Luke Evans MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 18 Dec 2025 · Animal Welfare Strategy · Hansard source

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  I have two questions—one practical and one policy. Let us make no mistake: the Government have been dragged here today to answer an urgent question about their welfare strategy, which they are bringing forward next week but which we cannot scrutinise because Parliament goes into recess today. Why is that the case? On policy, I have written a number of times about animal welfare in the rescue and rehoming sector. I hope that that is included in the strategy. Will the Secretary of State confirm that it is being looked at and whether further regulations are needed?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This Saturday is the Hopkins Brothers Tractor Run. Dozens of tractors covered in lights will start in Barwell and go through Earl Shilton, Hinckley, Higham, Stoke Golding, Dadlington, Market Bosworth and Desford and past my house in Newbold Verdon. The run was set up by Liam after the tragic loss of his brother Kieran, who committed suicide in September 2022. Since then, it has raised more than £30,000 for Mind, and Liam won the Voluntary Action LeicesterShire fundraiser of the year award in October. Will the Leader of the House thank Liam for what he does, thank the farmers for putting on such a show for our community and encourage all my constituents to come out and see the lights this Saturday when they pass by?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Community Audiology · Hansard source

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  I am grateful that a comprehensive plan is coming forward. One problem we have is joining the leadership up. The Kingdon review, which was launched in May and finished in November, made 12 recommendations that will help align with all the missions the Minister is bringing forward. Can he tell us when the Kingdon review will be accepted and analysed by the Government, and their position on the recommendations, because it is a key thread to delivering all the ambition that he has rightly put forward?

• 18 Dec 2025 · Community Audiology · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, and I wish you and your team a merry Christmas. I thank the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) for inadvertently creating what seems like a medical symposium; I feel as if I am back at one of my Christmas grand rounds—they often used to pick something a little bit strange and wacky to debate. I did not quite expect to be talking about spaniels’ ear canals, but I enjoyed the flashback none the less. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) rightly talked about couples. When I was a GP, I saw couples become yin and yang, supporting each other on the basis of who had the hearing loss, who had the brains and who had the dexterity. If one of those problems is not sorted, there can be real impacts for the others. We should consider that when we deal with patients. The hon. Gentleman’s point about drawers of waste was a personal hobby horse of mine too—though it was not hearing aids, but often medication brought back to me, or seeing thousands of bandages or eye drops left over when I went on home visits, for example. That is a really important point and the NHS is not very good at picking up on it. I thank the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for raising the issue of stigma. My grandfather was particularly bad and stubbornly did not want to get a hearing aid, and even when he did get it, he would not wear it. My right hon. Friend also joked about his wife not hearing him, which reminded me of “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”; at the start of the film, the pea is taken out of the ear, but at the end, because of all the nagging, he is desperate to get the pea reinserted. My right hon. Friend also raised the issue of workforce, which is incredibly important when it comes to trying to solve some of these problems. The hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip set out clearly and coherently both the landscape and where we find ourselves. That is really important because, when people think about care delivered close to home, hearing loss services are among some of the most visible examples on the high street and in our community settings across the country. I visited the Specsavers on Hinckley’s high street, as well as the pharmacy in Newbold Verdon, only a couple of months ago to see what they provide. There is a real opportunity to bring care towards people, which makes high streets a good bellwether for this Government’s ambition on prevention and community care and how that is being translated into practice. There are three issues I would like to press the Minister on. The first is the funding pressures on the ICBs, the second is access and self-referral, and the third is national oversight and data. On access and self-referral, under previous NHS operational planning guidance, ICBs were asked to increase direct access and self-referrals into audiology services. That was a good move; it meant that people concerned about their hearing could go straight to specialist care without needing to see a GP first. In many areas, that has been a success. However, as we heard during the debate, 12 ICBs that commission hearing loss services still require a GP referral. That adds delays for patients and places unnecessary pressure on general practice, not necessarily for any clinical benefit. Against that backdrop, it is a little disappointing to see that self-referral was not included in the most recent operational planning guidance for 2025-26, nor in the medium-term planning framework. The question is why. Would the Minister explain why self-referrals seem to have been deprioritised, and what concrete steps the Government are taking to ensure that access to audiology does not depend simply on where someone lives? On funding pressures and core services, Members have rightly highlighted the significant variation in access to routine audiology services, particularly earwax removal. In too many parts of the country, people are either being pushed back to the ENT departments or told to pay privately. I am glad that we have an eminent surgeon in the Chamber, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket; from a GP’s perspective, I understand why some were reluctant to go back to having their ears syringed and I often dealt with complaints about why it was not suitable, as suction is the gold standard. The question is how we provide that in a way that is deliverable to the community and provides to the patients, but is also at least cost-neutral for primary or secondary care. There is a conundrum there. That situation will be made worse, as the Father of the House pointed out, by our ageing population. When ICBs are under pressure and their budgets are changing—they are being cut by 50%—how do we ensure that that it is deliverable? That poses the question of how sustainable it is to place the responsibility of the full range of audiology services on ICBs, considering they are under constraints, and how will the Government square that circle. There is also the opportunity of public-private partnerships and neighbourhood centres to help to deliver audiology services. That could come as sites or services. