Mark Sewards MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 27 Oct 2025 · Regulation and Inspection of Funeral Services · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech on an incredibly difficult topic. Next month, I am bringing two mums from Leeds down to meet the Victims Minister. They tragically lost their babies in different circumstances, but both went to the same funeral director, who did horrific things with their babies’ bodies. The police found nothing actionable because there is no regulation of the funeral industry. That needs to change. The hon. Gentleman talks about the public’s reaction, so does he agree that the more cases that come to light, the more the public realise what is possible in the funeral sector right now and the louder their calls for regulation will grow? I urge the Minister to recognise the urgent need to address this issue.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Holidays During School Term Time · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend will recall that we in the Education Committee held an evidence session in July about school attendance. One of the witnesses stated that fines are “simultaneously too harsh and too soft”; too harsh, because they damage the relationship between parents and schools, but too soft to move the dial substantially on school attendance. Although, as a former teacher, I agree with the main thrust of my hon. Friend’s argument, does she have any further reflection on the need to look at the fines system again, to replace it or to come up with something more effective?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay · Hansard source

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  Working families form the backbone of this country. They go to work, increase our prosperity and raise the next generation at the same time. It is a hard job. It always will be, and it should be, but it should not be this hard. Statutory maternity pay in the UK is one of the lowest in Europe—less than half the minimum wage after six weeks. Maternity Action has reported that half of new mums cut their leave short, with 97% saying that money was a reason for their choice: no choice at all. Dads are not exactly doing better. They get two weeks at the same maximum of £187 a week. One dad in Leeds South West and Morley, a median worker, told me that he would lose £103 a day on statutory paternity pay. If a median worker is forced to make that choice, can we even call it paternity leave, especially since it does not encourage dads to take time with their children and support their partners? When my first child, Oscar, was born, he timed it perfectly. I was a teacher at the time and he arrived two weeks before half term, so I got three weeks with him, but even that was not enough. As we all know, babies do not stick to schedules and they certainly do not wait for Government reviews. The Government’s review of parental leave is welcome, but 18 months is a very long time. The Government can already consider Maternity Action’s report, which asks for maternity and paternity pay to be increased in line with the living wage. They could also speak to The Dad Shift, which proposed increasing the length of paternity leave. They could speak with our trade union friends too, but whoever they speak to, it is clear to me and to everyone here that families need proper paternity and maternity pay, and they need it now.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Pride in Place · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the £20 million for Old Farnley, but now is the time for action. Hundreds of people have already completed my survey. I have more than 100 volunteers for the neighbourhood board alone—it will not be that big—and we have plenty of ideas that we want to spend the money on. Given that we are ready and impatient to deliver, will the Minister empower my residents to crack on and spend this money and deliver the change that we know they deserve?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The politicians, civilians and soldiers I spoke to last month in Kyiv were unambiguous when asked what was the best thing the UK could do to help them win the war. The hundreds of billions of dollars of frozen Russian assets that they currently cannot deploy could help them bolster their military and swing the war decisively in their favour. On their behalf, will the Foreign Secretary use every power available to her to unlock those assets and put them in the service of the people of Ukraine?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Manchester Terrorism Attack · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the Leeds Jewish Representative Council and the Jewish Leadership Council for organising moving tributes in memory of the victims of the Manchester attack. I also thank CST for its tireless work to keep the community safe. I am sorry to say that a few weeks ago a speaker on the streets of Leeds during one of the protests called for all synagogues and all Jewish schools to be held to account for the crime of, as they say, harbouring Zionists. This was the thinnest of veils draped over an excuse to legitimise targeting the Jewish community. Does the Home Secretary agree that there is absolutely no place for such calls on the streets of Leeds or anywhere in the UK? Will she do everything in her power to enable the police to ensure that it does not happen again to keep the Jewish community safe?

• 16 Sept 2025 · Funeral Sector: Regulation · Hansard source

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  13. What steps he is taking to introduce statutory regulation of the funeral sector.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Funeral Sector: Regulation · Hansard source

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  The Minister will be aware of the plight of Zoe Ward and Cody Townend, two mums from Leeds who tragically lost babies in different circumstances but who both went to the same funeral director, who did not treat their babies’ bodies with the dignity, care or respect that they deserved. Despite the shocking details of these cases, the police found nothing actionable because the funeral sector is not regulated in any way. Will the Minister commit to meeting Zoe, Cody and me to discuss these horrific cases, but also to talk about how quickly we can regulate the law in this area to ensure that what happened to them never happens to anyone ever again?

