Matt Rodda MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. The £1 billion regeneration scheme at Station Hill in Reading is bringing large numbers of jobs and new housing to Reading town centre, and that is due to the Elizabeth line. Will the Minister update the House on the benefits of this wonderful railway line, both to Berkshire and across the country?

• 4 Sept 2025 · BBC Monitoring Service · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making such an excellent speech. Caversham Park sits in my constituency, and it was a wonderful facility. I pay tribute to those who worked there over many years, breaking vital news stories and providing information to the Foreign Office, such as the initial news reports of the Iranian revolution in 1979 and many other similar events that were only able to be recorded because of the amazing talents of the linguists and journalists based at the facility, which has sadly now been mothballed and is due to be sold to a developer. Would the right hon. Member like to comment on the role of those staff?

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

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  I warmly welcome the Minister’s announcement today. Will he say a little more about the wide range of potential benefits to families, to children, in terms of their educational development, and to the wider economy as a result of helping parents to get back to work?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does he agree that confidence of consumers is also rising, with a number of cuts to interest rates, a rise in the minimum wage and many other benefits for working families?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point about the importance of pubs as the heart of our local community life, and that is the case for towns as well as for villages. Does he agree that the measures announced by the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday to support community assets will help exactly the type of pub he is describing, and would he perhaps like to offer a word of support and congratulate her on her work on this?

• 22 Jul 2025 · Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this afternoon’s debate. May I pay a heartfelt tribute to Sir David Amess? He was a wonderful man. I also pay tribute to Ian Gow MP for his vital work earlier in the history of this country. I am very proud of our town, and want to speak about Reading and in particular my constituency of Reading Central. It is a new constituency, although it covers almost exactly the same territory that the Reading constituency covered in the 1950s, so there is some history there. It is very much focused in the town centre and the nearby parts of the town. We have had a year of contrasts, and I want to raise a few important points about my constituency and thank many local people for their work in our community. It is vital that I start with the recent developments at Reading football club. I say an enormous thank you to Rob Couhig for buying the club and helping us out of the terrible trough that we were in. I also thank the Government for their work, including previous cross-party work, on the Football Governance Bill, an important piece of legislation that I believe will prevent any other English club from suffering the dreadful fate that Reading suffered for five years under an irresponsible owner who threatened its very future. I want to thank not only the new owner but the players and fans of Reading who have been through an unimaginable time. It is with great pride that we support our club and we look forward to a better season in the new football season later this year. I appreciate the pressure on time this afternoon, so I will try to focus my remarks on a few other key issues in our community. One other vital issue for many of my residents, and for me, is the future of Reading jail. This wonderful historic building, which dates back to the 1850s, has been left empty for some years, and I have campaigned for some time, as many colleagues may know, for it to be turned into an arts and heritage hub in memory of Oscar Wilde, who was incarcerated there. It would be the most incredible facility for our town, bringing new opportunities in the arts and heritage to Reading. Indeed, it would also encourage tourism to the town, given that we are the western terminus of the Elizabeth line and very close to not only London but cities such as Oxford and Bristol. I am pleased that the jail was bought by a sympathetic developer, and I look forward to a successful tender exercise for a new architect and further planning work being carried out. I am also pleased that in the interim, the jail is being used for filming. If anyone watches crime thrillers, they may notice that some prison interior shots are filmed in Reading jail. That is an indication of just how wonderful the site could be. Back in 2014, there was an incredible exhibition at the jail run by the charity Artangel, in which individual cells were used for installation art, and Oscar Wilde’s poetry was read in the prison chapel. It was an incredibly moving experience. One member of the arts world from London was talking on his phone in front of me as we walked down one of the cast-iron walkways, which looked like something straight out of “Porridge”, and he said the wonderful words, “I’m in Reading. It’s really rather good.” I hope that more people can appreciate our town and understand how really rather good we are. I would like to briefly celebrate our rivers and wonderful green spaces. There was some great news yesterday from the Environment Secretary about action to tackle pollution in rivers, a huge issue locally in both the Thames and the Kennet, a major tributary, and other watercourses such as Holy Brook, which have been polluted shockingly in recent years. We have also suffered from flooding. However, there is great news of important improvements to parks and riverside spaces led by Reading borough council and in partnership with many other community organisations. I am aware that I have limited time, but I would like to briefly plug other local heritage, including the restoration of Cemetery arch, a historic landmark in Reading. I pay tribute to our dear friend Nick Cooksey, who sadly passed away, who had been leading the project brilliantly. I look forward to further work on the project. I thank our wonderful voluntary groups and our many small businesses that make us such a vibrant town and the major shopping centre for southern England. I am grateful for the new investment in the town at Station Hill where nearly £1 billion has been spent renovating the area and improving it dramatically, with a super new tower full of business accommodation and several new large blocks of flats in the area, which was once home to a car park. I want to celebrate our public services, particularly our NHS, schools and police, who do such a wonderful job. I conclude by thanking you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak, and I once again pay tribute to Sir David. This is a wonderful tradition, and I am proud to have contributed.

