Mike Martin MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · West Bank: Forced Displacement · Hansard source

  More

  It is actually worse than just importing goods from the settlements. We are receiving tariffs from their import, so the British Government are making money from that import of goods. Would the Minister speak to that in his closing remarks?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Secure 16 to 19 Academies Bill · Hansard source

  More

  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cramlington and Killingworth on bringing forward this Bill. By reducing the funding termination agreement period from seven years to two, the Bill aims to make secure 16-to-19 academies more cost effective and adaptable, giving the Government greater flexibility to close underperforming academies or repurpose them without being locked in for such a long period. These measures are welcome, not least because of the opportunity that they offer to reinvest into community-based youth services. The Liberal Democrats believe that any freed-up funds should be directed towards making youth diversion a statutory duty, ensuring that every part of the country has a pre-charge diversion scheme for young people up to the age of 25. We believe that that would deliver better outcomes for young people and reduce pressure on police and courts. According to the evidence, high-quality youth work has consistently been shown to help vulnerable young people escape the grip of criminal gangs. However, as we all know, youth services have suffered repeated cuts over many years, robbing young people of that support and contributing to antisocial behaviour and rising violent crime. By reinvesting savings into early intervention and support, fewer young people will fall into offending cycles, meaning fewer arrests, fewer custodial sentences and, ultimately, less need for these academies. We believe that the real long-term savings lie in prevention, rather than detention. That all being said, the Bill represents the opportunity to create a virtuous circle, a funding opportunity, and an opportunity to build safer communities, and the Liberal Democrats support it.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Parental Leave Review · Hansard source

  More

  As someone who is about to welcome their second child into the world—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you very much. I am delighted to be discussing parental leave and I welcome this review. The Minister said that one objective of the review is to reset the relationship between men and women—I paraphrase—and to make that more equal. May I gently suggest that while the measures set out are necessary, they are insufficient? To get to the heart of that matter, we need to look at early years funding. When £6.12 is provided by the Government for early years provision, but providers, such as the Little Learning Tree in my constituency, say that it costs £7.50 to deliver, we have a problem. The parental leave review will not get to the heart of that matter, so will the Minister consider including the Department for Education in the review to get to the heart of equality between men and women?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

  More

  It is fascinating that the vast majority of the tourism businesses in West Dorset are microbusinesses. Can my hon. Friend think of a worse policy for those businesses than reducing the NI threshold to the level it was reduced to in the Budget? Can he think of a policy that would do more economic damage to the hospitality sector in his constituency?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Nuclear-certified Aircraft Procurement · Hansard source

  More

  I fully welcome the announcement, and I thank the Minister for making the statement. In an age of uncertainty about the reliability of our US ally, it seems an odd choice to be leaning into them, in the sense that we will be dropping dual-key, US-made munitions from these planes. It makes more sense if this is a stepping stone to a fully sovereign UK capability, but that would raise questions about the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Will the Minister comment on whether this is a stepping stone to a fully sovereign UK capability?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Armed Forces Recruitment: North-east England · Hansard source

