Liz Saville Roberts MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Feb 2026 · Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor · Hansard source

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  The leader of the Liberal Democrats is making a powerful speech. I am sure he will agree that decades of deferential and, frankly, sycophantic treatment by Parliament and state authorities are being exposed as having enabled Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to behave as though he were untouchable. I am sure he will also join me in calling on the Government to introduce independent oversight of those members of the royal family who undertake official duties, and in requiring transparency and scrutiny of anything paid for by the state from now on, because apparently, they work for us.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Labour Together and APCO Worldwide: Cabinet Office Review · Hansard source

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  There are real concerns that non-state actors, such as the commercial public relations organisation APCO and possibly Palantir Technologies, are selling services to carry out surveillance with the purpose of smearing journalists in the United Kingdom. If the Government are not just uttering polite, meaningless words about protecting journalists, surely we now need an independent investigation so that we can move beyond process and look at how to regulate such non-state actors?

• 5 Feb 2026 · National Cancer Plan · Hansard source

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  Does the Department have a procurement strategy to ensure security of supply of medical radioisotopes, which are so critical for diagnosis and treatment? Could the Minister provide details of the co-operation and assessments made by her Government with the Welsh Government on Project ARTHUR, the isotope reactor scheme at Trawsfynydd?

• 5 Feb 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Last October’s National Audit Office report into ECO4 wall insulation found extensive evidence of fraud and cowboy workmanship. Consumer Energy Solutions of Swansea went into receivership last month, and I have received scores of complaints regarding air source heat pumps and solar panels installed by that company and others, with some people having no heating or hot water. Could the Leader of the House advise me what parliamentary measures are available to me to ensure that there is an independent inquiry into fraud and misuse of taxpayers’ money with ECO4?

• 5 Feb 2026 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I wish to open my contribution to the debate with a tribute to a young man from Pwllheli who was killed in a hideous two-car collision on the Porthmadog bypass just days before Christmas. While we await the inquest, I hope it is some comfort to his family that so many people in our home community want to see changes to the law as a memorial and mark of respect for the life of Mathew Hardy. He was 34 years old and the only child of Simon and Glenys. Mathew’s partner, Mari, is expecting a baby in three months’ time—too many lives shattered by irreplaceable loss. While many of us treat the right—the license—to drive a car with a familiarity verging on contempt, such tragedies remind us how dangerous vehicles can potentially be for all road users. Heaven knows, as Mathew’s father says, that people lose their gun licences, their guns and gun paraphernalia at any suggestion of police concern, but people keep their driving licences far, far too easily. It is a sad fact that inexperienced young drivers remain disproportionately at risk of being killed or injured on the roads. We had the tragic case in my constituency of Harvey Owen who was a passenger in a car driven by a friend, along with two others, all of them teenagers, who lost their lives in 2023 when their car came off the A4085 near Llanfrothen and overturned in a ditch. Harvey’s mother Crystal—I am sure many Members will know her—is campaigning for graduated driving licences. Northern Ireland has just committed to a full graduated driving licence system from October this year, which includes post-test restrictions that are designed to reduce exposure to high risk situations, such as carrying peer passengers. Evidence from other countries shows that graduated systems significantly reduce young driver casualties, and they save lives. Safer roads mean fewer accidents, and they also mean lower insurance premiums for young people, which is a message the Government should engage with. The Government should monitor Northern Ireland’s approach as a pilot for the rest of the UK.

