Louise Sandher-Jones MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Jun 2025 · UK Military Base Protection · Hansard source

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  The Minister will know from my earlier question about force protection how important it is to take that issue seriously, and it is right that that is the main focus today. But if I may, I want to address an issue that reared its head over the weekend, given that I am one of the only female veterans in this Parliament. Unfortunately, certain pathetic little people took the incident at Brize Norton and decided to come out of the woodwork to criticise people for doing their job while being female. As a woman serving in the armed forces, I know that every opportunity that has been given to women has been earned through our serving on operations and proving time and again that we are worthy to be there. When I was serving, I was very conscious that I had to be perfect, because any fault or flaw that I showed would be held not just against me, but against all the women I was serving with. Will the Minister stand up and say to every woman serving in the armed forces that we respect and recognise their service?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Financial Education · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) for his obvious passion for the subject. In October 2023, National Trading Standards released research showing that 73% of UK adults have been targeted by scams, and just over a third of those lost money as a result. The Government are cracking down on online crime and fraud, but clearly one other long-term solution is to make sure that everybody is financially educated and financially literate. If we educate our children and young people to be more confident with how and why they manage their money, over time they will be less susceptible to those frauds and scams, which, sadly, can only grow with the development of artificial intelligence. As we have already heard, many young people form their money habits at a very young age, as young as seven or eight. I remember my parents teaching me the importance of saving, giving me a little savings book and making sure that every week I put away some of the £3.50 that I earned from my job delivering newspapers. Unfortunately, as we have also heard, parents who have not managed to acquire financial literacy sometimes pass on bad habits to their children, and up to a third of British workers live from pay cheque to pay cheque. I fear that we are not doing enough to help parents and young people to break that cycle. I am shocked to hear people working in food banks say that many users of their services would benefit hugely from financial education and literacy, and even some simple advice on how to draw up a budget and understand how to make sure they will have enough money when the bills are being sent out. Even simple things can make a huge difference so that people do not have to end up relying on food banks. With the future as yet unknown, pupils entering secondary school this September will finish their GCSEs in June 2030 and their A-levels in 2032. If they decide to go on to university, they might graduate in 2035. I think it safe to say that, while we do not know for sure what opportunities will be available to them—things may well look very different from the way they look now—good financial education and literacy will stand them in good stead. Financial literacy education has previously been added to the national curriculum, but more must be done to ensure that children are taught the subject. Financial education must have breadth, teaching students not only how to budget and all the good stuff like simple versus compound interest, but enabling them to understand the importance of saving for a pension, and to recognise an investment scheme that is protected by the Financial Conduct Authority, for instance, so that they can avoid some of the more “sparkling” deals online. The good news is that those who have received a financial education and remember it are more likely to save, feel confident about money and use a bank account. That shows that when effort is put in, it does indeed reap rewards. The need for financial education is clear to everyone in the House and beyond. It is not a luxury but a necessity. I well remember being taught in depth about trigonometry, and I have to say that I wish I had been taught about pensions instead.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for all the hard work she and her team have been doing on the Bill. It is very important to my constituents. To go back to the very basics, we are talking about something that everybody in North East Derbyshire uses every day—water. I believe that everybody in my constituency, and in the whole country, has a right to know that the water in our rivers and streams is clean, clear and free from pollution. The reason I have to state that now in this House is that we have not had the action we should have had over the past 14 years. That is a huge failure of the previous Government to get action taken and completed on this important issue. Instead, in 2023 water was polluted over 2,000 times in North East Derbyshire—and that is in just one constituency. Last week, I met local residents in Ashover, which is situated on the River Amber, in my constituency. They impressed on me their concerns about pollution in that very picturesque part of the river. We have had good news, in that Severn Trent Water has improved treatment tank capacity in the area, but my residents are worried that that will not be enough, and indeed that we will not know whether it is enough. They are already concerned that the water they see does not live up to the standards they wish to see. That is why I particularly welcome the fact that the Bill is bringing in independent monitoring of water quality. I am afraid I disagree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). What I think is important is not that we get carried away with volume, but the impact on water quality. That is what matters most.

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

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  My constituents in North East Derbyshire are still paying the price of the mini-Budget, with rises in their mortgages and rents. Does the Minister agree that the Conservatives should be talking about that and holding themselves to account rather than throwing out chaff to distract everyone?