  More

  It is as pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) on securing the debate. Few topics are more important for the armed forces than recruitment and its partner, retention, which the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) ably articulated. I am the Liberal Democrat spokesperson today but I am also a proud former soldier. I will try to encompass the whole of the armed forces in my remarks, but my natural tendency is to substitute the word “Army” because that is where I was shaped as a young man. The Army is on its knees. The cuts it faced under the previous Government were as merciless as they were reckless: 10,000 soldiers were cut from the Army, in addition to failing recruitment. The latter has continued and we have lost 2,000 members of the Army since the general election. We are left with the smallest Army since the 1790s. As we know, that is while a war is happening on NATO’s border in Ukraine. I would argue that that decline in our Army has left us dangerously exposed. In addition, only 75% of our troops are medically deployable. When we look at the size of the recruited Army, that is a deployable force of only 52,000, which is incredibly small when one considers how dangerous the world is at the moment. Depending on which figures are to be believed, Russia, by contrast, has 750,000 troops in Ukraine. There is a glaring mismatch. We saw some of that play out in conversations around the coalition of the willing, and whether we could put troops alongside allies in Ukraine. As some other hon. Members have mentioned, it is not just the UK; other European forces also suffer from smaller armies than they should have and problems with recruitment. I am sorry to repeat the words of the Minister back at him, but recently he told the Defence Committee that “more work is needed” to ensure that the UK is ready to fight an enduring war. I would contrast that with the national security strategy published yesterday, which says that we need to be ready to defend our homeland now. I encourage the Government to take away the juxtaposition of those statements and respond. We often hear people say in the media, “Do we need soldiers in an age of cyber, information and space? Perhaps we don’t need people anymore.” This is the siren call about how technology will solve our military problems, but the answer is: yes, we do need those people. There are no alternatives to having boots on the ground. It is only troops that can take and hold territory—and the last time I checked, land is where everybody lives, so that is the decisive domain in warfare. Perhaps more importantly, when we look at how dangerous the world is at the moment, ground troops are what deter, more so than any other type of force—and I for one can think of nothing scarier than a division of Northumbrians, Mackems and Geordies facing me. [ Laughter. ] That is why—from jokes to serious policy—the Liberal Democrats are proposing to reverse the Conservative cuts of 10,000 to our Army. I note that the Government hinted in the strategic defence review recently that they might increase the size of the Army at some point—I think the wording was that it would be desirable—but that this must of course fit within our financial envelope. With the new announcement of 3.5% on core defence expenditure, perhaps we could accelerate some of that increase in the size of the Army, because although the SDR was a very good document, I think it represents jam tomorrow, and I would argue that the threat is today—as I think the Government would also accept. In addition to reversing those cuts, the Liberal Democrats would focus on the recruitment problem. Although the pay increases are welcome to our hard-working armed forces—indeed, we also welcome that as Liberal Democrats —we would argue that specific recruitment and retention bonuses would help to accelerate recruitment into the forces. We therefore propose a £10,000 bonus for new recruits who complete their phase 1 and phase 2 training and then serve for two years—that is, their initial commitment. We would also pledge a further £20,000 bonus for those who have left the forces and then return. We could then get them in already trained, so to speak; they would just need to do their annual training to get back up to speed. Those two things, coupled with some of the pay increases that have come through recently, would help with the recruitment pipeline. As hon. Members have said, recruitment into our armed forces in the north-east accounts for a disproportionate share of the total, with the region contributing 7.3% of new recruits despite accounting for only 4.6% of the working-age population. It is also the region with the highest rate of per capita recruitment in the country. This reflects a deep sense of pride and patriotism, which I saw for myself when serving in Afghanistan alongside members of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who are so distinguishable by their headdress—a red hackle, in Labour colours, appropriately for today. But we cannot rely just on the north-east, nor can we ask more of our forces without giving them the support that we need, and this is where we come to retention. So many forces personnel are leaving because of the conditions they face. I would like to focus on two things. The first is an issue that we have explored repeatedly, but where things have perhaps not improved as quickly as we think they should have: bullying and harassment, particularly —almost exclusively—of female recruits and women in the armed forces. This was laid out comprehensively in the Atherton report, and recently we had the service chiefs in front of the Defence Committee, which I sit on. I questioned General Sir Roly Walker, the Chief of the General Staff, on this, and I read out to him some accounts. One woman described being pinned down and assaulted in front of a senior officer, yet nothing was done about it. That was just one example. How can we expect women to remain in the armed forces when they are not respected for the important contributions that they make? Obviously, this is a cross-party issue; no party would seek to make political capital out of it. We all agree that it is completely unacceptable. But I urge the current Government to continue to push hard on it and to make sure that the service chiefs understand that it is a political priority and a leadership issue. I will conclude now. We have discussed a plethora of issues and there have been many good suggestions from across the House today. Some of the failures reek of apathy, which I hope is being corrected. I hope that we are going forward into a new era of better funding and greater focus on some of the recruitment and retention problems that the armed forces have faced. Unless we take action, we will fail those people who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Armed Forces Recruitment: North-east England · Hansard source

  More

  As we all know, the tagline for the Royal Marine commandos was “99.9% need not apply”. When it comes to parliamentary spoken contributions, the hon. Member is in top 0.1%, so he has achieved that goal.