• 8 Sept 2025 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) on his opening remarks, and I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his place. Earlier this year, I held a surgery with Hongkongers living in my constituency, alongside Alison Lowe, the deputy mayor of West Yorkshire, who is responsible for policing and crime. While I was so pleased to see the room absolutely packed out—standing room only—it was clear from the questions I was being asked that the No. 1 concern was the immigration White Paper and its potential impact on Hongkongers and their families—people we invited to live here. I need to make it very clear that we must take extremely strong action on immigration—the British people demand it—and that having functioning borders should be a basic function of the state. The level of immigration to the UK, both legal and illegal, has been too high, and the White Paper is a decent package of measures to try to bring the numbers down, which should be welcomed. However, we do not want to unfairly penalise those who we have invited here, or who make a huge contribution to the UK. When the BNO visa scheme was introduced in 2020 by the previous Government, it was in response to the imposition of the national security law on Hongkongers, to help them escape political repression. To change the rules now, when the first BNO visa holders are just months away from qualifying for settled status, would be a devastating blow to the Hong Kong community. It would constitute a broken promise. These people have come to the UK under a set of conditions that we determined, and at our request. At the very least, even if we were to change the rules, they should never be applied retrospectively. What would happen if we did change the rules? First, extending the indefinite leave to remain period for BNO visa holders would have very little impact on immigration figures. Government data shows that most BNO visa holders arrived in the first two years of the scheme, between 2021 and 2023, and, since then, the numbers have been falling. Currently, BNOs represent about 1.65% of total visa grants, so changing the rules in this area will do very little to change immigration trends. More importantly, the Hong Kong community make an immense contribution to the UK, even though they are often prevented from giving their full talents to society because of the limitations they face without settled status or citizenship. Take university-age students, for example, who we have heard about today: without settled status, they will not qualify for home fees, making university unaffordable for most of them. Delaying that settled status for a total of 10 years would have a hugely detrimental impact on those young BNO visa holders. They will still go on to contribute to the UK throughout their working lives, but why would we not want to increase that contribution as much as we can? It is also true that a huge number of Hongkongers in the UK are working far below their qualification or training levels, or are potentially unemployed entirely. There are accountants, journalists and engineers, for example, working in roles that do not necessarily match their skills. We have heard that there are some practical steps that the Government could take to alleviate some of those problems, which would be in our interests, but extending the ILR route for Hongkongers to 10 years—further delaying their access to further education, training, citizenship, Government support and integration into UK society—will obviously make the problem worse. Despite all the obstacles they face today, they are still making a huge contribution to the UK. With one eye on the time, I will draw my remarks to a close. I urge the Minister to exempt BNO visa holders from any changes to the ILR route or other qualifications for settled status. This country made a promise to the people of Hong Kong, and we should honour it.

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

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  Cody Townend and Zoe Ward are two mums from Leeds who tragically lost babies in different circumstances. Cody lost Macie-Mae earlier this year, and Zoe lost Bleu four years ago. They both went to the same funeral director who, to their horror, kept their babies’ bodies in her private home without their consent and did not treat them with the respect and dignity they deserved. The BBC revealed more shocking details about this case last week, which I will not repeat now. Given that the police found nothing actionable in either case because there is no regulation of the funeral industry, meaning that anyone—anyone—can be a funeral director, will the Leader of the House grant an urgent debate in Government time on the need to regulate the funeral industry, so that no one has to experience what Cody and Zoe did ever again?

