Luke Taylor MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls: London · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the Minister give way?

• 25 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls: London · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) for securing this important debate and sharing her tragic experiences for the benefit of others. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) on launching the APPG for the survivors of Fayed in Harrods, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain)—a huge scandal that affects women across the country. There has been lots of talk in recent years, and indeed in the Chamber today, about changing social attitudes—educating men to stamp out violence against women and girls at its root. We have all heard the terrifying statistics that seven out of 10 women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in public. Each London borough faces more than 2,000 domestic abuse offences and 4,000 incidents annually. Even in the context of known under-reporting, the Metropolitan police recorded an average of 24 reports of domestic violence per day in 2023. It is important that we also bring into sharper focus the crucial fact that we have a role—not just as legislators gathered here today, but in the wider public sector and its various arms of governance and jurisprudence—and a responsibility to lead from the front. I echo the call by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) for us to become the first White Ribbon Parliament, which would make a small step in that direction. Although it is true that, far too often, changes in this place happen because of a changing world beyond our gates, it is also true that, in many ways, society looks to the state to take the moral lead on the fundamental issues of equality and justice. When the state is failing in its duty to take that moral leadership, we do not just compound the problems; we actively undermine efforts happening across society to tackle them. Sadly, in the case of violence against women and girls, I fear that that is exactly what we are at risk of doing, if we do not redouble our efforts to stamp it out. Perhaps nowhere is that more pressing and concerning a matter than with the Metropolitan police. It can no longer be denied or ignored that there are elements in the force who hold views entirely incompatible with the state taking this issue seriously. Although commendable work has been done by Commissioner Rowley, who I have met and I trust is treating the historic mission with the gravity required of it, recent events have underlined that this is still a serious, systemic problem. The recent revelations broadcast by the BBC’s excellent and sobering “Panorama” investigation about officers based at Charing Cross station, leading to the dismissal of four officers, was shocking and profoundly depressing. To reference just one particularly demonstrative example of the unacceptable behaviour that was uncovered, Police Sergeant Joe McIlvenny, an officer with nearly 20 years’ service in the Met, was dismissive about a pregnant woman’s allegation of rape and domestic violence after a colleague raised concerns about the decision to release the accused man on bail. He replied, “That’s what she says.” The station had been the focus of an investigation by the police watchdog—the Independent Office for Police Conduct—into bullying and discrimination nearly four years ago. It found that some officers had discussed hitting their girlfriends, shared offensive and discriminatory comments, and joked about rape in a private group chat, and yet nothing changed. Those are not isolated incidents, nor am I latching on to the most recent example for ease. We know there is a systemic problem in the Met: the Casey review in 2023 told us that one in three female officers had experienced sexism at work, and that around one in ten had experienced sexual harassment or assault. Four years on from the death of Sarah Everard, we are left asking whether work is really happening at the pace required to root out those men from the force. Fundamentally, this is about trust. We would always encourage any woman fleeing violence, or looking to report an assault or harassment, to find a police officer and seek their protection. That is a fundamental tenet of a free and fair society. However, like many men across London, I simply cannot provide them the total guarantee that doing so will mean they are met with the support of someone who understands and respects the problem they are facing or, more importantly, who understands and respects women themselves and all the manifold challenges they face. That is an awful place for society to be. The uniform of the Met should be a symbol of trust, not a shield for misogyny, hatred and racism, but too many officers have broken that trust. Policing is done by consent, and trust in the police is essential for the safety of Londoners. Incidents such as the ones I have mentioned undermine that trust. The Home Secretary has a responsibility to intervene and work with the Met to tackle this behaviour, owing to their unique role in its governance. I invite the Minister to tell us in more detail what the Government are doing not only to tackle the misogyny that spurs violence against women and girls across society but, crucially, to address it closer to home—in the arms of the state directly under the purview of the Home Office. It is not just in policing that these issues rear their ugly heads, but across other arms of the state too. The Crown Prosecution Service, perhaps most notably, is failing victims of violence against women and girls so frequently that it undermines the confidence of women everywhere that they can ever truly seek justice. I know this quite vividly. When I met Claire Waxman in her role as Victims’ Commissioner for London, I heard about women left waiting for months, even years, with their lives on hold while cases crawl through the CPS. I have also listened to the stories of many of my constituents who have had to retreat from seeking justice, despite the awful things that have happened to them. One constituent was kept waiting for two years while her abuser was released on bail, only to be told that, even though what had happened to her constituted common assault, a charge of actual bodily harm could not be pursued due to the time that had elapsed since the incident. That is despite the fact that several lawyers, during that period—while she was waiting powerlessly for the CPS to move forward—agreed that the incident met the threshold for ABH. Colleagues, I sincerely invite you to consider the scale of that Orwellian, Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare: the powerlessness, anxiety and exhaustion it wrought on my constituent, and the distance we have allowed ourselves to travel as a society from the promise of justice for all by allowing the CPS to become so gridlocked. It is so backed up and broken that it is telling female victims of crime that they cannot seek justice through the state system because of the system’s own failings. In case anyone doubts that those failings are not serious or speak to a lack of evidence, let me tell the House about another constituent of mine who was assaulted in broad daylight on public transport during rush hour, in full view of CCTV cameras, and who is still waiting now, two years later, for the CPS to move forward with charges. The situation beggars belief. It is utterly unacceptable. I ask the Minister to outline in significant detail—and I strongly underline the word significant—what exactly the Government will do to sort this mess out. To return to the point on which I began these remarks, just as the state often looks to society for guidance on social change and progress, so too—and perhaps more powerfully, or at least more meaningfully for those of us in this place with our hands on the levers—does society look to the state for an exemplification of the kind of society we want to live in. We have a moral obligation to lead from the front. The state will never be the active, positive player in the field that it ought to be—an ally to all those who seek to root out the misogyny that plagues us and sprouts the poison of violence against women and girls—until it is absolutely committed, acting seriously and with pace, to getting its own house in order. The vaccine against the epidemic of violence and abuse that women face in our society will be administered in our schools, our youth centres and the hubs that remain, in our homes and community groups, in the mass media, but critically, too, on social media. It will also need to be inculcated in our police stations, court rooms, hospitals and many arms of the modern state—and, indeed, here in this Palace, which sits at the heart of the state. Only then will we see the revolution in safety that is needed for women and girls in London, and put an end to the horrifying statistics and stories that we have heard today.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls: London · Hansard source

