Paul Holmes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Air Traffic Control Disruption · Hansard source

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  NATS falls within my constituency, in Swanwick. May I place on the record my thanks and dedication to the staff of NATS, who I have seen work day in, day out to make our skies safer, and to 78 Squadron Royal Air Force, who are based at the same site? I must ask the Minister to look seriously at the six-month timescale for the CAA review and to commit to full transparency, to ensure that the lessons learned are not held only in the Department for Transport but are shared more widely with Parliament. In the topsy-turvy world in which we live, I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) in asking the Minister to look seriously with the management of NATS at ensuring that, after the third incident in as many years, the long-term investment plans are in place to make sure that this does not happen again and that the management of NATS cannot blame lack of investment for the systems failing.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for giving way, and it is good to see her in the Chamber. She mentioned her frustration, when she was council leader, at not being able to use 100% of right-to-buy receipts. Seeing as the last Conservative Government gave her the power to do that, why did she not?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Liberal Democrat-controlled Eastleigh borough council’s debt— [ Interruption. ] Listen. The debt now sits at £620.1 million, up from £585 million last year, and £36,000 a day is paid in interest. The previous Government issued a best value notice to ensure that the debt was reduced, but this Government scrapped it. Why are the Government so unwilling to take the Liberal Democrat council to task for ripping off my constituents?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  Seeing as this is my amendment, I think I am allowed to intervene to speak on it. I welcome the shadow Secretary of State to her position, and I know she will agree that the reason why we tabled this amendment was that the Green party’s leaflet said, “Punish the Labour party for Gaza—vote Green.” It has every right to say that, although I would argue that it is divisive, but can I assist the shadow Secretary of State by saying, in response to the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), that it is Conservative party policy not to produce election literature in a language other than English during the short campaign, and that the Conservative campaign headquarters dismissed some of our candidates for doing so?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the shadow Secretary of State give way?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister to her position. I know that many people, not only on the Government side, but on the Opposition side of the House, will be delighted that she has been made a Minister. Can I just challenge her a bit further, or ask for her guidance, on the moratorium point? The Government intend for the Electoral Commission to have strengthened powers to try to tackle the regulatory regime that will be created by the moratorium, but does the Minister not share my concern that if those responsibilities are not enshrined and given to the Electoral Commission in the correct way, this issue will not be as solved as we would want it to be?

• 14 Jul 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  Yes, you did!

• 14 Jul 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the House, during his oration and statement, stated that the Government did not know the wording of the proposed motions for tomorrow’s Opposition day debates. Can you confirm that Opposition parties have until the end of business today to table the wordings of those motions and that that situation has not changed? May I put it on the record that the usual channels had informed the governing party of the subject of an Opposition day debate tomorrow? He knows that, and the Government Chief Whip knows that. Could you ask the Leader of the House to correct the record?

