Martin Wrigley MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a sitting councillor in Teignbridge. Looking at the figures—which I have been desperately trying to do, although they are tiny—it looks to me like Teignbridge is getting a negative change in this year’s settlement of -0.07%, while Devon gets a small increase. I suspect that might not adequately make up for what Devon lost last year in the rural services grant. Does the Minister have any hope for our finding a way to solve the problem of delivering services in a rural area, even though we have areas of high deprivation? That is a common thing across the House, and it is clearly hitting everywhere.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Quarries: Planning Policy · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member’s situation sounds very familiar to me. In my constituency, in the middle of Kingsteignton, we have a large clay quarry called Zitherixon, whose operators are trying to extend their permission for mining, even though it has been established for some 300 years and planning permissions are somewhat ancient. Does the hon. Member agree that, however the mining is permitted, whether by appeal or by planning some time ago, those doing it must be held to the most modern and best possible environmental and residential standards for local people?

• 10 Dec 2025 · AI Safety · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. We have had some interesting contributions so far. I fully agree that we need to look at regulation, but I question whether we can regulate a technology. Today, every search we do is already powered by AI. To regulate a technology is a bit like trying to regulate a wheel rather than regulating the car. We need to look at how it is used and how it is then delivered. We have talked about many different types of AI, and we must be clear that today’s artificial intelligence with pretrained generative output is different from the potential future of general AI, which is something else again and a whole new question. Today’s technology takes a question and gives us an answer. Most of the harms that we have heard about in the debate are not new—they can already happen using other means—but AI makes them quicker, faster and easier to deliver, so what could have been done in PaintShop five years ago can now be done with AI in moments, and without the same levels of skill. There are not new harms; there are just new ways of using those tools. We need to look carefully at regulation and not focus too specifically on it as a technology, but think about the outcomes and how people are using. That is what needs to be regulated. AI is very good at pattern recognition. Essentially what we see today in ChatGPT and others is the same technology that I was taught at university many years ago; it is just that now we have the compute power to run those neural networks that can recognise patterns. They are trained: feed them 5,000 pictures of a cat and they can identify a picture of a cat. It is slightly more subtle and advanced now, because we have added good natural language processing and large language models— that big data. We are feeding them much more data so that they can recognise more things. There is huge value and opportunity in that, which we must be careful not to regulate into insignificance. I will say one other thing. There is a fundamental problem with AI: it is non-deterministic. Because it is recognising patterns, we cannot predict what it will do. Therefore, our current testing methodology of a known set of data, a known process and an expected set of outcomes cannot be relied on, because AI will give an answer that could be this, that or t’other. We must think about how we use it in processes and how we expect the output to be regular, because it will not be. We do not get the same answer twice—but that has been true of Google for a long time. If any hon. Member asked the same question as me on Google, they would get different answers.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Village Schools · Hansard source

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  It is a similar story in rural Devon. In my constituency, schools in Broadhempston and Bishopsteignton are seeing falling roll numbers. Without the critical input of a core funding floor and help with transport, those schools may eventually close, which will kill those villages. We must not allow that to happen.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Net Zero Transition: Consumer-led Flexibility · Hansard source

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  That had not occurred to me, but it is an amazing idea; people taking their mobile power source with them—fantastic. That brings me on to other solutions that we should be looking at, particularly community energy generation, community networks and community power consortia, as well as business inclusion—businesses that can generate more electricity during the day than they are using. We should be encouraging those things to happen, moving away from the centralised model of the past and towards the distributed and inclusive model of the future. While flexibility is an excellent step, it will obviously not solve all the issues. We still need to fundamentally change energy generation contracts to de-link the cost of electricity from the price of gas. That will need to be done as well, but all these things are largely contractual issues, not technical ones. We do not need to reinvent something humongously different; we simply need to get the contracts right and change the energy market. I say “simply”—I understand that these changes have their complexities, but they are achievable. We know what we need to do. The other massive energy issue is home insulation, which must not be forgotten. It is the single most important thing we need to do to reduce our fuel usage. The district council that I led demonstrated that very well—I draw hon. Members attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which notes that I am still a councillor on Teignbridge district council—when it started building council houses for the first time in 30 years. The first pair of semi-detached houses that we built are well insulated, with solar panels on the roof and air source heat pumps. At the height of the gas price crisis, the power bill for that home was just £500. We can do that with modern insulation and modern efficiencies. Flexibility is one extra piece that we need to further reduce the cost. It is all part of a journey, and we are going in the right direction. I urge the Government to take faster action and to do everything they can to make it happen. As we have heard, industry is already looking for it. Let us make it happen.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Net Zero Transition: Consumer-led Flexibility · Hansard source