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  The feedback from the local police force in Sutton, which is part of the trial, is that they find them incredibly helpful. There is a ringing endorsement for the orders and we look forward to seeing them rolled out more broadly.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Immigration Reforms: Humanitarian Visa Routes · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing this important and timely debate. Like so many of my constituents, I was delighted to hear last week that Hong Kong BNO passport holders will keep their five-year route to settlement. The Liberal Democrats have fought hard for that, so I am pleased to see the Government finally respond to our campaign. Britain and Hong Kong share a special relationship, and nowhere is that clearer than in my constituency of Sutton and Cheam, and across Sutton borough. Thousands of Hongkongers have built their lives, raised families and grown thriving businesses in Sutton. They are part the very fabric of the borough that I am proud to call home. Although I welcome the Government’s decision, my inbox and social media have been flooded with messages from BNO holders who are rightly demanding further clarity. I therefore call on the Minister to answer their three most pressing concerns. The first relates to the new requirement for earnings. Will the new earnings requirement for settlement status above £12,570 be applicable to BNO visa holders? Many Hongkongers are retired, studying full time or caring for children or loved ones. That requirement will cut directly against the humanitarian intent of the BNO visa. Any new sustained and measurable economic contribution test or minimum income rule risks permanently excluding those entirely legitimate residents. Those Hongkongers are already fully integrated in their communities and contribute to British society in non-financial ways. Earning less does not mean contributing less; their contribution might not always show on a payslip. The second concern relates to the English language requirement. Will the new English language requirement of B2 be applicable to BNO visa holders? For many families, that will be a huge and unexpected hurdle. Tens of thousands of BNO visa holders will reach the five-year point and become eligible for settlement in 2026. A sudden increase to B2 level without adequate notice or transition would throw many vulnerable residents off balance and deny permanent status to people who have lived, worked and put down roots in Britain for half a decade. Thirdly, on the 20-year route protection, I am extremely concerned that the combination of the new 20-year baseline for refugees on the core protection routes and the suggested additional 20-year extension for anyone who entered as a visitor will apply to Hong Kong political exiles who have no access to the BNO visa scheme. Many young activists, particularly those born after 1997 or whose parents never registered for BNO status, have no safe and legal route to the UK. They are compelled to travel to the UK as visa-free visitors and only claim asylum once inside the country. They fear that declaring an asylum intention at the border would lead to detention or being refused entry and returned to Hong Kong. They are often subjected to surveillance and oppression by Chinese authorities while in Hong Kong, and have needed the time in the UK to prepare adequate evidence to present to the Home Office. These are political refugees fleeing persecution in Hong Kong at the hands of the CCP. Imposing a 40-year wait for settlement on brave young dissidents would be wholly disproportionate. In refusing to consider Hongkongers for this type of exemption, we do not simply adjust a policy; we threaten the humanitarian corridor that has long connected two nations through history, culture and a shared belief in freedom.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Draft Unmanned Aircraft (Offences and Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I offer broad support for the draft regulations. It is welcome that the CAA has lengthened the transition period in response to the consultation—the consultation seems to have been fairly well responded to. This is an example of the positive impact that hobbyists and private users can make on Government regulation. I encourage the Government to maintain that approach. I echo the concerns about convergence or divergence with European regulations, but I sound a note of caution: there should not be divergence for divergence’s sake. Let us look at where there are advantages, compatibility or competitiveness with what is likely to be a larger market for products close by, and make sure that we approach that in a reasonable manner. Can the Minister give some detail on how the CAA will engage with operating companies, particularly software manufacturers, to ensure that users are aware of the regulations? That is often done via apps and subscriptions. We must make sure that compliance is built in, especially with the geofencing altitude regulations and the night light operating rules. I thank the Minister for introducing the draft regulations and wish him the best of luck in boosting our competitiveness and the quality of the products we produce in the United Kingdom.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Social Media Posts: Penalties for Offences · Hansard source