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate another valley MP, the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay), on securing this debate. He excellently outlined how many people have been affected by extreme heat over the last few weeks both in a personal capacity and in their work in schools, hospitals or farms. All of us will have had the experience of helping vulnerable groups in our constituencies in the last few months. Just last Saturday, I met an elderly couple with no fans or water who were not in the system. We have all helped vulnerable residents, and I commend everybody in this Chamber for the job that they do. During the hon. Gentleman’s opening speech, I noted that a Doorkeeper was bringing in another fan. The irony of the Doorkeepers wearing very heavy woollen suits was not lost on me. I hope that we think about them as much as everybody else when we talk about the extreme heat.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I will leave that for the Minister to respond to, but I entirely agree that it is good that the Doorkeepers and House staff who support us so admirably were allowed to have a brief break. I did not manage to get a solar power-produced ice cream, but perhaps I will pop down afterwards. The hon. Members for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) and for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) said that there had not been enough focus on mitigation over the last few years. They are absolutely correct, but I remind Members that we have seen a 40% reduction in total carbon emissions since 2010 and that the United Kingdom represents only 0.8% of total global emissions. If they had had longer to speak, I know they would have said that we have to tackle this internationally as well as domestically. Last summer was the warmest on record in Britain. The UK Health Security Agency estimates that 1,504 people died as a result of the heat. Behind that figure are families who have lost loved ones. What is particularly striking is that the overwhelming majority were elderly: more than 1,300 of those deaths were among people aged over 75. Fortunately, that number was lower than the more than 3,000 deaths that had been predicted, thanks in part to the successful implementation of the adverse weather and health plan introduced by the previous Government. That demonstrates an important point: preparation saves lives. As our climate changes, extreme heat can no longer be regarded as an exceptional event. It is becoming a recurring feature of British summers, and Government policy must adapt accordingly. Reducing emissions remains important, but adaptation must sit alongside mitigation. We have a duty to ensure that our homes, infrastructure, public services and energy system are capable of coping with the conditions we increasingly face. That begins with protecting the most vulnerable. The Cabinet Office is the lead Government Department for severe weather and has responsibility for identifying those who require particular protection during periods of extreme heat. Last year’s resilience action plan committed the Government to publishing new lead Department expectations and updated guidance to help Departments to identify those who may become vulnerable during emergencies such as heatwaves. Yet a year after those commitments were made, neither of those things appears to have been delivered. Will the Minister explain when those long-promised expectations and updated guidance will finally be delivered? Preparing for emergencies cannot simply be a slogan; it requires effective planning and proper co-ordination across Government. Preparation must also extend to the homes we are building today. Many of those homes will still be occupied at the end of this century, so they should be designed not simply for the climate of the past, but for the hotter summers that experts increasingly expect. In apartments in densely built urban areas or during prolonged periods of extreme heat, opening windows is often ineffective—as the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), outlined from his personal experience—or impractical because of security concerns, pollution or noise. Current building regulations may not explicitly prohibit air-conditioning, but they require developers to exhaust every possible passive cooling measure before mechanical cooling can even be considered. In practice, that has created a system where air-conditioning has become the exception rather than a realistic option. Indeed, there have been cases where families have installed air-conditioning and have been instructed by councils to remove it. At precisely the moment Britain needs to become more resilient to hotter summers, Government policy is too often acting as a barrier to the adoption of technology that could help people remain safe and comfortable. Research suggests that wider use of air-conditioning could reduce heat-associated deaths among those at greatest risk by as much as three quarters. This is not simply a matter of comfort; it is about public health and protecting vulnerable people. It is also about ensuring that children can learn effectively during hot weather, that workers remain productive and that families are able to sleep safely through increasingly warm nights. Britain is increasingly becoming an international outlier. Around 90% of homes in both Japan and the United States have air-conditioning, compared with only 3% to 5% of homes in the United Kingdom. We in the Conservative party have already committed to removing the regulations that effectively discourage air-conditioning in new homes. I asked the Minister whether the Government will now consider doing the same. There is another contradiction in current policy. At the very time that we are discouraging greater use of air-conditioning, consumers are paying billions of pounds in energy bills to compensate renewable generators for switching off when there is excess electricity generation during sunny summer days. Air-conditioning demand rises precisely when solar generation is at its strongest. Rather than paying generators not to generate, surely it makes more sense to allow households to use that electricity to cool their homes. As electricity generation becomes increasingly dependent on intermittent weather conditions, maintaining grid stability becomes ever more challenging. This summer, the National Energy System Operator took the unprecedented step of issuing electricity margin notices following periods when supply became dangerously tight. That should concern every Member of this House.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  It may be quite normal, but it should still concern people that our electricity supply is vulnerable and that we are becoming increasingly dependent on weather conditions. Preparing Britain for a changing climate means much more than setting emissions targets. It means protecting vulnerable people, ensuring that Government Departments are properly prepared, building homes that are fit for hotter summers, embracing practical technologies that improve resilience and maintaining an electricity system that is capable of supporting them. Adaptation is not an alternative to tackling climate change; it is an essential part of responding to it, because whatever path the climate takes over the coming decades—and we all know what path that will be—our responsibility today is to ensure that Britain is ready.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Leader of the House will know that I have huge regard for him, and I wager that he thinks this decision is as disgraceful as we do. When he was Chief Whip, he would never have stood for the disdain that his party has shown for tomorrow’s Opposition day debate. My constituents want us to debate and know the plans of the new Prime Minister. That should be given to this House. How can my constituents not now deem that the disdain that this Government have shown for this Parliament over the past two years will carry on under the new Prime Minister? How will my constituents not think that this Leader of the House and this new Prime Minister are running frit from the feelings of my constituents and the wider country?

