Peter Swallow MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 12 Sept 2024 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  The 2023 police efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy report on Thames Valley police established that the force did not make full use of Clare’s law. Does the Solicitor General agree that Clare’s law is a powerful tool to protect women from those who have already been prosecuted for domestic violence?

• 12 Sept 2024 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  7. What steps she is taking to help increase prosecution rates for cases relating to violence against women and girls.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I have already set out the support that I want to see, as well as the support that the Government have put in place to help pensioners in my constituency and to bring energy bills down in the long term, which will help all households in Bracknell and across the country. That is a really important first step on the road to growth. Because of the triple lock, a growing economy means growing pensions and growing support for pensioners in need. Future prosperity does not fall out of the sky. We have to create the conditions for it, and those conditions are sensible spending, bringing debt under control, and encouraging investment. To do those things, we must dig ourselves out of this financial hole, and that means tough choices. This policy is a difficult step—a step that I did not want to take—but it is a step away from the brink towards stability, security and growth. That is why I back it.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I said that the Labour party would restore the broken economy inherited from the Conservative party. In the long term, there is only one permanent solution to ending fuel poverty: we must end our dependence on volatile foreign energy markets and deliver lasting energy security. The Conservative party failed to do that in Government, leaving energy bills higher for every household, including those most in need. That is why this Government’s plan to create GB Energy, a new national energy company, is vital. It will bring energy supply back into the hands of the British public and help to get prices back under control. That is the long-term solution to fuel poverty: home-grown, British-controlled power.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Can the hon. Member explain to the House and to his constituents why he would not back fair pay rises for teachers, nurses, prison officers and members of the armed forces in his constituency?

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Three million food parcels were distributed last year. That is the legacy of the Conservative Government. And the triple lock that the Conservatives purport to defend? They broke it in 2022. I also support the extension of the household support fund to help the families most in need this winter, as well as the Government’s commitment to introducing tougher regulation to the energy market, which has let customers down for too long. I am working hard with Bracknell Forest council to ensure that pensioners in the Bracknell constituency who are in need but not claiming the support to which they are entitled are identified and encouraged to get help. I urge any pensioner who is concerned about their finances to go to Age UK’s benefits calculator to see what support they may be entitled to.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I was proud to be elected on a manifesto that committed to delivering economic stability, security and growth. After 14 years of Tory recklessness with our economy and after the disastrous Liz Truss mini-Budget drove up inflation, food bills and mortgage repayments and pushed my constituents to the brink, the public voted for change. That change must start with getting our economy back on its feet. When the previous Labour Government left office, Trussell Trust food banks were giving out 40,000 food parcels a year. Last year they gave out 3 million. When we on the Labour side of the House talk about the recklessness of the previous Government, it is not academic. We are talking about taxpayers’ money being poured into ideological gimmicks while children are going to school hungry, working adults are one rent rise away from homelessness and a broken NHS is stalling productivity and failing those who most rely on public services, including our pensioners. We face a £22 billion black hole in the public finances that they covered up and walked away from. Stability means bringing the economy and the country back from the brink to which the Conservative party knowingly pushed it. No one doubts that this policy is tough, and it is not a measure we want to take, but we have been left a huge bill to pay. Means-testing the winter fuel allowance will allow us to support those pensioners most in need as we take the difficult steps we have to take to right the ship. Members across this House know that in our communities there are too many pensioners struggling. That is why I welcome this Government’s commitment to the triple lock, under which the state pension has risen by £900 this year and will rise by more than £450 in April. I also support the extension of the warm home discount, worth £150 for more than 1 million low-wage pensioners.