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  It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. The text of the petition makes specific reference to “posts on social media”, as if this modern medium is somehow separate from every form of speech that came before. Social media posts take seconds to write and publish, and then they are everywhere. They are seen by our parents, grandparents and kids, with no fact check and no filter. Terrifyingly, a 2025 Ofcom study found that three quarters of 18 to 24-year-olds use digital platforms and social media to get their news. The sort of reach once available only to professional journalists, filtered through editors and media owners, is now available to anyone with a phone. We can post with a moment’s thought during our morning coffee break, with the same ease as world leaders with armies of speechwriters, fact checkers and lawyers to craft their statements. One impulsive tap on an app can land in the timelines of tens, thousands or millions of people. Let us be honest: who has not posted online something they later regretted? I know I have, and I challenge anyone these days to have an unblemished record online. The incredible reach that modern social media has enabled, compared with the guardianship and control of legacy media sources for centuries, has rightly been compared with the unleashing of the evils of the world from Pandora’s box. We must recognise that attempting to reverse the exodus is as futile for us as it was for the Pandora of myth. To keep with an historical allusion, the story of the sword of Damocles described how a single hair of a horse’s tail held a sword over the head of King Dionysius, threatening to take away all that he enjoyed as a king, without notice. A second’s misplaced rage, or a misjudged reaction to somebody else’s message, can cause the thread to break and the sword to fall, with the nationwide media sent to a person’s doorstep, their career and life torn apart. That is the reality of casting our thoughts into the social media forum. The fragility of the risk cannot be used to diminish the impact, and hence the responsibility that must be held by users who can reach millions around the world in seconds. The ease of posting cannot be allowed to dilute the seriousness of the impact. I return to my earlier argument: I invite us to replace “posts on social media” in the petition with “words in a national newspaper” or “speech on national television”. Would there be the same uproar or calls for clemency if a journalist or TV presenter had urged their audience to set fire to hotels full of people? I suggest not. In the case of Lucy Connolly, her post inciting violence against a hotel full of people, as riots raged throughout the country, was seen by more than 300,000 people in the three and a half hours before it was deleted. That is roughly the same number as the combined daily circulation of The Daily Telegraph and The Times newspapers. I cannot agree with treating social media differently from incendiary violence elsewhere. There were 9,000 followers and it was viewed more than 300,000 times in three and a half hours. We cannot keep pretending that what happens online stays online. The digital world is now shaping how people think, speak and act, and the consequences are now impossible to ignore. The very power that social media holds is exactly why so many people wield it with such vigour. Let us not forget that it is a nice little earner for some, too. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) has earned over £40,000 from Twitter since his election, showing the huge potential of the site, and potentially why he is incentivised to defend so enthusiastically people’s right to say inflammatory and shocking things to drive engagement, clicks and views. The online world has become a place where hate speech—or, as the petition puts it, “opinion…speech”—is allowed to spread like wildfire. Too often, social media platforms shrug their shoulders and walk away from the responsibility of monitoring it or, worse, they actively encourage disinformation. Twitter is the most obvious offender. I am told that, for those who still do, scrolling through Twitter feeds feels like stepping into the wild west. Abusive comments and dangerous posts are left to fester without consequence. A factual error is twisted and retold as the gospel truth before anyone has had time to draw breath. Communities are put at risk by conspiracies that proliferate like a virus. Twitter must do far more to tackle the surge of hate speech that we see on our phones and tablets every single day. Since Musk took control of the company in 2022, Twitter has rolled back on safeguards designed to prevent misinformation and dangerous rhetoric. The same Elon Musk suggested that America should liberate the people of Britain and overthrow our democratically elected Government. Incidentally, the US customs and border protection guidelines for allowing non-citizens to enter the USA state that if an immigration officer knows or believes that someone would be entering the country to attempt to overthrow the US Government, they are inadmissible. If we applied that reasoning to Mr Musk’s next trip to our country, I wonder whether he might have complaints about his treatment. There is free speech, but not without consequences. This is a foreign billionaire, armed with his global megaphone, fanning the flames of division and calling for the overthrow of our democratically elected Government. We call that treason here. We cannot allow tech oligarchs to set the rules for British society. Instead of allowing the world’s richest man to decide what toxic content floods national conversation, the Government must wake up and intervene. We Liberal Democrats call on the Minister to properly equip Ofcom to enforce tough regulations to clamp down on the spread of misinformation online. Online safety cannot rest solely on the shoulders of individual users, as algorithms push controversial content for views and shares. Legislation must be tightened to hold social media platforms accountable for the dangerous rhetoric they allow to thrive. Social media is simply the latest chapter in humanity’s long history of communication, and vectors for incitement, from clay tablets to the printing press to broadcast news. Because it is so accessible, it arguably needs more accountability from its users and operators—not less, as the petition proposes. Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society. We have always, and will always, stand up for freedom of speech. However, that does not mean no accountability for hate speech or speech that incites violence. Those who use violence, racist abuse or hate speech must face serious consequences. We do not support the suggestion in the petition that social media posts should be treated any differently from any other types of speech.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. What enforcement action is the Environment Agency taking against Viridor, the operator of the Beddington energy recovery facility, due to 18 months of exceedances of daily limits of NOx? Can the Minister also confirm that the permit increase request for the ERF will finally be refused?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q7. May I echo the words of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) of how proud I am to wear the marigold alongside my poppy? Last year, Sadiq Khan was elected London mayor with a promise to keep a police station front counter open in all 32 London boroughs 24 hours a day. Labour has just broken that promise to Londoners as only two will remain. This year, the Met police has 1,419 fewer police officers and staff—that is, fewer people working hard to keep Londoners and our visitors safe. In Sutton and Cheam, we have just had our high street police team cut from 11 officers to just four, inevitably leaving my constituents less safe. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the Liberal Democrats and Sir Mark Rowley that a shrinking Met police force compromises their ability to keep Londoners safe?

