Mike Martin MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 May 2026 · Defence Readiness · Hansard source

  More

  I will not, if that is okay, because we are short on time. To create the political space for some of these trade-offs, because that is a huge amount of money—£30 billion extra every single year—we need to have the national conversation on defence that was announced in the strategic defence review, but has been notable by its absence. That is why I, together with the hon. Members for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) and for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) and Field Marshal Richards in the other place, have formed the all-party parliamentary group on rearmament. We hope to raise public awareness not just of the threats, because I think the public understand the threats we face, but of the lack of capability, and the diminishing capability, in the UK military. I recently went to a school in my constituency to talk to sixth-formers, and I have asked this question in several schools since, but they all assume we have a fleet of about 50 or 100 ships. When I tell them that we have 14 frigates and destroyers—surface combatants—they are shocked. The general public do not know the state of the British military, which is entirely incommensurate with the threat we face. In conclusion, because time is very short, our military is a paper tiger. Sooner or later, we are going to be found out, and when we are found out and the battlegroup in Estonia is overrun or an aircraft carrier is sunk, Suez will pale into insignificance. This King’s Speech falls far short of what is required.

• 16 Apr 2026 · Armed Forces Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford, and I thank you for the invitation to remove our jackets. Amendment 7 was tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon. I will just briefly introduce it to the Committee. The idea of a zig-zag career is incredibly important. Unlike previously, when the qualification needed to join the armed forces was the ability to run around a muddy field with a heavy backpack, we now live in an age in which we recognise that we need a much greater range of skills in the armed forces, and the ability to move from reserve to regular and back to reserve is incredibly important, so we welcome that the Government are introducing that. When I served, a number of people regularly moved between the regulars and the reserves—in fact, I did it myself. However, there is a question mark as to what effect such movement has on retention. In an ideal world, we would expect it to improve, as more flexibility should mean that people are more likely to stay in the regular forces or the reserve forces. But we do not know that; this is an untried experiment, so the amendment would mandate the Ministry of Defence to provide a report to Parliament on the effect of the implementation of this clause—of this zig-zag career pathway—on retention. Specifically, clause 31 as it stands amends the Reserve Forces Act 1996 to make it easier for personnel to move in both directions. It also amends the Armed Forces Act 2006 to enable that to happen. Amendment 7 would simply add an annual reporting and accountability mechanism on top of those transfer provisions. It would not change the function of the clause, but just require the Government to enable Parliament to monitor the situation accurately. As we know, recruitment and retention is a big problem for the armed forces. Without such a reporting requirement, the provisions could be enacted—again, we are in favour of that—but never meaningfully evaluated. As we heard in evidence, there are so many different categories of reserve forces and many different types of engagement. They have grown piecemeal over time, and one reason for that is that there is no effective oversight mechanism, looking at things in the round. Under this amendment, the reporting requirement would establish one element of an oversight mechanism. I conclude by saying that our amendment does not seek to amend the function of the clause, which we are in favour of, but it seeks to mandate the MOD to provide a report to Parliament, so that Parliament can exercise proper oversight and scrutiny.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Armed Forces Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure, after lunch, to continue serving under your chairship, Mr Efford. [ Laughter. ] That was not meant to be funny, but I suppose the best way to be funny is to be unintentionally funny. I rise to speak in support of new clause 2, which would legislate for the establishment of a veterans’ mental health oversight officer. I will come to some statistics later, but I think everyone in this room understands that veterans’ mental health is poor. That does not apply to all veterans, of course—many veterans, including the Minister and many Members in this room, take great agency from their service, so I do not wish to paint veterans as victims—but there are veterans who suffer with mental health challenges. Those challenges often start in service, whether they arise through the pressures of service, the vagaries of service life or the trauma experienced in combat. Under the new clause, the veterans’ mental health oversight officer, who would be appointed by the Secretary of State, would essentially have a remit to oversee the care offered to veterans across the nation. It is doubly important that we seek, as we did this morning, not just to regularise and establish parity of care for veterans across the entire country, but to understand that people with mental health problems often find it hard to reach out. It is easier to forget people with mental health problems, which is why the establishment of the position is particularly important. I will touch a little on my own experiences. I spent a couple of years in southern Afghanistan, including some periods in combat. I was lucky enough not to experience extreme trauma. Naturally, you do see some things in combat, but that was not my problem when I came back from Afghanistan. What I experienced was a deep sense of frustration and anger at what was effectively a failed mission. I know that some people in this room, including the Minister, served in Afghanistan. We were sent there to do the sharp end of Government policy. We do so willingly, of course—that is what we sign up for—but that policy was ill thought out and often put servicepeople in very difficult positions in which they had to make judgments in extremely grey areas. If the strategy had been slightly more clearly thought out, perhaps some of us who were there might not have experienced that moral injury. Moral injury, which is actually a term that came out of the conflict in Afghanistan, happens where what you hear about the conflict is very different from what you experience on the ground, and the decisions that you have to make are very discordant. It is a bit separate from the “classic” trauma that we might understand as PTSD, but all these things come to the same. Personally, I wrote books, articles and pamphlets, which was my way of achieving catharsis and balance. I donated the proceeds of my first book to Combat Stress, a charity that supports the mental health of veterans and servicepeople. I emphasise that many veterans, myself included, take great agency from their service and the qualities and skills that it taught them, but there is a significant minority of veterans who struggle with their mental health, and that journey starts when they are in service. Between 2019 and 2023, mental health diagnoses among active duty personnel increased by 40%. Anxiety and PTSD diagnoses doubled. Those are stark figures. In 2023, mental health disorders accounted for more days in hospital beds for service personnel than physical problems. There is a preponderance of mental health injuries over physical health injuries among our service personnel. Women under 30 in the military are more than twice as likely as civilians to report divorce. We can see the burden on our service personnel.

