Luke Evans MP: speeches

Speeches

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is compounded by the Government’s position on spending reductions? We saw that on the Floor of the House, when the one attempt to make spending reductions was gutted mid-discussion, with proposals being pulled from a Bill that dealt with welfare. Therefore, the Government will not make any spending cuts either, which does not leave much else bar borrowing, in my estimation.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  A really important issue, especially for elderly people who are caught in a large home, is social care. We need to make sure that healthcare and support is there as people get older. If they find themselves trapped in a large house, how do we make sure that it is modified? That has an additional cost, which is often lost. Does my hon. Friend agree that freeing up such people to move offers them the benefit of saving money?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that when supply is tight, if we allow people to move more easily, the right people will be in the homes that are right for their time of life? An elderly couple in a five-bedroom house will make the choice to downsize, while a family can upsize to the right house. When supply is tight, that fits much better for us as a society.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. One of the biggest concerns I have is that the Government have taken away the funding for neighbourhood plans. We know that neighbourhood plans give villages their say in where planned housing goes, but more importantly they deliver more housing. Does he believe it is short-sighted to take away that funding, which will compound the problem he is talking about—he is discussing the aspect of style and design—of getting communities to take on extra housing?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrat spokesperson is making some excellent points. Will she therefore support the motion?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady may recall that it was a Labour Secretary of State who removed the word “beautiful” from the national planning policy framework. How does she expect to have those beautiful designs if that has been taken away as a standard within the guidance that her Government provided?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  Another term for austerity is “living within your means”. That is what the British public understand, and that is the point we are trying to make in this debate. When the Government have needed to make difficult decisions, they have fallen short. Can the Minister explain why the Government are not living within their means?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  Pretzel-like.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  Is my right hon. Friend aware of the study by Jackson-Stops, which looked at people aged 55 and over to see how much abolishing stamp duty would help to move the market along? The study estimated that in the first year, abolishing the tax would allow 500,000 people to downsize to free up homes for families, and in the second year, 1.4 million. Stamp duty is a real blocker. Does he agree that that study shows the power of this policy?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  To repeat the quote we heard earlier, we need to walk and chew gum at the same time. It is easy to call China a threat, but still to engage. That is exactly what the Chinese Government do to us: they say, “We’re embarrassed. We’re upset. You promised us something”, and we just say, “Oh, I’m terribly sorry about that.” We could stand up for ourselves and say what we think. Let us not forget that we are in a trade deficit with China; it is economically in China’s interest to be working with us, as much as it is in our interest to be working with China. My worry, though, is that the public are joining dots. The Government will say that there are no dots to be joined, but the longer this goes on and the more incidents come out, it becomes harder to make that argument. That brings us full circle to where I started, because this is about transparency and releasing the documentation.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. Not only have the Government not done anything with the case, there are wider debates that could take place—about what legislation needs to change and other measures that could be included in the Budget, for example.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  The real threat to our security is not necessarily what others do in the shadows; it is what one’s own Government hide from the light. That is the essence of what we are trying to get to in the motion before us—we are asking the Government to publish the papers. Let me take a step back from this issue to look at the way in which the public will perceive it. This is the biggest spy story in this country’s history, at least in this century. We can get into the tit-for-tat about what the PM did or did not know, whether the National Security Adviser speaks to his deputy or not, who told the deputy National Security Adviser that he needs to toe the Government line, and how the Labour manifesto got into the witness statements, but I want to concentrate more on the bigger picture. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) rightly pointed out the behaviour of the Government. The Prime Minister could have sorted this out by coming to the House and speaking about this topic. He could have laid it all out and put it all forward. The only thing we have had has been a statement before Prime Minister’s questions. Of course, we Back Benchers cannot ask questions after such statements—there is no way for us to do so. If the Government are so angry, why is more action not being taken? Why are people not being fired, and why are we still having this debate several weeks on if all the information is so crystal clear that this House can move on? I am worried that this is a pattern of behaviour with the Prime Minister, because we saw this with the ambassador. The Prime Minister was the decision maker on that issue, but he did not come to this House; he sent one of his Ministers. I expect that the retort from Labour Members will be, “It was always thus”, but the reason this saddens me so much is that the Prime Minister is being judged by the standard that he set. He said that he would do things differently, but he is not. He is not coming to the House to explain when he could do so. We know that the information and the decisions rest with him. When I pushed the Minister, the hon. Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis), about leadership last time, that was not directed at him—I have a great deal of respect for him. He is following the leadership of the Prime Minister, who has not come to this House to explain what is going on. If this issue is as clearcut as Labour Members have said, that would be an easy case to make and this House would believe the Prime Minister, but we are not there. That is why I worry, because it leads to a wider debate and wider concerns among the public about whether something is going on.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making a powerful point about the active threat. At this point in time, do the Government perceive China to be an active threat?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  I feel I am being misquoted, because I have simply asked for all this to be resolved by publishing the information. The Government could come out and say that China is a threat. I have also said that we can call it a threat and work economically with the Chinese. That is what I hope will happen. [ Interruption. ] I will finish at that point.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. It is because of these unprecedented facts that I would expect the Prime Minister to come forward and provide answers, not send a Minister in his place.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Tony Blair was Prime Minister for a very long time. Did he amend the legislation?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  I will not, because I have taken two interventions already. My worry is about what the public perceive, because it is a statement of fact that since the Chancellor went to China, decisions have been made about the Chagos islands, for example, or British Steel and £1 billion—what is going on there? A spy case has now been dropped, and there is the possibility of a super-embassy and even ID cards. My constituents are coming to me seeing a running theme.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Is it therefore not incredible either way that the deputy NSA did not discuss the biggest spy case this century with his boss, the National Security Adviser, and was left to his own devices to provide the evidence?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Is that an assertion of fact from the Committee’s report?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Prisoner Release Checks · Hansard source