• 8 Oct 2024 · VAT: Independent Schools · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to make my first contribution in the House. It is a great honour to be here. I am so proud to be part of a Government who are putting state education at the heart of our mission. I have not been an MP for long, but I have already spent a lot of my time visiting schools in my constituency, and I have seen and heard for myself the very real challenges that they are facing because of the effects of austerity on their budgets. Opportunities for young people are shrinking in front of our eyes. I am glad that we are making these decisions so that we can invest more in the state education that 93% of our children need. I would like to talk about the service of my predecessor as MP for North East Derbyshire, Lee Rowley. A constant refrain for me when I was campaigning during the election was how well regarded he was as a constituency MP, which is not always what you want to hear when campaigning for the other side, but it is a clear sign of how well regarded he was by his constituents. I also pay tribute to his service in the House, where he served in various ministerial positions with distinction. I particularly recognise his important work campaigning on behalf of those with ovarian cancer. I am sure that everybody in the Chamber will join me in thanking him for his service. It is a huge honour to represent my home, North East Derbyshire. I will take a few moments to talk about what that place means to me, and indeed what home means to me. For many of my colleagues, home is where they were born or where they grew up. It is very much the origin of their journey, but for me and many others like me, it is the destination. As many of my fellow military veterans will know, I lived in over 11 different places over the past 10 years as a result of my military service. Whether that was a small officer cadets’ bedroom in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, kept to the ruthless standards of tidiness that that place demands—standards that may have lapsed since—my first posting to Normandy barracks in the beautiful city of Paderborn in Germany, or indeed the compound in Kabul where I served on operations, my accommodation has been varied, transient, occasionally used as target practice, and rarely felt like home. So when I say that I have found my home in North East Derbyshire, that is because I have come home. When I turn off junction 29 of the M1 and see in the distance the latticework of green fields of Holy Moor, I know that I am home. When I am walking up Market Street to have a cuppa at the café Host, or something stronger at The Three Horseshoes, I know that I am home. After a busy day’s canvassing, when I am getting a superlative chippy tea at New Tupton Fish Bar or a bacon cobb at Woodheads in Eckington, I know that I am home. When I am crossing the bridge over the River Rother into Killamarsh and I see the sign for that village, called by its original name—please forgive my Anglo-Saxon here—of Chinewoldemaresc, I know that I am home, When I crest the hill at Coal Aston and see before me across the valley the town of Dronfield, with the purple hills of the Peak district in the distance, I know that I am home. I want to say thank you to the people of North East Derbyshire for seeing in me the service and the values that they want to represent them in this place. I repeat the pledge that I made during my campaign that I will use each and every day here to serve you and deliver the future that I know we can have: a better future based not just on promises, but on real progress. The work of this Government has already begun, and there is so much that I know will make a huge positive transformation for people in my constituency, whether that is renationalising railways so that we can be proud of the service they provide again, huge reforms to workers’ rights and renters’ rights so that we can end no fault-evictions, or the establishment of the child poverty taskforce so that we can drive down child poverty, just as Labour Governments have done before, and I know we will do again. There is much to do, and much that I am looking forward to being a part of. Delivery matters. I want to speak briefly about why that is and about the effect that it has on our democracy. This is a subject close to my heart. As I have mentioned, I served in the military, and nobody is so much affected by the decisions of this House as my former colleagues. The decisions that colleagues sat in the Chamber have made and will make will have a direct impact on their lives. Those decisions could send them to dangerous places to do dangerous things. Indeed, some of my former colleagues in the armed forces have not come back. I would like us all to take a moment now to remember Corporal Liam Riley, who grew up in Killamarsh in my constituency and lost his life in Afghanistan. Lest we forget. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] It is of deep concern to me when I see that the number of people voting has diminished over the past few years; that so many people up and down the country see politics no longer as the mechanism by which we govern ourselves and bring the change that we want for our communities but as something done by some other people in some other place for the benefit of some other people. It is our duty to ensure that we leave this precious democracy that we have inherited in a better place than where we found it and that we show everybody that a vote for an MP matters, that a vote for a Government matters, and that a vote for democracy matters. That is how we can make the difference in the small towns and villages that make up places such as my constituency of North East Derbyshire. Finally, there is a piece of advice that I would like to commend to the House. Over the summer, I had the privilege of meeting Clay Cross air cadets. As I take my place in the House, I commend their motto, “Acta non verba”—deeds, not words. We can all agree that that is a good motto to have as a Member of Parliament, and indeed for the Government.