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Mundell. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) for securing this debate. It is extremely timely, because it is less than a fortnight since I was last in this Chamber debating housing policy—it seems that I am the Liberal Democrats’ housing spokesperson for London. Contrary to what some in the Government seem to think, there is no inherent tension between the three most important tasks facing us: to build safe homes, to build green homes and to build affordable homes. The limitations or structural problems with the market are self-imposed by our lack of ambition and our worrying proclivity to shun innovation. During the debate two weeks ago, the Housing Secretary and the Mayor of London were announcing the raft of measures that triggered this subsequent debate. The measures were announced not at the Dispatch Box, or even in this Chamber in front of what would have been a captive audience, but to the press, giving us no opportunity to scrutinise them and rendering that Westminster Hall debate moot. I invite the Minister to confirm that no subsequent major changes with such a profound impact on the local authorities that everyone in this room works with on a daily basis and on our constituents will be made outside of this place. Frankly, those measures are not small fry; they hand developers a get-out while Londoners on waiting lists across our city continue to suffer, and they are a threat to the financial stability and forward-planning ability of local authorities across London. The Liberal Democrats are clear: the plans will not solve the housing crisis in London, but make things worse.

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  Skipping ahead, I invite the Minister to tell us why anyone who cares about solving the housing crisis and protecting local councils in London should vote Labour at the local elections in May, particularly when the only party consistently standing up for those hit hardest by the housing crisis, and for our cash-strapped local councils, is the London Liberal Democrats.

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I will move on swiftly. In my experience in Sutton we subscribe to the “yify”—“yes, if”—approach that I have spoken about a number of times. We do not need to water down community buy-in. We might need to make it faster and more efficient, but throwing out the baby with the bathwater will only lead to the wrong housing being built in the wrong places and leave us wondering, in 30 years’ time, why the mistake was not glaringly obvious to people today. That is not a new approach that has reared its head in these measures; the decisions to cut the portion of affordable housing expected from developments in the recent “Homes for Londoners” plan, and to set the annual national social house building target at just 20,000 social homes per year, show that the Government simply do not have a credible plan to provide the kind of housing the country needs. We need an ambitious whole-of-Government approach to build up to 150,000 social homes each year. It can be done, and the Government need look no further than the Liberal Democrats’ plans. We would give local authorities the power to stop Help to Buy in their area and, as a last resort, to stop the right to buy too, and give them the first right to purchase all public land for social housing. We would also fix the Building Safety Regulator by ending the mismatch between fire safety standards and the Building Safety Act 2022, speeding up the backlog of confusion and incomplete assessments for remediation, while ensuring that the building safety levy covers all the costs so that leaseholders are protected from paying. As well as making it more affordable to insulate existing homes, we would ensure that all new homes are zero carbon and provide proper incentives for critical household infrastructure such as heat pumps. That is how we build more affordable homes—not by tearing up regulations with no regard to the impact, but by smartening regulations and intervening with serious, meaningful incentives to build the right kinds of housing. Secondly, it will be news to nobody that the financial picture for London councils is dire. The city’s 32 boroughs overspent by £330 million on housing and temporary accommodation budgets last year alone—double the previous year’s figure. As London Councils has demonstrated, the cost of the London homelessness crisis is the greatest threat to the financial stability of London boroughs. Watering down the community infrastructure levy—perhaps the most notable way that councils recoup costs and benefits from house building in the short term—is simply another hammer blow in that regard.