• 25 Jun 2025 · National Armaments Director · Hansard source

  More

  The strategic defence review mentions that there will be an increase in the size of the Army at some point if funds allow. Does my hon. Friend not agree that, now that we will be spending 3.5% of GDP on defence, we can accelerate that shift and grow the size of the Army now to provide that deterrent effect?

• 24 Jun 2025 · National Security Strategy · Hansard source

  More

  If you will allow me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will read a small quote from page 10: “We will continue to abide by the important principle—shared by NATO and its key partners—that the security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions are inextricably linked”. But that is not how the US views it. The Trump Administration see them as quite separate, and would prefer the United Kingdom to focus its efforts on the Euro-Atlantic. How does the right hon. Gentleman explain that discrepancy?

• 24 Jun 2025 · VAT Registration Threshold: SMEs · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but does he not now regret his vote to leave, seeing as it created all of these problems for his constituents?

• 24 Jun 2025 · VAT Registration Threshold: SMEs · Hansard source

  More

  I am sure that the Minister is aware that the UK is one of only three countries in Europe that does not offer a lower rate of VAT for hospitality and tourism. For example, France, Italy and Spain charge only 10% on those sectors. Will he consider lowering the rate for those sectors as part of the UK’s VAT regime to give our high streets the boost they need?

• 24 Jun 2025 · VAT Registration Threshold: SMEs · Hansard source

  More

  What is the going rate for meeting with a shadow Minister?

• 23 Jun 2025 · UK Modern Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

  More

  There is much to like in the statement. I particularly like the reduction in energy costs of between 20% and 25%, but I would like to push the Secretary of State a little on that; so that industry can plan, when does he think those 25% reductions are going to happen?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

  More

  Is it UK Government policy to pursue regime change in Iran—yes or no?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I can actually give the hon. Lady a very specific time: it is 21 months to the day since this Act received Royal Assent. If the Minister would be so gracious, we might have from her either a time for commencement or, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow says, a specific problem that is stopping the Act being commenced, rather than some of the more general responses we have had to date. I am doubly disappointed that although this Act was passed in a previous Parliament—expressing the unanimous will of Parliament, as it passed without a Division—it is entirely commensurate with the Labour Government’s policy to halve violence against women and girls. Harassment and violence are on a continuum and a spectrum. One of the things we are trying to do is to change the culture of men in how they act towards women; this Act is a part of that and really does contribute to the Labour Government’s priorities and manifesto. Indeed, the Minister for VAWG sat on the Public Bill Committee for the Act in 2023 and said that the Labour party would work with the then Conservative Government to ensure that the Bill passed without a Division, and so it did. The Government have signalled that they will vote against new clause 43, which has been selected for a vote tonight. When the new clause has cross-party support and the original Act had unanimous cross-party support, why will the Government vote against the new clause? It seems to me that they are voting against their own manifesto and their own commitments while in opposition. That is difficult to understand, because I think we all want the same thing. I will conclude. Implementing the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act is an important step in helping the Labour Government to achieve their own manifesto commitments. Let this not be another speech without action. I urge hon. and right hon. Members to vote for new clause 43.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I rise to speak in support of new clause 43 in my name and in the name of the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) and of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), both of whom I thank for their support. It is also co-signed by 100 Members from across the House representing our entire political spectrum from almost every party, including many Members of the Labour party. New clause 43 seeks to do something very simple: to commence the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023, which has already received Royal Assent. This Act simply criminalises the harassment of people in public based on their sex, but this is a crime that overwhelmingly affects women so this really is about the criminalisation of harassment of women in public. The Act started life as a private Member’s Bill laid by my constituency predecessor, Greg Clark. He was approached by a sixth-former in our constituency who said that she had been harassed while coming home from school. One third of schoolgirls in the United Kingdom say they have been harassed in their school uniforms. We should be ashamed of that statistic, and Greg was ashamed and he took action. The 2023 Act, as passed, creates a specific offence of harassment on account of someone’s sex. Like the new clause I rise to speak in support of, it received cross-party support, including, it must be said, from the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is now the Minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls. The Act criminalises harassing, following and shouting degrading comments and making obscene gestures at women and girls in public with the deliberate intention of causing them harm or distress, and it carries a maximum sentence of two years. So I am quite disappointed and confused by the interactions that I have had with the Government on this issue. Every time I have pressed them for an update on commencement, I have not really received a substantive answer. For example, eight months ago I asked a question in this House and received a letter from the Government telling me that the Home Office is making all the necessary arrangements and that I would be contacted when a commencement date is confirmed. As a new MP, I thought this was quite promising. Five months ago, I tabled a written question and the Government responded saying that they would publish next steps at the earliest opportunity. Then two weeks ago I received a reply from the Government to a further communication stating that an update on commencement would be provided in due course. Each communication I receive from the Government is a little vaguer, a little bit less definitive about commencement. Yesterday, at her instigation, I met with the Minister for VAWG and I thought, “Fantastic, finally we will get some answers.” But there was nothing, I am afraid—there was nada, zip. I gently ask the Minister present now—not the Minister for VAWG—what is the point in arranging a meeting if the Government are not going to say anything new to what they have previously said?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  In the Government’s defence, I do not think that this is a difference in policy; it is a difference in timing, but the timing seems to be very elastic. We seek a definitive time when the Act will be commenced—perhaps the Minister can respond at the Dispatch Box.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Transport Infrastructure: Cramlington and Killingworth · Hansard source