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  May I draw to the hon. Member’s attention the analogy with off-peak train tickets? That is a similar way of using flexibility and offering consumers cheaper tickets when the trains are empty. He would have us believe that that is not a good thing, but it is exactly the same with offering flexibility in electricity consumption.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Net Zero Transition: Consumer-led Flexibility · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) has made the case extremely well. I think I have heard unanimous opinion around the Chamber that we should not only do this, but do it now with some urgency. Flexibility first is the way to go. I will go one level further than the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who called this a “win-win”: I would call this a win-win-win. We can shave £1.3 billion off infrastructure costs through actions like this, which will be reflected in every single person’s bill. That is a massive win. It is also a win for producers because it is easier to balance production and consumption, and it is a win for individual consumers who will reduce their individual prices. It is three wins in one. Why would we not want to do that? I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel)—we should have done this yesterday. The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago; the second best time is now. We are at the point of the second best time, but let us use this time and make sure that it happens. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate in pushing the Government to take action urgently. When preparing for this debate, I remembered a geography school trip I went on where we looked at last-century solutions for balancing the grid. We went to visit Dinorwig, which is a pumped storage system—or was; I am not sure it is still going—in the hills in Wales. During the night, it pumps the water from the lake at the bottom of the hill up into a corrie at the top—aptly, as it turns out. As was quoted in the ad break in the middle of “Coronation Street”, when people switched on their kettles and created a power surge, that system could switch on in 30 seconds and provide significant amounts of power into the grid. It was a very good solution, but it is last century’s solution. What we need is an information-based solution, an individually empowering solution, such as we are talking about here, with consumer flexibility coming first.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is very kind. Is she aware that the Government papers also describe using digital ID for the right to rent as well as for the right to work?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Perhaps I misunderstood, but I think that the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) has just asked for the police to have the right to demand digital ID on the spot—therefore, “Papers, please.”

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Is the hon. Member proposing that the police should have the right to demand access to the digital ID to prove right to work on the spot? [ Interruption . ]

• 3 Dec 2025 · Venezuela: US Military · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his answers so far. I reiterate the question of the legality of the US bombing ships that are simply accused of carrying drugs. Is the Minister willing to actually say whether he thinks that is legal or not legal in international waters?

• 25 Nov 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  In addition to that very welcome general power of competence for the national park authorities, will the Minister consider tabling amendments to ensure that the new unitary authorities surrounding those park authorities do not dominate the membership of the board with a majority?

• 25 Nov 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  There is another aspect in which this Bill is lacking. In Devon, where we have a county and district system, the city of Exeter is ruled by a district council, which will be absorbed into the unitary council, leaving Exeter—unlike the rest of Devon—without a town or parish council. The same thing would happen in Torbay, should Torbay unitary be changed and moved to cover a wider area. That would leave Torquay and Paignton without town councils, while Brixham has one. Does my hon. Friend agree that my new clause 63, which would require re-parishing or the introduction of town or parish councils in those areas that lose them in this way, is a good thing that would prevent far-off unitary councils being overwhelmed by the minutiae and issues of an individual city?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Critical Minerals Strategy · Hansard source

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  I welcome the ambition and importance of this new strategy, and I congratulate the Minister on recognising that Devon is the source of more than just cream teas and tourism. The Devon minerals plan has more in it than the critical minerals: my constituency has an application for an extension to dig up Zitherixon ball clay, a substance found in the middle of the town of Kingsteignton and in the war zone in Ukraine. May I have the Minister’s assurance that, although we have a justified urge to get these minerals out, we will not abandon the environmental and residential concerns of our constituents in the areas impacted? Does he also acknowledge that transport is important and that Devon needs the Dawlish rail line to support these minerals?