• 5 Nov 2025 · House Building: London · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for providing that example of the impact on a specific project, which shows how difficult this will be for our councils. The announced measures will quietly reduce the requirement for affordable homes from 35% to 20%, forcibly slash the community infrastructure levy money, and barely scratch the surface of the bigger and more profound structural barriers to getting green, affordable and safe housing built. The Government have triggered great uncertainty and more financial instability for local authorities while achieving very little in the shake-up, seemingly because they think that big, decisive action with very little prep work and no consultation is the way to get things done. The Housing Secretary is clearly taking more than just headwear inspiration from a certain world leader—which would make sense if it were not his own zone that he is flooding with a substance that the courtesies of this House do not allow me to name. In all seriousness, the housing crisis in London deserves more than a knee-jerk reaction. There are 330,000 households stuck on social housing waiting lists—more than the total number of households in our two largest boroughs, Barnet and Croydon, combined. As we have heard, London boroughs are spending £5 million a day on temporary accommodation, although I have heard that figure for about a year, so it must be considerably more by now. According to London Councils, there is a £700 million shortfall in the housing revenue accounts that fund new house building. The proposed measures will simply make that worse, for two main reasons. First, the Government will facilitate the right kind of house building not by dropping the regulations that developers face, but by amending them and fixing the structural issues within the Building Safety Regulator. Secondly, the measures actively—and inexcusably—disrupt the already stretched financial picture for local authorities. I will take them in turn. First, granting the right to reduce the level of affordable housing per project fails to recognise that the proliferation of a particular kind of luxury, unaffordable housing in London means that it is unlikely that new building accelerated under the scheme will ease upward pressures on house prices in the capital. Giving the mayor new powers to call in decisions and accelerate them almost on a whim does nothing to address the concerns that local authorities and local residents will have about their ability to object to new housing that will not contribute to solving the crisis. The measures seem to be imposed in an imagined battle against the nimbys, when most in London have lived experience of housing instability—either their own or that of younger family members, co-workers or friends—and, as such, are in favour of the kind of house building that actually addresses the crisis.