  More

  Let me take the debate from the north-east to the south-east and Kent. The story that the hon. Lady is telling is very similar to that of the A21 Kippings Cross junction in my constituency. Of course, we have the opposite problem: the houses have all gone in, but none of the infrastructure has been built. Now that the spending review is giving lots of money to northern constituencies—I do follow her argument that they have been under-invested in for some time—what is there for the south-east? Where does the balance lie in catching up on the infrastructure that has not been built in the south-east, while all the houses have been built?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Biopsy Waiting Times · Hansard source

  More

  My constituent Julian noticed that he had a mole on his chest that was growing and bleeding. Members of his family had died from skin cancer, so he was very concerned and went to his GP. He was referred to the Kent integrated dermatology service and was told that the results would come back in four weeks. They came back in 17 weeks. I know that this issue is of personal concern to the Minister, so would she please investigate what happened and write to me?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Biopsy Waiting Times · Hansard source

  More

  12. What steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for biopsy results.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

  More

  I want to clarify some of the Minister’s earlier remarks in response to questions from my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and in his previous answer. The Minister said earlier that the trade in goods from settlements attracts a higher tariff. Will he therefore confirm that the British Government, by raising tariffs and taxes on that trade, are making money out of the illegal settlements in the west bank, and does he think that is acceptable?

• 10 Jun 2025 · USAID Funding Pause · Hansard source

  More

  If we put aside the internecine warfare of the Labour party, the hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about a retreat from the world. Retreating from the world as the west, the UK or the US, opens the door to creating more problems, and then we retreat further. Would he argue that that is what we are doing—vacating the field to our opponents?

• 10 Jun 2025 · USAID Funding Pause · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 10 Jun 2025 · USAID Funding Pause · Hansard source

  More

  On geopolitics, will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Chinese Embassy Development · Hansard source

  More

  I think we can all agree that we would like a decision to be made in this case that does not encourage the Chinese Government to think that we are a soft touch. Let us try another tack. National security is going to be taken into account as part of this planning decision. I ask the Minister this hypothetical question: if there is only a 1% chance that the granting of this planning application causes some detriment to our national security, would it not be better to take a risk management approach and put the embassy somewhere else?