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out what his vision is in this space, considering we are trying to take a leftwards shift. There are also opportunities for new thinking. As I mentioned, I went to see a pharmacist. What supports have been put in place for new providers to come in? Pharmacists seem keen to be able to take on more services, and they often have sites directly in the heart of our communities—the closest place to our residents. Is there some consideration of what can be done to innovate in that space? On data, oversight and accountability, one of the most striking features of audiology is how difficult it is to assess the performance nationally. The Government were right to set out their ambition to meet the NHS standard that 92% of people should wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment, and in most specialties we can clearly see how the system is performing against that ambition. However, in audiology it is harder, especially as the referral-to-treatment waiting time data, which was paused during the pandemic for understandable reasons, has since been retired by NHS England. Looking ahead, given that the Government have confirmed their intention to bring forward legislation to abolish NHS England, with the statutory functions being taken into the system, will the Minister consider looking again at reinstating the referral-to-treatment waiting time data for direct audiology as a way to monitor the leftward shift that the Government are pushing for? If so, will that be done at ICB level or under the Department of Health and Social Care? I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify two points. First, when does the Government expect to introduce the legislation in 2026? Secondly, it would be helpful to understand when we can expect the workforce plan: we were told that it was coming in the summer, then the autumn and, now that we are on the last day of business before Christmas, I expect it is coming in the new year. Knowing when that plan is coming, and how audiology will play a part in that, is really important. Given the Kingdon review only came forward in November, it is unfair of me to ask whether the Government have fully assessed it yet. The review had 12 recommendations and also pointed out the oversight, and there is a question about how that will be resolved. With all the changes to ICBs, NHS England and the Kingdon review, I would be grateful to know when we will likely hear whether all recommendations have been accepted and will be resolved. Audiology may not always attract attention in this House, but it is a vital part of our community healthcare and a real test of the Government’s commitment to prevention and access. I hope the Minister can provide clarity on the questions I have asked today. I wish you, Mr Vickers, your team, your colleagues, everyone in this House and my constituents a very merry Christmas.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  I have long argued in this House that when it comes to mental or physical health, it is about women and men, not women or men, and that is important. I welcome the strategy coming forward, but can I also bring a sense of caution, because terms like “toxic masculinity” and labelling young men and boys are potentially a real problem, because they see themselves as destined to cause some problem? Already some of the reporting today enhances that. What are the Government doing to ensure that we are not already socially criminalising young men and boys for having feelings about good masculinity? That is an important definition that the Government need to get right, and I would appreciate her answer on that topic.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Planning Reform · Hansard source

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  My constituents would have much more sympathy with the Minister if he could explain why, when it comes to house building, Leicester city’s target will go down by 31%, whereas Hinckley and Bosworth’s and north-west Leicestershire’s targets will go up by 59% and 74% respectively. It means that we have 10,000 houses proposed near Twycross, and thousands near Burbage and Barwell. What would he say to my constituents about the unfairness of the discrepancies between targets for city and brownfield sites, and targets for green-belt sites and agricultural land?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I was listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but he tailed off when he was talking about a problem, and it did not quite go through. I think that he was talking about the fact that there would be a delay because of the consultation. In 1999 and 2015 there were consultations on the very issue of a cap. Why have the Government not done that?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Has the Minister conducted an impact assessment? If so, how much does she think this change will cost? How many uncapped awards will be made? These are the kinds of big, important decisions that the other place has concerns about, as do Conservative Members. If she has that evidence, she could put this to bed tonight by simply providing it to us so that we can make an informed decision.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I am conscious that we are debating a particular point. Is the hon. Member voting for or against the cap? That is the essence of what we are looking at today.