Mark Francois MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  On housing numbers, there is no Reform MP present this afternoon, but Reform-led Rochford district council has just published its regulation 19 local plan. During the May elections, Reform made a great thing of defending the green belt, and in the intervening period its councillors intimated to lots of local campaign groups that, when the plan came out, they would be all right. Yet we now find that nearly every single one of those green-belt sites has been recommended for development. Does my hon. Friend agree that if they do not really mean to defend the green belt—clearly they do not—they should never have said that?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Regional Devolution: Funding · Hansard source

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  Labour has also said that it wants to devolve NHS funding. The NHS uses a standard metric of 2.4 additional patients for every new dwelling constructed. To give a practical example, in south Essex, the 63,000 homes envisaged in Basildon and Thurrock would mean 151,000 extra patients for Basildon hospital, which unfortunately is rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission and is part of a trust that is one of five in the country in intensive special measures because of poor management. In short, how on earth can Basildon hospital cope with 151,000 additional patients because of Labour’s housing targets when it can barely cope with the patients that it has at the moment?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  The Secretary State mentioned mandatory housing targets. Under Labour’s targets, in south Essex—from Grays across to Shoeburyness—we are expected to accommodate more than 100,000 houses. That is 7% of the Government’s entire 1.5 million target in one half of one county alone. That is despite the fact that our medical infrastructure, our sewage capacity and in particular our roads—the A13 and the A127 are maxed out as it is—simply cannot cope, even now. [ Interruption. ] Labour Members can chunter all they want. Why is Labour so determined to cover south Essex in concrete and gridlock our roads, purely for ideological reasons?