• 5 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. I was proud to highlight in my maiden speech the issue of ghost children, who are missing out on education and too often fall off the radar. That is a really important part of the puzzle. The Government have rightly placed education at the heart of their programme for change and have a national mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for all children. Nobody needs that more than our SEND kids, who face significant barriers to inclusion. This is a question of social mobility. How can we ensure that, no matter a child’s needs or background, they thrive in school and into their adult life? I could focus on many areas where improvement is desperately needed, but one issue that is raised time and again by the families I have spoken to in Bracknell—it has been raised by Members here today, including the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), and I experienced it in my previous career in education—is the lack of adequate training about SEND in schools, both in initial teacher training and as part of a teacher’s continuing professional development. That is why I was proud to stand on a Labour manifesto that committed to introducing a new teacher training entitlement to give teachers the time they need to learn skills that will help them better support SEND kids. When I was a teacher, time was always the most precious resource. I would like to see the pledge include more targeted support for SENCOs and input from SEND families at all stages. Let me be clear: there are many more areas where this broken system is in great need of reform, and we have heard many fantastic contributions to that effect today, but if we ensured that more SEND kids were supported within the mainstream system—if they were able to attend school and were not shut out of education—we would reduce the pressure on heavily oversubscribed special schools and would be one step closer to fixing the SEND system and breaking down the barriers for all children.

• 5 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  On Saturday, I joined a group of SEND families in Bracknell to hear their experiences of operating within a broken system. The stories I heard from them, and those I have heard on the doorstep and from Members here today, are heartbreaking. Children are stuck on assessment waiting lists for months longer than they should be. Parents have to juggle work around caring for kids who are off school or find themselves repeatedly excluded because their needs are not being met, and are then left struggling to pay the bills. There is inadequate provision in mainstream education, and there are far too few state-maintained special schools to meet the demand. As the previous Conservative Education Secretary admitted, the system is “lose, lose, lose”; it is desperately in need of reform.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Cost of Living: Support for Pensioners · Hansard source

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  Will the Chancellor explain to the House the damage done to pensioners’ livelihoods by the previous Government’s economic incompetence and their decision to cover up the £22 billion black hole in the public finances?

• 3 Sept 2024 · Ofsted · Hansard source

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  If I were to pick a single word to describe Ofsted’s grading system, it would be “inadequate”, so I welcome the Government’s commitment to reviewing Ofsted’s review system, and particularly to reviewing its focus on special educational needs. Will the Minister engage with families with special educational needs when developing the new school report card system?

• 29 Jul 2024 · Public Spending: Inheritance · Hansard source

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  Cash-strapped councils are projected to spend £12 billion to support children with special educational needs and disabilities by 2026. That is up from £4 billion a decade ago. Does the Chancellor agree that the Tories’ failure to get to grips with the SEN crisis has put public finances at risk while letting SEN children down?