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I would love to elucidate, because if we go back to 2010, we had to deal with the financial crisis, and we had to borrow £158 billion to deal with that. Then we had to get the coffers back in the right position, and we were just about doing that before the pandemic hit and we had to borrow another £400 billion. The hon. Lady was not here under the previous Government, but every time we were here, the Opposition were asking us to spend more, and we are now feeling the pressures of having to deal with that. The hon. Lady talks about what Labour inherited, but it also inherited the fastest growing economy in the G7. We also had inflation at target and very little unemployment, but all those things are now changing under this Government, because of their polices. It is easy to see why. In the first Budget, there was an increase in the national living wage and in national insurance contributions, and business rates relief for the hospitality sector was cut from 75% to 40%. If we fast forward to this Budget, the national living wage has been raised again and the business rates relief has been cut again. Now the Government have come forward to say, “We are putting transition measures in place”, but those measures will mean a 15% increase for the vast majority of businesses. That increase is capped—I give the Government credit for that—but for the vast majority of businesses, the increase is 15% this year, and then up to 30%, 40% or 70% over three years. That is the prospect for hospitality businesses. They were already struggling because of the very nature of the pandemic as well as high inflation because of the war in Ukraine, so the situation is difficult for those businesses—they are the most vulnerable ones—yet the toxic concoction put in place by this Government is making things worse. I will go down my high streets this Christmas to speak to those businesses, but I fear what lies in prospect for them as a result of this Government’s actions. How will the measures that the Government have put in place encourage those businesses and help them to move forward? I do not think that Labour Members are anti-business and I agree that they want to support workers, but they are blinkered and naive to think about giving extra rights and pay to workers without taking into consideration the consequences of what may well happen. It is all very well having increased pay, but for people who do not have a job, that is an increase in nothing. That is the heart of the problem. We want to see more secure pay. The previous Prime Minister, the former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, talked about high productivity and high-value jobs, which all hon. Members want to see. The question is how we get there. We do not get there by tying a tight noose around the businesses that will drive those jobs, which is a real concern for me. Why would anyone take the risk of setting up a restaurant in Market Bosworth or a new pub in Donisthorpe? Why would they take on the responsibility of the livelihood of their employees? Most employers are good employers and care deeply about their workforce.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I bow to her experience as I know that she has run and been involved with many businesses. She speaks the truth about what businesses and risk-takers are looking at in this country. They are saying, “Why would I take that risk? Why would I take on that responsibility if there is not any reward?” I would have had more truck with the Government if they set out what they were trying to achieve over the next three or four Budgets sequentially. They could then have increased national insurance contributions, for example, as a one-off, and built around that. However, the problem is that there is a toxic concoction of measures all coming in one go.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I will take an intervention on that point, if any Labour Member would like to make one. More importantly, my hon. Friend correctly makes the point that it is the Government’s job to set the framework. There is no such thing as Government money: it is taxpayers’ money, earned by those who create the wealth. It is businesses and the associated workforce that provide the public sector with the money it needs to do its job—it is that simple. In my trade as a doctor, we talk about A-B-C-D-E when it comes to a patient. There is no use dealing with the circulation—the heart—if the person does not have a clear airway. The same applies here: we need to have an economy that is growing and thriving to be able to give the foundation to the funding for the likes of the NHS or education. This is where the Government might be slightly wrong and where they have got the balance wrong, about which we heard from the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger). If the system is tilted too far and made too tight for people ever to take a risk, we are not going to have the tax inflow in the first place. Worse still, we have seen 16,000 millionaires and counting leave the country.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  How much is it?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. There is a risk of doing that, but we have to remember that it does not need to be like that. There are many good employees and many good employers, far more than hon. Members like to talk about. Our job is to protect those margins. If we make the margins too tight, we hinder the very people who are doing a good job, which I think is his inference and what I hear in my constituency. That is why I am asking the Government to rethink this balance and to reconsider the toxic concoction of legislation, red tape and taxation all at once causing such a big problem. At the end of the day, we can have as many employment rights as we want, but if we do not have businesses driving growth and providing jobs, they will not apply—it is as simple as that. In conclusion, at the end of “Blackadder Goes Forth”, Blackadder resigns himself to going over the top, but Baldrick taps him on the shoulder and says, “Sir, I have a cunning plan.” I hope that the Chancellor has a cunning plan to deal with this situation, but I will not wait with bated breath.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  When the Chancellor stood up and said that the Government would be changing business rates, there was some relief across the industry, but now businesses are realising that because the temporary relief that has been in place for five years since the pandemic is being stripped away, even though they are getting these new business rates, they are much worse than what they had before. It is the cumulative effect of both those things crossing over that is causing the problem—that is why bills will go up, rather than come down. Does my hon. Friend agree?