• 5 Feb 2026 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful suggestion. It is interesting that we are all talking along the same lines. I welcome that the road safety strategy includes consultation on proposed changes to penalties for motoring offences. For families who have lost loved ones to repeat drink-drive and drug-drive offenders, it is incomprehensible why those drivers do not lose their licences at the point of providing a positive test. At the very least, that should happen automatically at a second or further offence. Such a policy would ensure that there was swift preventive action when there is clear evidence of risk. My last example is that of Amanda Peak, who lives in Brithdir, near Dolgellau. She lost both her sons, Arron, aged 10, and Ben, aged eight, and her husband was badly injured. The driver who inflicted this on the family was drunk and driving at speed. Amanda begs the Government to bring down the alcohol limit and to address sentencing. When the drunken driver was sentenced, Amanda was told that this man would not even have been sentenced to imprisonment if he had killed only one child. Imagine that—it took two children to be killed for this man to be sentenced to imprisonment. I urge the Minister to meet lobbyists and to meet families as well, because this might well be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a change that will benefit very many people’s lives.

• 4 Feb 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The victims and survivors of Epstein and his circle of the over-privileged elite are at the forefront of my mind here and now. Mandelson, we now know, described Epstein’s release from prison after he was sentenced for child sex offences as “Liberation day”. This man’s association with Epstein was known when the Prime Minister personally appointed him as the UK’s ambassador to the USA. How can we trust the Prime Minister’s judgment, and if we question that, how can we trust him enough for him to remain Prime Minister?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Support for Veterans · Hansard source

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  The Veterans’ Commissioner for Wales has said that support for veterans to tackle “substance abuse, mental health crisis and residential services do not exist within NHS Wales as they do in NHS England”. What steps is the Minister taking to work with the commissioner and the Welsh Government to improve access to essential services? Will she encourage veterans to attend my event in Caernarfon on Sunday, which will bring together a host of key support organisations?

• 2 Feb 2026 · US Department of Justice Release of Files · Hansard source

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  Labour appointee Lord Mandelson has been a pivotal figure in the Prime Minister’s leadership project, and this is now a damage limitation exercise for the Government. There is deep irony in the fact that a Government can appoint people to the House of Lords, but cannot clear up their own mess. Why have the Government not referred this to the police? Does the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister admit that this is doing grave harm to the public’s confidence in the accountability of our democratic institutions?

• 29 Jan 2026 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes an important point. I think that we can be sophisticated enough to call out the horrors of Hamas while criticising actions that may well be found in future to comprise genocide. We have not reached that point in law yet, but we in this place should be open to questioning received narratives. Most Members here are trying to phrase our arguments in the measured way that the debate deserves. We are talking about horrific crimes against humanity in the past, and possibly in the present. That needs to be done in a balanced way. All of us are horrified by the actions of Hamas and the attacks in Manchester last year. At the same time, there are wider questions—how we find a balance, and how we, in our privileged position, use the language at our disposal to make sure that we are not pushing truth further and further into the undergrowth. Jan Karski was a Polish Catholic diplomat who brought eyewitness reports of the true scale of Nazi atrocities to western leaders as early as 1942. He risked his life to alert the world to murder. Largely ignored at the time, Karski argued that “the common humanity of people, not the power of governments, is the only real protector of human rights”. His memory is a challenge to all of us who speak as public leaders. If this year’s theme teaches us anything, it is to be alert to those who would distort the truth for their own ends. We must listen to genocide survivors and support those who shine a light on grave injustices, wherever they are. It is only through listening to testimony, and through our common humanity, that we can learn from the past and secure genuine justice for victims. We must stand against actions such as the terrible attacks in Manchester last year. In an increasingly troubled world in which the rules-based order is threatened, we would all do well to remember that the genocide convention obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of the prohibition on genocide. Though the promise of “never again” has been ignored time and again, we must all play our part in listening and learning from the stories of the victims of genocide.