• 8 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 8 July.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I entirely associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s opening and personal remarks. The Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) are both proud football fans. Given that the Deputy Prime Minister clearly thinks the Prime Minister has always been match fit, how does he feel now that his own MPs have given the boss the red card and brought on a left winger to get them out of the relegation zone? [ Laughter. ]

• 6 Jul 2026 · Foreign Interference in UK Politics · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement, and Philip Rycroft for his review. On Second Reading of the Representation of the People Bill, we Conservatives reaffirmed our support for measures to tackle foreign interference, in the light of growing threats from China and other hostile actors. However, we have expressed our concerns about the lack of proper consultation on the detail of the proposed measures, and the lack of engagement with political parties on changes to the law affecting political parties. The Bill should have been introduced after the Government’s response to the Rycroft report, rather than being hastily amended halfway through. The integrity of our democratic system is fundamental to public trust in politics. Every political party represented in this place has a shared interest in ensuring that foreign interference, illicit finance and attempts to undermine our democratic processes are prevented—well, almost every political party. [ Laughter. ] I thought Labour Members would like that. However, while we support the objective of protecting British democracy from foreign interference, we have significant concerns about both the process that the Government have adopted and several of the proposals emerging from the review. First, the Government immediately accepted—with retrospective effect—a moratorium on cryptocurrency donations and a £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas electors, yet those decisions were announced without any meaningful consultation or engagement with political parties. That is particularly disappointing because questions of party funding have traditionally been approached through dialogue and cross-party discussion. Such conventions exist for good reason: rules governing political competition should command broad confidence, and should not be changed unilaterally by whatever party happens to be in government. The breakdown of these long-standing conventions should concern all parties, regardless of their political perspective. If Governments begin introducing retrospective and highly partisan changes to the rules of political finance without consultation, we risk creating a precedent that future Administrations may follow. Parliamentary questions have shown that there has been no engagement with the House of Commons—with the Committee on Standards, the registrar, or the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—despite changes directly relating to the registration of donations by Members, and despite this House’s code of conduct. Yet again, the Government are making announcements, such as changing the policy on a cap on donations and changing the rules on candidate donations, with zero consultation. Without stepping into matters that are the remit of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, I note that it is already the case that newly elected MPs are supposed to declare gifts and donations that they received in the past 12 months. There also appears to be uncertainty about the scope of the new requirements relating to candidate donations. It is not yet clear which categories of elected officials the provisions will cover, and I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that. What assessment has been made of the impact of the new profit test on the ability of all political parties to undertake sponsorship and advertising at their party conferences? Have the Government properly considered with the Electoral Commission the interaction of the new requirements with the proposed draft guidance on sponsorship? Does the Minister think that a company sponsoring a lounge or a lanyard is foreign interference? Had the Government engaged fully with political parties, electoral administrators, compliance professionals and other stakeholders before announcing their response, many of these practical difficulties and unintended consequences could have been identified and addressed at an earlier stage. To be clear, we support measures that genuinely strengthen the resilience of our democratic system. We recognise the risks associated with cryptocurrency donations and agree that safeguards are necessary. We also support tighter rules governing donations in the period immediately before elections. However, good policy requires more than good intentions; it requires engagement and a willingness to listen to those responsible for implementing the rules. The protection of our democracy is too important to be pursued through retrospective legislation and measures whose practical consequences have not been fully thought through. Unfortunately, this is a Government who talk about defending democracy while trying to cancel local elections for two years in a row; who amended the electoral system for mayors for partisan advantage; and who changed the laws on election pilots in complete secrecy. They are now gerrymandering local government boundaries. The official Opposition will work constructively with the Government to defend the national interest from foreign interference, but Ministers would be wise to step back from US-style, hyper-partisan legislation, and actually learn to consult.