• 11 Mar 2026 · UK-based Tech Companies · Hansard source

  More

  That is an excellent point. It is very much something that the Government can do, because they understand where capital can be found and how to create the legal and regulatory ecosystem that enables these companies to thrive. Let me touch briefly on access to capital—I am thinking of slightly larger amounts than those the hon. Gentleman just mentioned. Pension funds are a huge source of capital. In the UK, trillions are under management in our pension funds. This is something that Canada does very well. Canada’s pension funds operate almost like specialist investors, pumping billions of dollars into AI, infrastructure and software. To pick another example that is dear to my constituency, South East Water, which many hon. Members will have seen me rail against, is 25% owned by NatWest pensions—our favourite cuddly UK bank—which makes its money by selling debt to South East Water at a rate of 10% interest. That is not pension fund investment that is driving growth in the UK. We must do better. We must think about how we can push and guide our pension funds, and all those millions that are under investment, to invest in growth sectors in the UK, rather than going abroad. Let me turn to reforming public procurement. At the worst end of the spectrum is probably the Ministry of Defence, where it takes six years from first contact to signing a contract. That is just to sign the contract, not to deliver the piece of military hardware and test it or have it in service. The stories out of MOD procurement would not be out of place in an episode of “The Thick of It”. That is the worst case, but then there is the Department for Work and Pensions. Andrew in my constituency founded Adzuna, which is effectively a super-duper job search thing that uses AI to match people’s profiles to the skills needed and so on. It took him two and a half years from approaching the DWP to signing a contract. Andrew started out with a laptop at his kitchen table, and businesses that size cannot wait two and a half years. Cash is king—and they will either have gone out of business or decided to go somewhere else by the time that contract is offered. Whether in defence, where people actually need to contract much more quickly because of the pace of technological change, or Government, who actually need an effective job search tool on their websites, these timescales need to be compressed. In that way the Government will open themselves up much more to small firms instead of just the big firms that are able to take two and a half years on a punt for a contract with the DWP. To sum up, there are a number of things that the Government could do around information sharing—I thank the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) for making that point—and access to capital, particularly encouraging pension funds to invest. They should also look at procurement and focusing that on small businesses, because small businesses are the ones that deliver growth. That is where we get growth in our economy—much more so than from big businesses. The Government have a huge set of levers to pull, so I implore the Minister, “Could we perhaps start pulling them?”. I look forward to his remarks.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

  More

  I will not take any interventions, as so many hon. Members are seeking to get in. The combination of highly skilled individuals and three-generational families means that, quite rightly, not everyone in a family goes to work, so what about the carers, part-time workers, the elderly and students? If a person is studying at university and is not earning, do they need to meet the income threshold? There is a complete lack of clarity. When I attended the Chinese new year celebrations in Paddock Wood last year, which were held jointly with the congregation of St Andrew’s church, I saw at first hand just how deeply the Hong Kong community enriches our community, and how the native Paddock Wood community reciprocates that. The British Government have made a promise, and they should stick to their promises. I urge them to reconsider.