• 29 Jan 2026 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to be here, representing my Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituents and Plaid Cymru, to remember, first, the 6 million Jewish children, women and men murdered in the Holocaust, and also the millions more murdered in the Nazi persecution of other communities, which many other Members have mentioned. I hand my greatest congratulations to the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) on his excellent introduction, and to the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). We will bear in mind those words: “history is someone else’s story; memory is my story.” Of course, there has also been reference to our history in the United Kingdom. When we look abroad, it is very important that we know what has happened here. As we commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, we remember other atrocities: the Holodomor in Ukraine, and genocide against the Armenians, and in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. Forgive me, but that is not, and cannot be, an exhaustive list. There have been, there are and there will be other crimes of genocide. We cannot comfort ourselves by presuming that these events are consigned to history. The convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide is the treaty that criminalises genocide. The definition is deliberately narrow: “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” We know that this is happening now, and that it will happen in the future. We need international bodies and the rules-based order to hold people to account for genocide, to define it, and to take criminal steps as necessary. We know that we need that, because we can look back and learn that from history. In the noise and confusion of present events, we are required to call out genocidal actions, wherever and by whomever they are committed. It is our duty to be the watchdogs warning against genocide, be it in Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims, in China against the Uyghur Muslims, or in Gaza against the people of Palestine. The International Court of Justice is, as we speak, deciding on the application of the convention of genocide to Myanmar. This decision will be of immense significance in relation to forced displacement and Myanmar’s military attacks on the Rohingya. If the Court rules that mass deportation was a motive, not a defence, for genocide, that may become a precedent for a similar ruling against the Israeli Government; it is important that that is said today. The theme for International Holocaust Memorial Day this year is “Bridging Generations”. It is a reminder that the responsibility of remembrance lives on through not only survivors, but their descendants, and all of us. It is also a reminder of our fragile link to the Holocaust. A 2026 study from the Claims Conference shows that approximately 196,000 Jewish holocaust survivors are still with us. They are a living testimony to the horrors imposed by Nazi Germany, and a lesson from history to never repeat those horrors. They are also ageing. The median age of Jewish holocaust survivors is 87. By preserving the link with our past, we can ensure its retelling. It is vital that we keep listening to and sharing their testimonies, so that future generations can understand how distortions of truth can lead to the greatest crime of all: genocide. The manipulation of truth is a vital component of genocide. The Nazis played on prejudice and stereotypes to scapegoat and dehumanise people they regarded as subhuman. The Nazi regime also practised a propaganda of deception by hiding details about the “final solution”; there were press controls to prevent the public reading statements by the allies condemning Nazi crimes. One booklet printed in 1941 glowingly reported that in occupied Poland, German authorities had put Jewish people to work, built clean hospitals, set up soup kitchens, and provided Jewish people with newspapers and vocational training. The authority of the written word and the broadcast word was abused to manipulate the truth.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I, too, welcome the armed forces covenant and the legal duty that it will place on devolved nations. Of course, while Wales has 5% of the population, we contribute 7% to Army strength. Could the Secretary of State tell me, therefore, whether any extra new money will be coming to Wales to support the covenant, particularly in the NHS, which is of course so beneficial to veterans?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—specifically, my role as the co-chair of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group. The White Paper recognises that changes to policing governance and crime prevention in Wales will have to reflect the existence of more than a quarter of a century of devolution. Meanwhile, three independent commissions have recommended that justice and policing be devolved to Wales. Considering that around 56% of our police funding in Wales already comes from devolved sources, does the Home Secretary not agree that this package of radical changes is exactly the right time for the devolution of policing to Wales?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  There is much to welcome in the warm homes plan. Wales has the oldest housing stock in Europe, with around a third of houses built before 1919. Because of that, Wales is rightly a net beneficiary of ECO schemes; it accounts for 6% of all ECO measures and 12% of ECO4. The Secretary of State will recognise that that is higher than the Barnett consequential funding, based on population share. Can he explain how the warm homes funding for Wales will be sufficient to meet the extreme challenges facing Welsh homeowners?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Water White Paper · Hansard source

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  Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lefarydd. I would say to the Secretary of State “Cofiwch Dryweryn”, because water has always been political in Wales. The White Paper suggests that the UK Government may finally devolve additional powers over water to the Welsh Government. Considering that could have happened years ago under section 48 of the Wales Act 2017, which was delayed—incredibly—at the request of the Labour Welsh Government, can she now set a timeline for when the people of Wales will have power over our own water?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Clean Energy Projects · Hansard source