• 23 Oct 2025 · Building Safety Regulator · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure as always to serve under you, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Members for Northampton South (Mike Reader) and for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) on securing this important debate. Eight years ago, London watched on in helpless horror as Grenfell Tower burned. Some 72 lives were lost, families were decimated and a community was changed forever. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that this was by no means a natural disaster; it was the direct result of a failed system that was allowed to prioritise cheap, flammable cladding over people’s lives. Almost a decade on, that system is still failing. Other major fires have burned on and seared themselves into our memory. In 2019, Richmond House in Worcester Park in my constituency burned to the ground, and tomorrow I will visit the Hampton estate, where the rebuilt Richmond House stands. In August last year, a building on Freshwater Road in Dagenham caught alight just days before the final Grenfell report was published. In July this year, we watched on as a major fire ripped through a 17-storey complex in Walworth. Those are just a few examples, but there are many more. Londoners are on edge every time they see a breaking news story about a building fire. They worry that another terrible tragedy is unfolding—another awful fire that will uproot lives and impose a terrible toll on communities. Hundreds of thousands of Londoners do not have confidence that they are safe and that they can sleep easy at night in their own homes. They live with cladding that hugs their home, keeping them warm in the winter and cool in the summer, but that threatens to become a towering inferno, leaving residents reliant on waking watches and, too often, faulty fire alarms. For too long, developers have been getting away with rolling the dice with people’s lives. When the Building Safety Regulator was established through the Building Safety Act 2022, people living in these unsafe high rises were promised action by the previous Government, but instead of accelerating remediation the BSR has become one of the biggest barriers to removing dangerous cladding from buildings. Since the BSR came into force in 2023, construction projects have been delayed, costs have spiralled and thousands of residents remain trapped in unsafe homes. One of the reasons for that is that the BSR approval process is weighed down by complex bureaucracy. Cladding remedial works to high-risk buildings cannot begin until the regulator has signed off the scope of the works. Officially, approval should take eight weeks for existing buildings and 12 weeks for new projects; in reality, cladding remediation applications are routinely taking more than 30 weeks and sometimes more than 40 weeks. We have heard even longer waits reported by Members in this Chamber. The communication from the regulator has been equally inadequate. Developers and housing associations report one-way communication and applications disappearing into the void. When a response finally comes, a high proportion of applications are rejected at the validation stage. That cannot just be labelled as administrative lag; it means months of avoidable risk for thousands of people. In many ways, the regulation is currently manifesting as the worst of both worlds, standing in the way of not just progress in remediating the existing properties, but building the next generation of safe, affordable homes that we need to end the housing crisis. The situation is not helped by the fact that there is a mismatch between the Building Safety Act’s definition of building safety risks and the approach to identifying defects under the PAS 9980 fire safety standard. That is quite clearly a lower standard that fails to take action on major fire safety risks and does little to nothing to bring down extortionate insurance premiums. The Liberal Democrats are clear that the standards for remediation under PAS 9980 should match the statutory standards in the Building Safety Act, so that there is a clear rulebook for everyone. If the Government want applications to the BSR to be faster, they must ensure that those submitting them are equipped with all the facts and given clarity about what is required to meet the right standards, and that the process for approving those applications is as fast as it is rigorous. Those two vital aspects of solving our housing and safety crisis—speed and accuracy—need not exist in tension; for the BSR to be effective, it must be more comprehensive. Limiting its scope to buildings over 11 metres tall is narrowing its ability to properly scrutinise and facilitate works on many other vulnerable apartment buildings. Indeed, Richmond House, which I mentioned earlier, would not have fallen under its remit, despite the fact that it housed 23 flats across four storeys. I invite the Minister to outline what plans—if any—exist to bring those standards together, facilitate faster processing of applications for works, and extend coverage and support to those in buildings less than 11 metres tall. What compounds this crisis in perhaps the most nefarious way is the impact it is having on leaseholders, too many of whom are still paying out of their own pockets for dangerous construction and regulatory neglect. They are sent eye-watering bills, living in fear of the next service charge. They are treated as an afterthought in a housing system that increasingly seems rigged in favour of developers. The Liberal Democrats will not accept a housing market in which ordinary people are left powerless while corporations walk away scot-free, and we are concerned that the building safety levy that the Government have proposed will not provide sufficient funding for all required remediations. It makes no sense whatsoever for the BSL to exclude properties under 11 metres, but that is what the Government are pushing ahead with. There must be a thorough and funded plan to assist leaseholders in properties under 11 metres to make their properties safe to live in. The Government should be taking swift and serious action to ensure that all leaseholders, including those currently excluded from the BSL, are protected from remediation costs in defective blocks with safety risks, as defined in the 2022 Act. I hope that the Minister can shed some light on whether the Government are considering taking those further steps, because leaseholders—not just in London, but across the country—are watching, and will be hoping not to be let down once again. None of this should detract from the need to build the next generation of green, affordable and safe homes. I reject the implication we sometimes hear that there is some inherent tension between those objectives. If we want to truly solve the housing crisis in this country with a renaissance of sensible and community-driven house building, we have to recognise the defects in the existing system upon which we are layering new infrastructure. Two things can be true at once—that allowing safety standards to become a barrier to house building will damage our long-term economic security, and that accelerating new building without rigorous safety standards and proper accountability for developers will damage our physical security. There are those who say that only a small fraction of new build units are defective, but I remind them that the fraction will account for a much larger overall number of units as we grow that stock. We can and must do both. A sensible, progressive, interventionist Government would recognise that their purpose is exactly that— not just to regulate the market, but to play an active role in it, discouraging cowboys and faceless, careless developers with rules, standards and real, comprehensive enforcement. In fact, any Government worth their salt would see this issue in its wider context: a housing market that is fundamentally broken, not just by years of inaction on house building or by the great council housing sell-off, but by decades—maybe even centuries—of lopsided relationships between leaseholders and landowners. If we are really to put the power back into people’s hands and reconcile the two dreams of housing that have dominated in this country over the past century—the right-wing dream of democracy in which everyone has an ownership stake, and the left-wing dream of a nation in which everyone’s right to shelter is guaranteed, no matter their income—we need to end the broken leasehold system altogether, both for owners and for renters. I invite the Minister to tell us why the Government have failed to commit, as the Liberal Democrats did at our recent conference, to ending that lopsided relationship by giving leaseholders new powers and rights to take collective ownership. Why have they not committed to removing dangerous cladding from all buildings, while ensuring that leaseholders do not have to pay a penny towards that removal—as is only right, because of the regulatory failure that enabled it? Why have they not committed to holding developers to the highest possible standards and introducing tougher oversight of building inspectors, and not just to capping unreasonable service and estate management charges, but to abolishing ground rents on all existing leases? That is the radical but necessary action that we must take, and actions such as these, which actually fix issues that our constituents face, are how we defeat the new populists on the right and the left who offer nothing more than simple slogans and catchy TikToks. It is up to the Government to respond to our calls and deliver the necessary changes.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Heathrow: National Airports Review · Hansard source

