Mike Martin MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  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.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Business Rates Relief: High-street Businesses · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) for securing what is probably the most important debate we could have to rejuvenate our town centres. As some hon. and right hon. Members have touched on, town centres are not just a series of business transactions but the centres of our community, where people go to meet friends or to be part of a place where they can do familiar things. It is the social glue that is created by town centres that is so important; once that is lost it does not come back. In every town centre there is a mix of retail, leisure and hospitality. We have to get the balance right between those three things, because often someone will come in for one of the legs of the stool, as it were, but stay to do something else—thus they stay longer and have more touchpoints with their community. Business rates are the foundational tax rate that affects those three things. If business rates are not right, we are not incentivising the right mix in the community—because business rates affect those three things slightly differently—and we are undermining the support that those three things give to the idea of the town centre being a social glue. I am not going to talk about all three things, but I will talk about hospitality. I start with Fuggles bar, which is around the corner from my house in Tunbridge Wells. Fuggles is great; it is run by Alex and has an extraordinary selection of craft beers, including local ones brewed in the constituency, and a number of gins, so I occasionally visit. Alex employs about 18 people. A number of Members have spoken about business rates relief being cut from 75% to 40%. That single change, announced at the Budget, has pushed up the cost of Alex’s business rates by 50%. To that we must add a number of other costs that have risen at the same time, such as national insurance, and before that, energy costs. An independent bar that employs 18 people, many of them part time—as we know, the NI increase hit many businesses that were employing part-time people in particular—finds it really hard to stay afloat. Alex is a member of the Tunbridge Wells hospitality leaders forum, which I meet regularly. His story is the same as the rest of the members of the forum’s. We were so concerned that together we submitted a submission to the Treasury’s consultation on business rates, and I implore the Minister to look that up and read it. I will not go through everything in the consultation, but there are two things I will focus on. The first is investment. The current business rates formula penalises investment. If someone invests in their premises, the rateable value goes up and their taxes go up—it is a tax on investment. The other is online. Amazon pays about 0.37% of its retail sales in business rates. Fuggles pays 3%. That is the exact opposite of what a tax system should do. I implore the Minister to look up the Tunbridge Wells hospitality leaders’ submission to the Treasury’s consultation. There are a lot of good ideas in there, and I hope that he takes them on board.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Business Rates Relief: High-street Businesses · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Ms Jardine. It seems that the hon. Gentleman is confused and in the wrong debate. This is a debate about business rates, but he spent his entire time talking about local government sequencing of traffic works.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Regional Growth · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chief Secretary for the statement. Giving money out to mayors to fix transport—there is nothing to disagree with in that. Kent, which as he knows is the UK’s strategic corridor to Europe, recently asked for a mayor and was rebuffed. Without a mayor, when will Kent get its money?

• 13 May 2025 · Flooding: Planning and Developer Responsibilities · Hansard source

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  Hawkhurst parish council and Southern Water recently came to see me to complain about a number of developers in my constituency who have mixed surface run-off with foul water, which is illegal. Does my hon. Friend agree that, although we of course need big housing developments, if developers are proven to have illegally mixed surface run-off and foul water when building them, they should have to make good what they did?

• 24 Mar 2025 · European Union: UK Membership · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. We are at a key geopolitical moment, which encompasses both economic issues and security and defence issues. Britain leaving the EU has damaged our economy. That is not a supposition; it is a fact. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the watchdog the Government are beholden to listen to for economic forecasts, says that our economy has been reduced by 4% because of Brexit. We can also look at the trade deals—for example, with Australia—that were held up and touted as a benefit of Brexit. We would have to look very hard, with a very powerful microscope, to see the bump in the UK GDP figures that we gained from the Australian trade deal, but we do not need to look hard to see our farmers’ anger and ire about the changes to food safety standards and the agricultural market in the UK. Small business owners I speak to in my community of Tunbridge Wells are absolutely appalled by Brexit. No matter what their small business is—whether they sell books, grow and export apples, or make art—Brexit has been a disaster.

• 18 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T9. Kent county council plans to introduce 10,000 on-street car chargers over the next decade. To put that in context, Kent has a population of 1.6 million people. At this rate, Kent will have burned down by the time we all have electric on-street car charging. What can the Secretary of State do to speed this up?

• 26 Feb 2025 · Family Businesses · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. [Hon. Members: “How do you follow that?] It will be hard—probably with a lower level of energy. I recently met with Peter, Kate and Edward, who run the two Basil cafés in Tunbridge Wells; there are four across Kent. They are a family business—the subject of today’s motion. [ Interruption. ] After the damage Conservative Members did to the economy when they were in government, they need to pipe down. The family told me that the combination of the minimum wage and national insurance rises and business rates has them on their knees. The only thing they can do and the only option they have, bearing in mind that they are a family business—their staff are also their friends, and these are hubs in our community—is to lay off staff or, in some cases, not to grow their employment in the way that they had planned. Zooming out a little, about a month ago I met with the Tunbridge Wells hospitality reps. They are the owners of pubs, restaurants, hotels and bars in Tunbridge Wells, which are all small businesses—most of them are family businesses. As we went around the table, it was the same story from them. The combination of all three measures, coming at the same time, means that they are either looking at laying off staff now or delaying plans for future employment.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Education, Health and Care Plans · Hansard source

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  Since I was elected as the Member for Tunbridge Wells, my inbox has been inundated with cases of children who are not having their needs met because Kent county council is failing in almost every regard. In 2020, 33% of EHCPs made the deadline; in 2023, only 13% did. I wanted to go through some examples, but we do not have time. In September 2022, Kent county council was put into special measures because of significant weaknesses in its SEND services. Those measures were lifted in September 2024, but the Minister for School Standards told me that KCC needs to make further progress and that the Department for Education must still keep a close watch on the council. The next formal review of KCC and its SEND services will happen at the end of this month. I remind the Minister that KCC breaches time limits in 87% of cases, misses out key pieces of information, arranges SEND transport too late and refuses to communicate effectively with parents. In November, I called for KCC to be put back in special measures and I reiterate that call today, not only for the children of Tunbridge Wells, but for all our children across the land.

• 20 Jan 2025 · English Devolution Bill: Local Public Services · Hansard source

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  I want to ask about the interaction between the planning reforms and devolution, which are two huge bits of legislation. In Tunbridge Wells we have a local plan, but we have been asked when we do our new local plan to have a 66% increase in houses. Except, we will not have a new local plan because Tunbridge Wells borough council will cease to exist—it will become part of the West Kent unitary authority. How will these two huge reforms interact and what will it mean for housing numbers in Tunbridge Wells?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  Kent county council has opted to go on the priority programme and cancel elections this May; I guess turkeys do not vote for Christmas. The timetable going forward is a little confused. We will have mayorals in 2027, unitaries in 2028, and then it stands up later on. Could the Minister give some more detail on that? If the process is stretched out like that, Conservative Kent county councillors will be in power for seven years. Judging by my inbox, the people of Kent are absolutely appalled by that. I would be grateful for more details.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Special Educational Needs and Disabilities · Hansard source

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  My constituent Suzie waited for an education, health and care plan for her son Harrison for 42 weeks. By law, they have to be provided within 20 weeks, so Conservative-run Kent county council took more than twice the amount of time that it should have done. When it came, it was full of mistakes, and Harrison is now in the wrong school, his class size is too big and he does not have the specialist support he requires. Previously, Kent county council was put in special measures to sort out the problem with EHCP provision. Would the Secretary of State support KCC going back into special measures so that students like Harrison get the support that they deserve?