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  We are expecting an announcement on the warm homes plan, which is of course to be welcomed, but we cannot rerun the errors of ECO4. An investigation by the National Audit Office into wall insulation revealed fraud and shoddy work. Will the Secretary of State therefore join me in calling for a public investigation into ECO4 air source heat pumps and solar panels, so we get a full, independent evaluation of the incidence of bad practice, questionable profits and fraud?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Clean Energy Projects · Hansard source

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  Diolch yn fawr, Llefarydd. On 9 January, Consumer Energy Solutions went into administration, and 300 people across Wales lost their jobs. In my constituency alone, more than 40 households have told me that they have been left in limbo, often without heating or hot water, and many of these people are elderly or ill. Given that the right hon. Member’s Government scrapped the energy company obligation 4 scheme abruptly, what support will be provided to make sure that householders are not left to pay after CES walks away?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Victims of convicted paedophile Neil Foden, the former headmaster of Ysgol Friars, are furious that he is still in receipt of his pension even though he is in prison. The forfeiture panel has met and come to a conclusion; when will that conclusion as to whether he continues to receive his pension be published?

• 14 Jan 2026 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  7. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the potential impact of her policies on the cost of living in Scotland.

• 14 Jan 2026 · Cost of Living · Hansard source

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  England-only projects such as Northern Powerhouse Rail give the Scottish Government the Barnett consequentials that they rightly choose to use on cost of living support such as the Scottish child payment, but Wales is denied any such extra funding. The Secretary of State’s Government have committed to learning lessons from HS2. Why can Wales not have the same means? I assure him that would allow a Plaid Cymru Welsh Government to spend in order to alleviate child poverty.

• 14 Jan 2026 · Offshore Wind · Hansard source

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  Of course we welcome the new offshore wind projects in Wales and all the anticipated jobs, but if only we could guarantee that profits would stay in our communities and the use of local supply chains were contractually hardwired! Will the Government ensure that time is secured for a debate on the Crown Estate (Wales) Bill, so that we can discuss how the people of Wales will receive their fair share of offshore wind profits?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lefarydd. We are appalled at reports of thousands of state killings in Iran, and we support the fundamental right of the people of Iran to self-determination. President Trump says that help is “on its way”, and there are also reports that the Prime Minister is set to accept a place on President’s Trump’s board to run Gaza. Given that, can the Foreign Secretary guarantee that her Government’s priorities in the region will be peace and stability alone?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  We have already recognised that there is a regional aspect to this issue. Wales’s Crown courts generally outperform those in England. They are not perfect—we have a backlog of maintenance issues and other problems—but I can only reiterate the opposition of past and present Labour Welsh Government Counsels General, who say that scrapping jury trials is both extreme and unnecessary. Why not take this as an opportunity to keep jury trials in Wales so that we can get a real-time impact assessment that we could compare with what is happening in England if we have to have changes?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Ukraine and Wider Operational Update · Hansard source

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  Many of our constituents will be anxious about UK involvement in US operations given Trump’s vocal drive for American imperialism. Of course, Plaid Cymru is unequivocal that any action taken by the UK military must respect international law; that includes today’s events and all others. With oil further politicised following the US seizure of the Bella 1, with UK support, what steps will be taken to secure critical UK oil and port infrastructure at key sites such as Milford Haven and Holyhead given recent global developments in energy and shipping?

• 17 Dec 2025 · UK-EU Common Understanding Negotiations · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Erasmus+ agreement as closer ties with Europe are good news for the futures of thousands upon thousands of young people. Since 2022, the Taith programme in Wales has offered life-changing opportunities for people to study abroad after Brexit slammed so many doors shut. Given its implications for Taith, how will Wales’s priorities be reflected in the administration of Erasmus+?