Lorraine Beavers MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I thank the Foreign Secretary for his action today, demonstrating British leadership on a global stage; I hope he agrees that it is long overdue. Settlement expansion is a project driven by the Israeli state. Will he consider further action such as suspending the UK-Israel trade agreement?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Waste Management Sites · Hansard source

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  I apologise for naming Surrey. The wider enforcement framework must change. Regulators need clear powers to suspend operators quickly, stronger tests of operators’ competence and the ability to consider the cumulative impact of sites on communities. Penalties must change behaviour, rather than become a cost of doing business. The financial consequences must fall on the polluters, and we must make sure that companies cannot take the profits while leaving residents and taxpayers to carry the costs when things go wrong. We need a system that learns from the crisis in Fleetwood rather than one that waits for the same crisis to unfold elsewhere. A Labour Government should not stand by while private operators profit from the suffering of working-class towns. We were elected to show that government can work and that the state can protect people and stand up to private interests when they cause harm. Jameson Road is a test of that promise. It is also a test of whether we are prepared to fix a national regulatory failure. Reforming the system would show communities across the country that they will not be abandoned when the same failures occur on their doorstep. The next community to face this problem should not have to start from the beginning—keeping diaries, gathering medical evidence and begging regulators to act, while the operators continue to profit. The British state must prove that it is not too broken to stop this. With that in mind, I have several questions for the Minister. Does she acknowledge that the reality of the situation in Fleetwood is that a private company has made profit through unlawful activity at the expense of the health and wellbeing of an entire town, and that that is unacceptable? Will she commission a full review of the current waste management framework, taking into consideration the following questions. Does the Environment Agency have sufficient powers to take decisive action quickly enough? Is it not fully using the powers it already has? Does the Minister believe that the Environment Agency is adequately resourced, and if not, how will the Government increase its funding to deal with the scale of these challenges? Will she legislate to ensure that new environmental permits must be sought when the ownership of a site changes? How does she plan to address the scrutiny gap, whereby companies do not have to prove their ability to run a site properly before operating it? Fleetwood needs action, communities across Britain need protection and this country needs a regulatory system that puts people before polluters.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. My constituency has enormous potential, but it has been held back by years of austerity, under-investment and managed decline. Coastal communities once stood at the heart of Britain’s economy: our ports connected us to the world, our fishing fleet fed the country and our industries sustained skills and secured jobs. Fleetwood was a thriving port, central to our national prosperity. Today, many coastal communities face deep poverty, poor health, lower educational attainment, insecure work and poor-quality housing, yet the deprivation is hidden. Severe need in one neighbourhood can be obscured by apparent prosperity only a few miles away, and broad funding formulas fail to reflect the reality of individual towns. Those problems are made worse by isolation. When buses are unreliable, railway lines have disappeared and services have closed, geographical isolation quickly becomes economic and social isolation. Young people feel that they must leave to find decent work. The industries that once sustained reliable working communities like mine have disappeared with too little put in their place. This decline was not inevitable; it is a result of political choices, and it is now the duty of this Government to fix it. Without investment in towns such as Blackpool and Fleetwood, the Government cannot achieve their missions of growth, opportunity, health and clean energy. It is not good enough simply to pump more money into the major cities of the north and south; our towns need support too. The lasting answer to poverty is good work that pays decent wages, and that requires the reindustrialisation of our coastal towns. In Fleetwood, we need a tidal barrage and the train line reconnected. Transport is not simply about getting from one place to another; it connects people to work, education and healthcare. We came here to rebuild our communities, build warm homes, restore transport links, create secure jobs and give young people a reason to live locally. It is time to give our coastal towns hope again. Let us all get on with delivering the future we promised.