• 15 Jul 2025 · SEND Provision: South-east England · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That this House has considered SEND provision in the South East. It is an honour and pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I will speak specifically about Kent and my Tunbridge Wells constituency; I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will speak about examples in their constituencies. We are speaking about some of the most vulnerable people we represent and, as the Government are reviewing special educational needs and disabilities, it is important that the voices of children and families are heard, because they see the system from the inside and can see its shortcomings. In Kent, more than 21,000 children have an education, health and care plan—that is 14% above the national average. As a result of rising demand and some mismanagement by the previous Conservative administration, there was a SEND overspend in a recent year of nearly £100 million, which is now being managed down by the Department for Education. At the same time, alongside all other local authorities, Kent has statutory duties to meet EHCP deadlines and provide provision. This creates a conflicting pressure. The story is the same for local authorities everywhere where there is rising demand and declining resources. The balancing act required creates a false economy. When children do not get the support they need, they fail in their educational setting, but that means they are less likely to achieve in the world of work and are more likely to become a burden on the state in their later years. So getting this right now creates a long-term economic benefit for our society, and it is not just economically right: it is morally right that we do so to create life chances for the children under our care. To go back to the situation in Kent, under the previous Conservative administration, only 13% of EHCPs were completed within the statutory 20-week deadline in the year to March 2024, and because of that Kent was put into special measures. I have called a number of times for that status to be continued because there was some improvement, in that the provision of EHCPs within the deadline went up to 65%. Kent was therefore taken out of special measures. But unfortunately, quantity does not equal quality. I do not have time to go into the litany of mistakes on some of the EHCPs, but they included incorrect names of schools, schools that do not exist, schools that are not approved, schools that do not have funding, incorrect needs and spelling mistakes—really basic errors. Often, when families complain about the errors, they are told by Kent county council to go to a tribunal. This is deeply cynical. Kent county council has been using tribunals not as a last resort, but as a tactic to delay, to deter and to exhaust families. In other words, the council is using tribunals to try to get families to give up seeking appropriate support for their children. And it works. Tribunals are utterly gruelling. Families and children spend months preparing for them. The emotional toll is enormous throughout the time they are preparing, and it costs, as they have to get legal advice to go to a tribunal. All the while, they do not know whether, at the end of this year-long process, the child will get the special provision that their EHCP says they require. I have spoken to Matt, one of my constituents, whose daughter Ella has cerebral palsy and has just finished year 4. Her original EHCP was issued when she was at nursery and was recently reissued. This is an example of the problems with EHCPs in Kent: the only change the council made was to replace the word “nursery” with “school”. When the family complained, they were told to go to a tribunal. They declined, for all the reasons I outlined relating to the financial and emotional cost. It later emerged that Ella’s teachers believed that a mainstream school would not meet her needs. Their application for a specialist placement was lodged but rejected by Kent council, which did not consult anyone, including Ella’s teachers or parents. It was purely a paperwork exercise. The family were again told that the only option was to go to a tribunal. At that stage, because it is so important for Ella to get specialist secondary provision for her cerebral palsy, they opted to go to tribunal. They have been given a date in May 2026. Currently, Ella has an insufficient plan because her parents declined to fight the first tribunal. They will have to wait for more than a year to fight the second tribunal, all the while wondering whether they will get the specialist provision that all the experts agree is what Ella needs.

• 15 Jul 2025 · SEND Provision: South-east England · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my fellow Kent MP for his intervention; I will address many of those points as I make progress. He is right that there is a reason for the statutory deadline for EHCPs, and it would be nice if local authorities could meet it. To return to tribunals, between 2021 and 2024 Kent council spent more than £2 million on SEND tribunals, of which 98% were successful for the parents. If parents have the money and the emotional bandwidth, and can go to tribunal and fight, they will be successful. But we do not know the percentage of parents who decide that they are not able to put themselves through that process. That is one of the legacies, I am afraid to say, of Conservative mismanagement in Kent. Since Reform took over two months ago, it has gone from bad to worse. A cabinet member resigned within 45 days, which is a day longer than Liz Truss managed, so one assumes his lettuce is still going strong. Another councillor has been suspended and is under investigation by the police. The matter is now before the courts, so I cannot say much more about that, but Members can have a google. The June meeting on children, young people and education was postponed indefinitely. That meeting was relevant to this debate, but it is only one among a plethora of committee meetings, cabinet meetings and sub-committees that the Reform administration in Kent has cancelled because it is unable to deliver government. Reform cannot even organise its own house, let alone grapple with a crisis of this magnitude and scale. I am glad the Government are reviewing the system, because it needs to be reformed, but real change must be driven by the principles that the Lib Dems have articulated time and again. We must listen to the voices of children and families. They do not have all the answers, but they do have insight into how the system works, and we would do well to listen to them. Where appropriate, specialist capacity must be provided for the minority of children who have EHCPs and need specialist support. For the vast majority of children who have special educational needs, we must drive inclusion in mainstream schooling, because that is appropriate. Mainstream schools prepare people for the mainstream world in a way that is more appropriate, provided that there is the extra provision, with teaching assistants and speech and language therapists, that can help the child to thrive in a mainstream setting. We are ready to work with the Government to improve the system. Some of the media reports around the scrapping of EHCPs are concerning. It seems like a bit of a red herring. The Lib Dems introduced EHCPs in coalition—we are very proud of that—and before that we had statements. If we get rid of EHCPs, we will still need a statement of needs for passporting to services. If we scrap EHCPs, what will we replace them with? I am sure the Minister will speak to this in her response to the debate, but we must have an outcomes-based review of the system rather than a Treasury-driven, cost-cutting exercise. I hope the Government will learn from some of their recent travails in that regard.