• 21 Jul 2025 · Independent Water Commission · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the tough action he has announced. Residents in my community have suffered appalling problems with sewage pollution in the Thames, the Kennet and many other waterways, as well as hours-long interruptions to supply. To make matters worse, residents have also suffered subsidence from a water leak. How will the new ombudsman help me and my residents to tackle these very serious problems?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Victory over Japan: 80th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  May I ask the Chair of the Select Committee to mention some of the many diverse groups from across Berkshire, whom I know he is thinking of at this very difficult time, including our local Nepalese and Gurkha communities?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. As a fellow southern MP, I share his concern about the importance of explaining that there is real poverty across the south of England, as well as in many other parts of the country. He makes a point about the breakfast clubs, which are outstanding and he is right to say how valuable they are on a number of fronts. We have two in Reading. My fellow Reading MPs and I are very proud of them and we look forward to seeing more soon.

• 16 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

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  Is it not the point that there should be a shared national mission to invest in young people? As was rightly pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), the evidence is clear that £1 invested in a very young child, aged less than five, is worth £16 invested later in their life. The purpose of our work in this field in the public sector, and with partners in the voluntary sector, should be to support very young children to have the very best start in life.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I will make a little more progress. I have discussed some of the challenges in my constituency, which are very pertinent to the wider debate. Even in areas of the UK where economic growth is at quite a reasonable level, we face real challenges accessing some of that wealth. The Minister outlined the 17 initiatives aimed at encouraging people to return to work, building their confidence and growing their ability to access work. That is so important. I would like to see more of that, and I hope that the Minister will say more about that later. Many of my constituents who are not able to benefit from the great opportunities in our town are struggling with a series of challenges in their lives. That is not through their own lack of initiative, but often because of pressures on childcare and many other issues.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that I really am pressed for time. We need to see the wider context of the very difficult inheritance the Government had. Hard work is under way, but it will obviously take time to shift some of these very persistent problems. The focus on helping people to return to work is so important, and I hope that the Minister will say more about these important trailblazers; they seem extremely well-designed. Thank you for my time today, Madam Deputy Speaker.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right and makes an excellent point.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak in support of the policies outlined by the Minister. I wish to discuss the crisis in the system, the situation in my constituency, and some of the important initiatives under way to get people back into work. It is worth reviewing the scale of the crisis that the current Government inherited just a year ago. After 14 years of the previous Government, 4.5 million children were living in poverty, 2.8 million people were on long-term sickness and disability benefits, and the cost of those benefits was up by £20 billion since the pandemic.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I will not, I am afraid. I need to make some progress. In addition, one in eight young people were out of work due to long-term sickness and were on sickness and disability benefits. In short, the system that the Government inherited this time last year was in crisis and, moreover, trapped people in poverty. We are lucky to have a growing local economy in my constituency. We have a town that attracts many new businesses, and we grow our own businesses. However, that wealth is not spread evenly. Despite the impressive array of new buildings in the town centre, there is a stark contrast between the wealth in those businesses and some of the wonderful science parks on the edge of the town, and the poverty in which some of our residents live. I want to see that issue addressed. The Government are taking important steps forward in tackling that issue. I certainly saw the problems when I was a councillor in Reading. They can include families struggling to get by in an area where the cost of living is particularly high and the cost of housing is high; that is a crucial part of the issue. Creating more good jobs is very important, and that is not just my opinion. Those jobs need to be spread across the country, and I believe the Government are making real progress on that, and on growing the economy. Indeed, I will correct a point that was made earlier: the UK economy has grown more in the first quarter of this year than any other comparable G7 economy, and that is in a difficult economic context around the world. As well as a need for economic growth, there is a need to improve access to good jobs. That is one of the points I want to cover.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. This must be a strategy for the whole United Kingdom. I am obviously reflecting on the issues in my community, where we are lucky to have relatively high economic growth, but that growth is not spread or shared evenly. I want more detail from the Minister about the 17 very exciting pilots, which have focused on offering help and support. I appreciate that time is pressing, but let me briefly focus on some of the very important first steps that the Government have taken in this area. Some of these policies are not solely within the remit of the Department for Work and Pensions, but are cross-Government. It is important to see the context. We have had the biggest investment in employment support for many years, with £3.5 billion being invested in that important field. There has also been an increase in the minimum wage to £12.21 per hour, and the initiative to build more homes during this Parliament. That is vital. As I said, one of the biggest challenges for families in my area is the very high cost of housing, so it is very important that we build homes to buy and to rent across the country, and that families can access those. Greater supply will obviously drive down the cost. It is also important that families are supported with childcare. That is a very important aspect of helping parents return to work, particularly when they have young children. I was delighted to hear the Best Start announcement, and there will be a Best Start project in Reading. Other initiatives have provided similar support; the free breakfast clubs, for example, are also very important. I want a quicker roll-out of those programmes.

• 7 Jul 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a wonderful speech. May I also say that there is a wonderful pig from Berkshire as well, which has distinctive markings? However, moving away from animals, perhaps my hon. Friend wishes to say a little more about the success of the type of legislation she describes in Canada and Australia. It has delivered real value in those countries’ economies and real value for pension savers.

• 7 Jul 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She has convened a very powerful group—indeed, the former City Minister played an active part in its most recent meeting. Does she agree that this Bill is particularly important for our high streets and many other entrepreneurs in our local communities, to try to find new forms of investment to help them boost business?

• 7 Jul 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that there is a growing consensus in the pensions industry? Indeed, some of the trade bodies have been heavily involved in promoting the idea of consolidation for some time, and perhaps what he is describing is a growing body of opinion in the pensions industry.