Lucy Powell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to hear about the issues that the hon. Lady has rightly raised on behalf of her constituents. I do not know about those specific allegations, but I assure her that we take standards in local government incredibly seriously, as we take standards across all our politics seriously. We will have further legislation at some stage in this Parliament.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This is about the third complaint about the Environment Agency in today’s session, so perhaps colleagues should get together to try and get a broader debate on those issues. We have announced the largest programme on flooding in history, and we have our flood resilience taskforce, but the hon. Lady is right to say that all partners need to play their part. I will ensure she receives a proper response.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee back after recess, and thank him for announcing the forthcoming Backbench Business. I recognise the disruption to those who wanted to speak on Monday in the debate on transport inequality, which was sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), and I am pleased that has been rescheduled for Thursday. I am happy to look at protecting time for that, so that Members can be confident about their contributions in what is obviously a well-subscribed debate. On the tube strikes, nobody wants to see strike action in London. It is incredibly disruptive for commuters and businesses. As ever, the Government—and, I am sure, the Mayor of London—call on Transport for London and the unions to get back round the table so that those strikes do not go ahead next week.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman raises an issue about not only health services and where they are located, but access in constituencies such as his to affordable and reliable buses and transportation. This Government are tackling both of those after years of devastation in our health services and our buses. After 14 years of the Conservatives, I hope that his constituents will start to feel the benefit soon.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. We all heard about the incident in my hon. Friend’s constituency and join her in thanking all those who worked with the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and the volunteers who helped to get the situation under control for the bravery they showed. I think we do need more of a debate about future resilience in terms of wildfires.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This is not the first time that we have heard at business questions about the postcode lottery that remains when it comes to cancer care, particularly children’s cancer care. I thank the hon. Lady for raising that issue, and I will raise it with the Secretary of State. We have announced extra funding and will publish the national cancer plan later this year, and I will ensure that the Secretary of State comes to the House to update us.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. We have seen Members of this House from the Reform party going around the world savaging our rights to free speech in this country, yet the councils they run are not prepared to answer questions on free speech. They are blocking local newspapers from scrutinising their work and, as the hon. Gentleman says, they are not opening themselves up to freedom of information requests. I will ensure he gets a ministerial response.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  What a powerful testimony that my hon. Friend has chosen to raise Norma Symonds, who was a former Conservative councillor in his constituency. She sounds like a remarkable woman, and I thank him for taking the opportunity to raise that today.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to hear about the cases in the hon. Lady’s constituency. I am sure the issues will be familiar to other hon. Members, especially those representing constituencies in Scotland. I am happy to facilitate a response from the Minister, so that we can make sure that the necessary steps are in place to alleviate the situation.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  As ever, my hon. Friend raises important activities happening in his constituency. He is a powerful advocate for community empowerment in his constituency. I join him in thanking those behind such initiatives, which we will have ample opportunity to discuss in the coming months.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I certainly join the hon. Member in congratulating and thanking the parents of Charlie—Harrison and Ellie—for their phenomenal fundraising efforts. Rare diseases such as the one he describes are so difficult to tackle. That is why we need focus on them and extra funding and research, and I will ensure that he gets a full response.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  In the interests of setting the record straight, I must say to the House that I am a complete lightweight these days and much prefer zero-alcohol beer over anything else. I am sure that there were some fantastic zero beers at the festival in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I join him in congratulating Mike Lane and all the others on serving 58,000 pints there.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I join my hon. Friend in welcoming that extra funding for Buckinghamshire and in her calls for the council to use it wisely to decrease congestion and support commuters in her constituency.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  There is no better champion for Bangor than my hon. Friend. It is a fantastic Welsh city. It is almost a Cinderella—a forgotten but brilliant city with huge potential and a great history. I would be delighted to pop along there sometime soon.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Parkrun and junior Parkrun initiatives are fantastic at engaging people in daily activity to keep them healthy and at bringing them together, tackling other issues such as loneliness. I join my hon. Friend in thanking all the organisers for their involvement.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating that collective in her constituency, and I am always happy to get an invitation to a hospitality venue. I am well aware of the challenges for the hospitality sector relating to rising costs, access to staff, still dealing with covid repayments and so on. That is why the Government are supporting hospitality by taking action on business rates and on skills as well as in many other ways. I am sure that would make a good topic for a debate.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I am really sorry to hear that the beaches in the hon. Member’s constituency have been closed. It is unacceptable that sewage has been flowing into the sea around her constituency. As she says, the Scottish Government are responsible for Scottish Water. They should get their act together and follow what we have been doing in England.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  What a wonderful story. I know that raising that issue in business questions helped the hon. Gentleman to secure that funding and that sponsorship, so that Lucas could go to the US Open and compete. What fantastic news that he won his quarter-final and will now be in the semi-finals. I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking the Lawn Tennis Association, easyJet and all those who have made it possible.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  That was my hon. Friend’s first business question! I welcome him to the delights of business questions. They are normally followed by a compliment to me and an invitation to the constituency—I was waiting for that before I got up to reply. I will certainly join my hon. Friend in thanking Tina, Nathan and all those who provided such wonderful holiday facilities for children.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Blooming Bairns on their community work over the past year.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  As someone who follows my hon. Friend on social media, I know that he has had a very busy recess, as have many colleagues; I have looked on jealously at many of the visits that people have been doing over the summer recess. I join him in congratulating the Royal Air Forces Association branch in his constituency on all that it does.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right to highlight that, as the climate changes rapidly, unfortunately we are going to see more wildfires in the summer and more flooding in the winter. We are funding a national resilience wildfire adviser and looking at how we can work with stakeholders and everybody else to tackle this issue and build our resilience.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Anglian Water needs to sort out the situation with the sewer in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and I will raise that for him with Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend reminds us that the effects of the huge contract with Norway to build frigates in this country will be dissipated right through our economy and into constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s across the country. We should be celebrating the international agreements that we have, not going abroad and doing this country down.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I share the frustration, concern and indeed anger in many parts about the huge use of asylum hotels, and now HMOs, in dealing with the asylum backlog, which was left by the hon. Gentleman’s party after it was in power. Indeed, I remember the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Justice Secretary going round the country opening these hotels and allowing this to happen. They left us with a huge backlog. We need to take all necessary steps to bring down illegal migration, deal with these issues and close the hotels. That is what we want to do, but as the hon. Gentleman says, we cannot just make the problem dissipate into other parts of the community. That is why we are working to tackle it.