already incentivised to prioritise passenger services. That is partly a financial matter, as the revenue coming in from passenger services is greater. However, I fear that the shadow Minister’s noble intent to move away from some current cultural practices is at odds with the clause. In the engineering culture, from a certain mindset, because freight trains are heavier and cause more damage to track, there is a convenience to allocating those rare paths to passengers services instead. The shadow Minister quoted evidence, and I wish to read into the record some other comments that we heard, from Maggie Simpson of the Rail Freight Group, someone of whom I think the shadow Minister and I share a high opinion. Of a passenger growth target, she said: “people think about the passenger railway all the time, so I do not see that that incentive effect is as necessary”. –– [ Official Report, Railways Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2026; c. 46, Q78.] I think she put it very well: there is a real risk that if we put into the Bill both a freight growth target and a passenger growth target, with no prioritisation between them written in, one will have the effect of neutralising the other.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Could the shadow Minister advise me whether there is anything in his amendments or new clause that would exclude foreign state-owned railway enterprises from that definition of “private sector”?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Transport Act 1981, which privatised British Rail’s ferry operations, including the Sea Link service to the Isle of Wight, contained no passenger interest provisions of the type contained in this Bill. Does the hon. Member agree that such an omission was an oversight and an historical missed opportunity?