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  All I would say is, “Long live the King.” What we do with our hereditary peers today does not affect what we do with our monarchy. As I was saying, no one should serve in the other place and make our laws simply because of the family that they were born into. No one should—not them, not me, not my children and not theirs. That is a basic principle that I hope we can all get behind.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman’s point is well made and I will be following the work of the Select Committee closely. We have already heard names mentioned of people who are over the age of 80 and still making great contributions, so I will follow the Committee’s work closely before making a final judgment on the issue. More broadly than the work that the Committee will undertake, once this Bill has become law, I will continue to advocate for a second Chamber that is more representative of our nations and regions.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  More than 20 positions are available already and, as time goes on, more will become available. It will be up to the Leader of the Opposition to make that decision.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Lady for having so many friends in the other place. I could not agree with her more—it is almost as if she has read my speech and hence made her timely intervention.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Labour party has a moral obligation to fulfil our manifesto pledges, and I am confident that during our five-year term we will make great progress on everything that we set out in that document. I have argued that Lords amendment 1 undermines the core purpose of the Bill and is entirely inconsistent with our commitment to remove hereditary peers from the other place. Lords amendment 2 is an attempt to ensure that in future all Ministers who sit in the House of Lords are paid a salary. Having read Lords Hansard , I know that this is a well-intentioned amendment and I can see why the Lords have submitted it. However, ministerial salaries are determined by the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975, so any proposals to change them should be made through amendments to that Act rather than through this Bill. This Bill is specific, narrow and focused. If we want to have a conversation about those salaries, we need to allocate far more time to that and consider separate legislation, so I will not be supporting Lords amendment 2. I had to do quite a bit of reading around the subject to understand Lords amendment 3. I understand that Lord True, the leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, wanted to clarify the power of the monarch to confer a life peerage that is granted without a right to a seat in the House of Lords. The creation of a new form of life peerage without any kind of parliamentary responsibility is unnecessary—I will take interventions, as I am happy to have this point clarified—because, quite simply, the King already has that power. He used it when he granted his brother, Prince Edward, the title of Duke of Edinburgh. Therefore, the power already exists and the need to clarify that power is unnecessary. Lord True mentioned that the newly clarified power could be used to honour people without swelling the ranks of the House of Lords. However, as we have already heard, if we want to recognise special contributions to public life, there are already plenty of ways to do that, such as knighthoods, damehoods, OBEs, CBEs and so on. I maintain that life peerages should be reserved for those who actively participate in the work of the House of Lords, and I therefore urge the House to disagree with Lords amendment 3. Speaking about Lords reform more broadly, which has come up during the debate, I was pleased to read in Lords Hansard that Baroness Smith has suggested that a Select Committee, set up in the other place, could be used to examine a mandatory retirement age and minimum participation requirements, which I know many Members in this House support. The suggestion included a timeframe: set the Committee up within three months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent and it will report back next year, so we can make real progress on the other commitments. I wholeheartedly endorse that approach and look forward to the outcome of this work.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman chunters from a sedentary position. When it comes to Scotland, the figure is about 2% or 3%—I cannot recall the actual figures, but I will check. The point remains that we have to make the House of Lords more representative of our nations and regions. We could address this issue in a piecemeal way, in the same way that we have addressed the hereditary issue over many decades. We could slowly introduce reform after reform on who gets appointed, where they come from, what proportion have to come from Yorkshire and so on, but I am not a fan of that approach. We should be as bold as possible and do the difficult work now, because we were elected to do the difficult work in this term and set out an ambitious plan for the wholesale replacement of the other Chamber, ready to be made up of people from all our nations and regions. It should be a truly democratic body that draws on the same golden thread that should always exist between the people we serve in this place and those who should sit in a second elected Chamber. [ Interruption. ] Hon. Members chunter that this point is off topic; I probably agree, because the Bill does not cover that. I will draw my remarks to a close. The Bill in front of us will remove the archaic right of somebody to sit in Parliament because of the family they were born into; I find that principle very hard to disagree with. The Bill shows our determination to make our democracy stronger and more representative, and it should be just the start of our commitment to reform the other place and improve our ability to do what we were all sent here to do: serve the public.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to all the Lords amendments, but I will go into more detail on Lords amendments 1, 2, 3 and 8. I am pleased that the Bill is making progress, and I look forward to seeing it on the statute book as soon as possible. We are one step closer to fulfilling yet another manifesto pledge. I welcome Lords amendments 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 for the reasons already set out. They will allow Members of the other place who lose capacity to retire with the dignity that they deserve. It is clearly a sensitive and complex problem, and I congratulate the Government on finding a solution that received unanimous cross-party support in the other place. I hope it will receive the same cross-party unanimous support in this place today. We have already discussed Lords amendments 1 and 8, which propose to stop hereditary peer by-elections and stop any vacancies being filled, although they would still allow current hereditary peers to stay in the Lords, allowing their numbers to grow smaller and smaller as they gradually begin to leave. If passed, the amendments would leave the current crop of hereditary peers in the Second Chamber for years and years—indeed, in some cases, as we have heard, for decades—but the entire purpose of the Bill is to remove them immediately, because of the principle that underpins our decision to make this change.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The principle I am talking about applies specifically to the two Chambers that make and scrutinise our laws, submit amendments and so on. The idea that some people should be allowed a say in that process because of the family they were born into is alien to me. The House of Lords should have been abolished years ago. I am glad that the Government are finally taking the steps to remove that principle. I am certain that decent arguments can be made for the contributions of hereditary peers being good ones, often with the nuance and expertise that comes with dedicated service in the other place. I have no doubt that we will hear such arguments today, but the same is true of those who are appointed as life peers—at least when political parties fulfil their responsibilities and choose appropriate people for the roles. Life peers, too, will go on to make excellent contributions and scrutinise our laws carefully using their relevant expertise and knowledge—given that they are often selected because of their expertise and knowledge, and not in the cynical way that the shadow Front Bench and others were suggesting earlier. Even if they do not, it is a life appointment, not one based on blood that they can pass down to the next generation, so I think that the system of life peerages is the better way to go. If Opposition Members genuinely believe that the hereditary peers who will lose their places because of this legislation should still be in the other place, they can ensure that the Leader of the Opposition, whoever that is, submits their names to make them a life peer.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend made the point extremely well. I have had to deal with this on a number of issues, including introducing VAT on private schools, for example, where Members came to this place, argued the point and said that we had no right to do it—yet it was in our manifesto, so we have a moral obligation to pass this legislation. I hope that Opposition Members will join us in the lobbies as we do so. [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) chunters from a sedentary position, but I am more than happy to take an intervention, if he wishes to make one.