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  There are almost a dozen pages in the statement and the Secretary of State has taken questions for almost an hour, but there is one word that I have not heard: “sorry”. That is really important, particularly for the 14-year-old victim and her father. The Justice Secretary has said a number of times that he has personally reached out and thanked the police. Has he personally reached out to the victims? Has he tried to speak to them? Has he tried to say sorry?

• 21 Oct 2025 · NHS Trusts: Performance · Hansard source

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  With reports of over £1 billion in costs for integrated care board redundancies and the chief executive officer of NHS England warning that services could have to move to plan B, could the Secretary of State set out what plan B is?

• 21 Oct 2025 · NHS Trusts: Performance · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his answer, but waiting lists have risen for three successive months now, doctors are on strike, GPs are in formal dispute with the Government, and the ICBs are cutting 50% of their staff and do not have £1 billion to pay for it, all while the NHS 10-year plan has been published but with no delivery chapter. When will the Secretary of State come to the House with the delivery plan for the NHS 10-year plan?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  I will speak to the amendments, starting with amendments 1 and 7, and take a canter through my position, as my constituents will have an interest in that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) asked the important question why. Amendments 1 and 7 try to address the most important issue: context. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) pointed out, our signing this deal does not make sense. The Government have been weak in presenting the evidence for why they think we should sign the deal. I wrote to the Government to ask them to explain, and I was able to pull their response apart on Second Reading, one step at a time, explaining why their reasons do not fit. Context is really important. I thought that the deal did not make sense, but factoring in the collapsed spy trial, the billion pounds provided to the steel factories, the pending decision on the embassy—yes, maybe no—and the change in the language used around the subject of China, we need to get to the heart of what is going on. The amendments are an attempt to do that in the name of transparency, which is hugely important.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  This issue has been disputed. Is it not the point that the United Nations convention on the law of the sea cannot pass judgment on sovereignty because of the ruling that was made between Mauritius and the UK on marine protection back in 2015? That was under annexe VII, which was tried and tested. Britain was found wanting on that, because we had not properly talked through what should happen with the Mauritians. What the Mauritians actually wanted to do was to open it for fishing. How can we assure the protection for this area? That is why we need to amend the Bill.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  As ever, my learned right hon. Friend has pipped me to the punch. That is exactly a good example of the kind of sites we are worried about. What has that meant? We have taken on British nationals overseas and invited them in to give them security, because they feared for political interference and, worse still, for the safety of themselves and their families. We are not doing our duties if we are not thinking about these things, because, as we have already seen, it is hard enough to predict things in two or three years’ time, let alone 100 years. At that point, as it is written, we will get the best offer, but it will be only offered to us. We could be outstripped by China, Russia or a BRIC country in the future—we do not know; it is 100 years away—and there is no mechanism to solve that. Worse still, Mauritius could simply say, “We do not want a base here at all,” and there is nothing in this Bill that would stop that. The Government repeatedly have been asked those questions, and they cannot set that out. That is why new clause 2 asks for those impacts to be considered and looked at. New clause 3 would move the marine protected area. I will return to a point I made earlier. The fact is that when Britain and the United Kingdom were taken under UNCLOS in 2010 by Mauritius under annex VII, we wanted to implement protections in the area. Mauritius felt that that impeded on its ability to make its own decisions, which the court found in favour of, and it also wanted to fish in the area. Hang on a second! We are putting weaknesses into this Bill when we know that Mauritius has set its intent. I hope it has moved on, as the debate on climate has, but this new clause would be a guarantee to ensure that that has been thought about. Let me turn to new clause 5. I appreciate the Minister stepping up, because there has already been debate about the Peros Banhos islands, and he has said there are no concerns that they will be leased to China. Let us be real: this Bill has only just come out—the ink is barely dry—and we already hear stories. Many journalists have already talked about this issue. Maybe I am wrong, but that shows the examples of what could and will come without paying attention to the security and the geopolitical and strategic advantage that these islands have, which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) talked about. All new clause 5 asks us to do is ensure that that is reported on and looked at. Again, there is a dereliction of duty by not having that reported. I could go on, because there are many more amendments, but the salient points in this debate have been made. All the amendments tabled in the names of Conservatives— and, to be fair, in the names of Members of many other Opposition parties—ask for one simple thing: transparency and explanation. They ask for a simple way of seeing what the legal advice does and where the financial outcome comes.