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  I have mentioned that the naming of Heathrow as critical national priority infrastructure is vital to ending the disruption to power and systems we have seen over the summer, so I encourage the Government to go forward with that. On the plans for transport to and from the airport and associated road schemes, can the Secretary of State confirm that the costs of the southern and western rail access, the new southern access tunnel that will ease congestion on existing roads and lower emissions, and the rail access to provide reliable public transport links for passengers and staff are included in the estimates we have already seen? I implore her, as others have done, to ensure that those plans are covered as part of the project, and that it is not left to the taxpayer to pick up the bill?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. and gallant Member speaks very strongly about this issue. There may be reticence to support his new clause because of the implications for rehabilitation, but he has spoken about the huge impact on families when a life is taken in that way. Can he give some reassurance about the balance between rehabilitating through custodial sentences, for example, and the lifelong impact on families of incidents that happen in a moment?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) on his clear and comprehensive explanation of the flaws of short sentences. The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who is no longer in his place, gave us some insight into why we have ended up in such a mess: Government modelling was not able to reconcile the removal of prison places with rules for increased sentences. The result was more demand for prison places. The net figure of 482 prison places gained since 2010, given by the hon. Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns), shows the utterly damning mistakes that were made during the Conservatives’ time in government. I will speak in favour of new clauses 6 and 39. In Christmas 2021, Lillie Clack’s family were woken by police, informing them that Lillie had been involved in a traffic accident on Christmas morning. It was caused by a driver under the influence, who was speeding at up to 100 mph, and who failed to stop for the police. Following the accident, heroic local residents rushed to the scene with fire extinguishers, but sadly Lillie died in hospital three days later. Lillie’s family have campaigned tirelessly since then for Lillie’s law, which would result in licences being suspended immediately upon a charge, and a lifetime ban from driving when drivers are convicted of causing death by dangerous driving or by careless driving. I speak in favour of new clause 6, tabled by the hon. and gallant Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), which would apply the lifetime ban, and in favour of new clause 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), on the suspension of a person’s driving licence while they are on bail for a driving-related offence. Together, those new clauses would deliver the objectives of Lillie’s law and provide both punishment and deterrent for those who step into a car under the influence, or who do not take the care that is required when driving, which is a privilege, and not a right. I will speak briefly in favour of new clause 30. I encourage hon. Members from across the House to support the long-overdue resentencing of all prisoners currently held under a sentence of imprisonment for public protection. At the end of 2024, more than 2,000 people were held under an IPP, which is an ongoing scandal and a tragedy for those individuals. The Government claim that the jail terms are a grave injustice, but they are failing to move quickly enough. This new clause would force them to act. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) so clearly explained, there is a need for action, so I hope his colleagues can be persuaded to support new clause 30, in the absence of another measure to address the issue, which is badly required. Finally, I will mention new clause 40, on the provision of training during the period when an individual is on remand. We must enable rehabilitation wherever possible. Even if the new clause is not taken forward today, I join colleagues and the hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) in encouraging the Government to look at the current situation.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  indicated assent .

• 16 Oct 2025 · Grassroots Music Venues · Hansard source

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  3. What steps she is taking to support grassroots music venues.

• 16 Oct 2025 · Grassroots Music Venues · Hansard source

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  Grassroots music venues across the country, particularly across London, are finding it increasingly difficult to survive as customers are spending less when they come to gigs because of the cost of living crisis. Will the Minister explain the progress on the levy? Will he consider the Lib Dem calls to reverse the national insurance rise on small businesses to give venues such as the Sound Lounge and the CryerArts Centre in Sutton, which are so valued by our local community, the best chance to survive and thrive?

• 16 Oct 2025 · Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements · Hansard source

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  I would like to make a broader point about China’s activities in the United Kingdom related to this. The application for the super-embassy is currently on the Government’s desk. As the Minister says, and has been acknowledged, China is a threat and is actively working to undermine our national security. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said that the Government “would never compromise national security”. How can the Government give any consideration to approving the Chinese super-embassy, which would give extraordinary capability to China to continue to expand its espionage activities and to target Hongkongers on British soil with its transnational repression?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill · Hansard source

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  I chair the all-party parliamentary group for the future of aviation, travel and aerospace, and the debate on SAF has been a focus of many of our meetings. As a cover-all, I should declare my interests, having met with AirportsUK, Airlines UK, ADS Group, LanzaJet, Back British SAF, Valero, alfanar and others over the past six months. I also worked in the aviation industry for 16 years prior to being elected. I rise to speak in support of new clauses 1 to 5, tabled by my colleagues, and new clause 7. I also encourage the Government to support amendments 8 and 9, tabled by the Conservatives, which would strengthen and improve the Bill and give us the best chance to achieve its targets. I will tell the House why. In 2023, aviation accounted for 2.5% of global energy-related CO2 emissions; however, when non-CO2 effects are included, its contribution to climate warming increases to approximately 4%. Although that is a small fraction of global emissions, it is not insignificant. However, in my experience, few sectors take their role in bringing down emissions and tackling climate change as seriously as aviation, primarily because fuel burnt and emissions released is money spent. As other Members have already made clear, decarbonising aviation and achieving net zero carbon UK aviation will require a huge range of different measures. Measures such as Operation Blue Skies, a global contrail avoidance system, will reduce the density of the heat-trapping contrails produced by aircraft, which creates nearly half the overall climate-warming impacts. Continuing improvements in aircraft engine and airframe efficiency are also critical, and that too has been mentioned by others.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Knife Crime · Hansard source