• 4 Sept 2025 · Early Education and Childcare · Hansard source

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  Listening to the Conservative Front Bench spokesperson, one would think that everything was fine and rosy in education before the previous election, and that everything would have been fine if only the Conservatives had been given one more chance. Compare and contrast that with what we have delivered in our first year in Government: 30 hours of free childcare, actually funded; free breakfast clubs; cheaper school uniforms on the way; best start family hubs; and of course—

• 4 Sept 2025 · Early Education and Childcare · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister join me in encouraging parents in my constituency of Leeds South West and Morley to take advantage of everything this Government have done to make the lives of parents and children easier?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and reiteration that we will always support the people of Ukraine. Given Russia’s despicable attack against civilian targets in Kyiv, costing the lives of over 20 civilians including children and damaging a British Council building, it is quite clear that Vladimir Putin has very little interest in any legitimate peace process. Given that reports differ about how committed countries are to deploying troops in Ukraine to enforce any potential peace agreement, can the Secretary of State set out how the UK is working with our allies to convince them to back security guarantees and peace in Ukraine, and will he state that there is nothing that Vladimir Putin can do now to deter our support for Ukraine?

• 17 Jul 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Last Friday, I met business owners who operate in Morley Bottoms and who have managed to turn one of the most undesirable parts of our town into one of the destinations that people travel into Morley to experience. Madam Deputy Speaker, you have an invitation to come along and join me any time, as does the Leader of the House, and the first round is on me. Those business owners are, however, victims of their own success. Unfortunately, a spate of burglaries over the past few years has affected the businesses. We have met the police and are working with them to sort it out. I welcome the Government’s move to ensure that our town centres are protected this summer with increased police presence. However, we have to go further, we have to go faster, we have to increase the number of police and we have to increase the powers available to them, too. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate on that in Government time, and perhaps encourage the other place to send our Crime and Policing Bill back as soon as possible so that we can do just what I have mentioned?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to have contributed to this report as a member of the Education Committee, which is excellently led by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). I also thank the Clerks and staff for all their work on the Committee. It is good that the report has been welcomed by the Centre for Young Lives, the County Councils Network, as well as care leavers charities such as Become. Will my hon. Friend expand on the section of the report about keeping children safe? Evidence that we heard from our witnesses during the inquiry suggested that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill was going to do a lot to address their concerns about keeping children in care safe. Despite that, we have still made recommendations about multi-agency working. We have recommended that those agencies have clear processes in place, so that they can review and escalate concerns between different agencies, with a clear line of accountability and decision making to keep children safe and stop them falling through the gaps. Does my hon. Friend agree that it should be a priority for the Department to get those processes in place to prevent those children from falling through the gaps?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Educational Attainment of Boys · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this incredibly important debate. In my eight and a half years as a maths teacher, teaching in inner city schools, I found that the problem was never just about a lack of aspiration but about a lack of access and a lack of knowledge; that goes for any group, not just for boys. Does he agree?