• 24 Jul 2024 · Education and Opportunity · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege and a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan), who, like me, worked in teaching and the university sector before entering this place. My background is in humanities while hers is in science, and I know that we will both have to resist the urge to tell anyone off for speaking at the back of the class during our time here. It is the honour of my life to rise and offer my maiden speech as the Member of Parliament for Bracknell, Crowthorne, Sandhurst and Whitegrove. I am the first ever Labour MP to represent this corner of Berkshire. I offer my thanks to my constituents who have put their trust in me, and in this new Labour Government, to serve them. It is now for me and colleagues on the Labour Benches to deliver the change that we have promised. I take that duty seriously, and although change cannot come overnight, it is time to begin the steady task of building a better future for Bracknell and for the country. My predecessor, James Sunderland, represented Bracknell through a challenging Parliament dominated by a global pandemic and two major international wars. I pay tribute to the manner in which he served during that difficult period. James was an advocate for the eradication of malaria, a disease that he saw in action while serving overseas in the Army. He was also a champion for special educational needs—a cause that I will be proud to take up as his successor. In his maiden speech, James remarked that “politics is ultimately about service.” —[ Official Report , 9 March 2020; Vol. 673, c. 98.] We disagreed about many things during the election campaign, as Members would expect, but on that we were and are agreed: politics is ultimately about service. This year is the 75th anniversary of Bracknell being designated a new town. In 1949, after the war, Britain was facing a housing crisis, and a Labour Government established new towns such as Bracknell to address a burning need for more social housing. I am proud that in 2024, a new Labour Government facing a new housing crisis are again committed to developing the next generation of new towns, in order to build a better future for families struggling to find safe and secure housing. This next generation of new towns would do well to look at the success of Bracknell: a sense of community has been embedded by good town planning; transport links and active travel have been designed into the fabric of the town; and we are home to many national and international businesses, including in the tech and life sciences sectors. My constituency’s long and proud history did not start in 1949. The new town of Bracknell was originally a small market town in the parish of Warfield, some of which lies within the new constituency boundaries. I am also proud to be the MP for Crowthorne, which is a beautiful, peaceful village, yet one that has a long history of automotive innovation. Everyone in this House will have benefited from the new road signs, mini-roundabouts, zebra crossings and speed humps that were designed and tested at the Transport Research Laboratory based in Crowthorne. In the south of my constituency lies the town of Sandhurst. It is, of course, home to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where British Army officers receive their training. The close relationship between the academy and the town is commemorated every four years with the Sandhurst freedom march, marking Bracknell Forest council’s decision in 1997 to grant the freedom of the borough to the academy. I was privileged to attend this year’s march, which happened to take place in the middle of the election campaign; it was an important opportunity to pause and honour those who serve. As I have said, before my election I was a university lecturer, and before that I was a secondary school teacher. I have also been a primary school governor, so I have worked in education at all levels. Given that, it is no surprise that I would be keen to make my maiden speech on a topic that is of great importance to me and to this whole House: that of education. I welcome the Secretary of State for Education’s commitment to breaking down the barriers to opportunity for all children, her announcement today of a pause and review of the defunding of technical qualifications, and her laser-like focus on raising standards in early years education. We are lucky to have a number of excellent schools across Bracknell Forest, and as this week is the start of the school holidays, I take this opportunity to thank teachers, teaching assistants and the wider school staff across my constituency for another year of hard work and dedication, and wish them a pleasant summer. The measures set out by my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary are badly needed in my constituency. Despite their heroic efforts, teachers are finding it harder than ever to offer an excellent education while supporting the increasingly complex mental health needs of their students. Alongside that, there has been growing child poverty and real-terms cuts to funding. Nowhere is education reform more needed than in the area of special educational needs provision; a long-term failure to grapple with SEND has threatened local government finances and has meant, frankly, that we are letting our children down. During the election campaign, I was privileged to get to know a young man called Fred. Fred is 13 years old. He has autism and ADHD, and for the past 18 months, he has been out of school because mainstream education is not suitable for him and he is still waiting on a place in a special school. Fred wants to go to school. He wants to learn—he is an inquisitive kid. I know that because Fred helped me with the research for this speech. But because the system is not working, he has been locked out. Fred is not alone. There are far too many children like him in Bracknell and across the country—so-called ghost children who are missing education because the right support is not in place. This is a national crisis and requires national solutions. I welcome the Secretary of State’s acknowledgement of that fact today, since the first step towards solving the problem is admitting that it exists. Let me conclude with this commitment: for as long as I serve in this place, I will do everything I can to fight for better educational opportunities for all, and to speak up for kids like Fred, who just want a chance to learn.

• 22 Jul 2024 · NATO and European Political Community Meetings · Hansard source

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  As the proud home of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, my constituency knows the vital importance of our armed forces in keeping Britain safe, so I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to setting out a path towards spending 2.5% of GDP on defence. Can the Prime Minister update the House on conversations that he has had with our NATO friends and allies to encourage others to match that target?

• 18 Jul 2024 · Clean Energy Superpower Mission · Hansard source

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  Last week Bracknell Forest council held a climate change summit, bringing together local businesses, schools and community organisations in my constituency to engage in discussions about how best to face the challenges of climate change. Does the Secretary of State agree that communities are crying out to take part and to be engaged in the clean energy transition?