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  I agree that ensuring protection online is important, but as we have already heard, the loss of officers who most closely support children outside the home, such as those in schools, is equally important. The loss of those in London will be devastating to our communities. Tackling knife crime cannot just be about enforcement; it must be treated as a health issue. It must be addressed early, consistently and systematically, and it must bring together a range of services that deal with young people, such as early intervention schemes, councils, NHS workers, carers, police officers, teachers, community leaders, social media influencers, parents, mental health workers, restorative practice advocates, and the various arms of Government that young people interact with, all under serious, mission-driven violence reduction units. That needs political buy-in, rather than meaninglessly aping its language without funding its tenets—a mistake that the former Government made with their serious violence strategy in 2018, and that the Mayor of London has made by not giving the violence reduction unit in London the tools it needs to do its job as effectively as possible. If we married that up with other key steps, it could be utterly transformative, turning good public policy into a vision for wider social renewal for young people. The Minister may be aware that I met her predecessor to discuss that approach in more detail earlier this year, and I ask whether she would be willing to meet me to continue that discussion and see where we can work together on this vital issue. Surely in 2025 we have grown beyond the two-dimensional approach to the causes of crime, or the response to knife crime that the hon. Member for Ashfield presents. Surely by now we should be able to recognise that violence spreads among the most vulnerable like a virus, but it can be stopped in its tracks by good interventions acting as a vaccine to stop the spread. Surely by now we have learned that we cannot punish or scare away violent crime, and that good deterrents are not enough to stave it off when it has already buried its roots far too deeply in our neighbourhoods. Not so long ago, a leader of the Labour party pledged to be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, and all I ask is that the Government recognise that we have done far too much of the former, and far too little of the latter. They must show that they recognise it is finally time to properly adopt a public health approach to save lives, save communities and save futures.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Knife Crime · Hansard source

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  This is my first opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I welcome the chance to talk again about knife crime in this place and I will outline the ways in which this heinous crime is marring communities and claiming too many lives. Although I wholeheartedly disagree with the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) on most topics, this is an important debate. I hope for the sake of all victims that we can make constructive suggestions to improve the situation. I think we can all agree, across the political divide, that young people in every corner of the country should not be growing up in a climate of fear. I have outlined the Liberal Democrat approach several times, because, unlike the Reform party next to me, we believe in evidence-based policymaking. The public health approach to knife crime, which has worked in Scotland and has also shown signs of success in London, holds the most promise. I reiterate that the Liberal Democrats are clear on the need for a proper joined-up approach to youth diversion, making it a statutory duty with proper funding, so that every part of the country has a pre-charge diversion scheme for young people up to the age of 25. I am increasingly conscious that over the past year or so figures on the extreme right of British politics, seemingly with the backing of a stream of American malcontents who reach from the mad fringes to the White House, have chosen to weaponise the issue of crime in London. They paint a picture that few Londoners recognise of a city rife with violent crime on every corner. It is as though we have all descended into lawlessness, scared to walk the streets because of a mad, feverish crime wave, driven by liberal, middle-class squeamishness. As a proud Londoner, I totally reject that nonsense. Violent crime fell in London by 6% in the year to last March. The following three months saw a 19% fall in knife crime compared with the same time last year. Knife-enabled offences have dropped in each month of 2025 from the same months in 2024; I invite the hon. Member for Ashfield to correlate that with the reductions in stop and search over the same period. I have been to Scotland Yard with colleagues and heard that the Met’s action in recent months has been modestly successful. I believe that, given the Met’s increasingly limited resources, it is affording the issue the priority level it deserves. To avoid the risk of being misrepresented, I will be clear that I do not wish to minimise the issue, for two reasons. First, looking further back in time, knife crime has gone up dramatically since 2016 under the Labour Mayor’s watch, as Conservative Government cuts to local government and the police obliterated the community support networks that the public health approach relies on. The hon. Member for Ashfield was happy to be part of delivering those cuts as a Conservative MP. Secondly, every childhood snatched, every pavement stained in blood, every family with one too many chairs at the dinner table is one too many. Policing alone cannot and does not pretend to effect the culture change we need. For that, we need to deliver the public health approach properly. In London, the growing funding gap for local councils after years of austerity is about to be made worse by the Government’s unfair funding review and the risk of new Labour austerity. That means that the cracks in the system are now chasms. For too many young people in Britain, feeling unsafe is not an occasional fear; it is part of the everyday fabric of their lives. I have met young people in London and in my constituency of Sutton, Cheam and Worcester Park for whom that sense of vulnerability sits in the background of everything they do. What we too often fail to recognise is that, when young people start to believe that no one else will protect them, they ask themselves a simple but devastating question: “If no one is going to keep me safe, how do I keep myself safe?” For some that is a turning point, when anxiety stops being a feeling and starts becoming a plan. Far too often, that plan involves carrying a knife. We cannot wait until a child reaches that point. We have to intervene before that fear hardens into a decision to carry a weapon. Last May, 60% of young people surveyed told the Ben Kinsella Trust that they feel worried about knife crime. A 2009 study by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies showed that 85% of young people who carry a weapon say they do so for self-protection. Many of the knives they carry are not the exotic or illegal zombie knives that attract headlines, nor weapons smuggled in on small boats; they are kitchen knives. That is not organised criminality; that is the tragic banality of a deteriorating everyday experience.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend has turned down the opportunity to dine with Donald Trump in the next couple of days, and he has been roundly criticised for that by some people who may well still attend. Does he agree that it is an ample opportunity for those people to ask President Trump about his entry in that horrific book of birthday wishes for Mr Epstein? Will my right hon. Friend ask them to report back to us about what President Trump said?