• 24 Nov 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; it has been a long day. The previous Minister was talking about neighbourhood area committees, and yet I was surprised when I looked at the Bill that there is nothing in there about neighbourhood area committees. They are not mentioned in any way, shape or form. Devon is very big at saying, “We’re going to make these neighbourhood area committees, and it is going to really work for you,” but it is not. This is why I have tabled new clause 71, which sets forth the need and requirement for neighbourhood area committees and to make them a statutory consultee within unitary councils because they currently are not.

• 24 Nov 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree that we should not be mandating those details. However, we were promised that these committees would perform that function. I say again that a simple duty to co-operate with towns and councils would actually take the place far better. The other issue in the Bill, again, relates to the larger unitaries not having that localism built in. Should we end up with, say, a single large unitary within Devon, we will end up with Dartmoor national park entirely surrounded by a single unitary council. People might say, “So what?” At the moment, the local authorities surrounding Dartmoor national park appoint 10 people to the authority board, and central Government appoints nine. Consequently, if it is surrounded by a single unitary council, that council will appoint a majority to that board, losing the distinct identity of that agency for managing the national park, with the danger of the unitary’s desires overturning those of the national park with nothing to stop them. Amendments 164 to 167 would address that issue and require attention to the national park governance in the process of creating the new unitaries.

• 24 Nov 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  It has been a long afternoon. I thank my Lib Dem colleagues in Committee who bravely stood up for towns and parishes and would like the role of town and parish councils to continue. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as I am still a sitting district councillor. District councils play an interesting role when we have town and parish councils because they form the connection between the towns and parishes, the district and the county. Those three layers work together, and they pull in a similar direction when it is working well. I could regale the House with the achievements of Dawlish town council, Newton Abbot town council or Teignmouth town council, or of the various parish councils. They have done fantastic things for their communities, but they can only do that when they are part of the process and are able to talk and act with the higher councils as well. What is missing from this Bill is anything like a duty to co-operate between the unitary, the town and the parish councils. Were that in place, there would be a much better conversation. We have no set idea in Devon what the best layout of unitary councils would look like. There are six, or possibly 10, options coming up to the Government for consideration, which is clearly entirely unreasonable. One of the options is a single large unitary replacing the footprint of Devon county council. Something like that would take a localised idea of what was going on in the district councils, for example with five district councillors in Dawlish representing the people in that area, to a far distant control, where there could be two unitary councillors trying to deal with those issues. It would be difficult to persuade residents that that unitary council is working with their best interests at heart. That duty to co-operate is important. We went through all the process, and the former Secretary of State, or Under-Secretary—I am unsure of the best form of address.

• 24 Nov 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  No, the park authority looks after the park with the park’s interests at its heart, and it is not tied to any other overriding interest. For example, if the new unitary needs another road, it might think, “The easiest thing is just to go through the edge of the park,” or “We need some new housing. We’ll just put it in the park.” At the moment, the park is responsible for its own planning; it is responsible for its own destiny. That identity is so important, and that was supposed to be maintained in this local devolution Bill. I would have loved to have seen the new unitaries have a statutory duty to provide adequate public toilets, but that one was just too far out the way to even try to get it in. At this point, having taken up enough of your time, Madam Deputy Speaker, and having sat through a lot of interesting conversations—I will leave it at that—I will call it a day.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Asylum Policy · Hansard source

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  I thank the Home Secretary for sharing her experiences earlier and thoroughly condemn the sort of behaviour she described. It is unacceptable in any case. The Secretary of State described rapid decisions on appeals. Does she also believe, as I do, that rapid decision making on the initial application of asylum seekers should be promoted and highlighted? Will she consider putting a timescale target for decision—a matter of weeks, not years—in place in her Department? In her remarks over the weekend on our Ukrainians guests, she described them going home when peace breaks out. May I remind her that peace will not mean safety? Please can she assure the House that a more considered and considerate response may be found? Will she meet me and Ukrainian guests to resolve that issue?