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right. As an MP, he will be an employer. No doubt, he is a good employer who offers the members of his team good terms and he cares deeply about the staff who he is looking after. However, we have taxpayer-funded jobs, but the private sector has to generate the funding to employ people, so those businesses have to take the risk and work out whether there will be a job in the first place. Worse still, because of the Government’s Budget choices, many cafés and pubs are looking to reduce the hours that they open, to reduce their staffing hours or even to close because they cannot make the numbers add up. We are seeing a cumulative effect, which is having an impact at a micro level on the likes of Twycross and at a macro level on the whole country, with every industry speaking out and saying that it is having problems. I had hoped that the Government might listen to those ideas. The Government’s mantra has always been that their No.1 mission is growth, but all the measures that they have put in place are anti-growth. We are seeing the results of that, with inflation being higher.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  How much would the 5% VAT policy cost?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  It is not just wealthy people who have left. We know from the Office for National Statistics data that 257,000 Brits have gone—it had been estimated at 70,000—of whom about two thirds to three quarters are under the age of 35. We are losing young people to the rest of the world because of the implications of not being able to get a job in this country.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  The Minister’s amendment to the motion refers to “a comprehensive vision for productivity and success” for small businesses. It is incredibly similar to the amendment that the Government tabled in the high streets debate, but interestingly, what has gone is a reference to a 25% cut in administrative burden. The Minister raised the issue, but did not comment on whether the Government are committed to that 25% cut. Where does that figure come from, and why has it disappeared from this amendment, when it was in a previous one?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  As it comes towards Christmas, I tend to think of the shows I like to watch, and one is “Blackadder Goes Forth”. Near the end there is a famous quote. Blackadder is finally trying to get away, but he cannot. He knows he is going to go over the top and he says, “Well, it rhymes with clucking bell”. For me, that is what many in my constituency who run businesses are now feeling about not one but two Labour Budgets. When I think about high streets in Earl Shilton, Barwell and Hinckley, I think about our little cafés and restaurants, the shops, and the pubs. They are really feeling the pressure. The Government came in on a mandate of raising taxes—that is true—but to the tune of £7 billion or perhaps £8 billion, not £40 billion in the first Budget, and £26 billion in the second. Every Government may need to raise taxes—the Conservatives did it when we were in government—but the problem with the current Government, and the issue hitting all my businesses, is the toxic concoction of everything changing at once. There is constriction around the whole idea of growth. We see that at micro level on the high streets of Hinckley and Burbage, and at macro level as a country, with ever tightening red tape and tax, all under the auspices that we are supposed to be growing as a country. We have seen inflation and unemployment go up, and growth stagnate. That is the reality that the country is facing, and so are my high streets.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

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  On the tourism tax, only a couple of months ago, in response to a question that I had posed, the then Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), said, “We think they have been taxed enough.” Is it a surprise to Opposition Members to see a tourism tax being brought forward?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  Nowhere is that more evident than in health, with the abolitions and redundancies in integrated care boards. Given that those redundancies cover 50% of ICB staff, we now understand that the funding is just being reprofiled into later spending in 2028-29. Is that not exactly the kind of example that my right hon. Friend is talking about? Labour will encounter real problems in the next couple of years as it tries to drive through its agenda.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  One concern that I have is the repeated pattern seen with the Budget. At the time, the Government sat on an impact assessment that showed that 100,000 pensioners would be pushed into poverty and 50,000 into absolute poverty. That was the Government’s own assessment, but they did not release it to the House or the country before pushing through the policy, which we have now seen in the Budget. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a pattern of behaviour rather than a one-off mistake?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q7. Mr Speaker, I feel for the Prime Minister. It must be tough, wherever he goes in the UK, because of his policies: a pub, higher taxes; a restaurant, higher taxes; a café, higher taxes; a farm, higher taxes; a GP, higher taxes; a care home, higher taxes; a hospice, higher taxes. Is that the reason the Prime Minister chooses to spend so much time out of this country?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Restriction of Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Minister on both her passion and her ability to get so many words into Hansard in her responses on an urgent question. However, one bit of detail that we are missing—and she is now being asked about this for the fifth time—is an impact assessment. She has said again that the impact assessment will be brought forward at the appropriate time. The question was: has it been written already and she is keeping hold of it, or has it not been written but will be brought forward at the appropriate time? I would appreciate clarity on that, with a simple yes or no.