Polly Billington MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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• 14 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Again, my hon. Friend is extremely generous with his time. Will he therefore consider interim measures or guidance that would deliver similar outcomes while legislative options are being explored? That is what the creative industries are looking for.

• 14 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 14 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being extremely generous with his time. The Minister is talking about the possibility that the amendments put forward would not do anything today, but there is an urgency in the creative industries because the stuff that they create is being scraped now. Will he prioritise transparency by committing at the Dispatch Box to introducing enforceable obligations, if not through a statutory instrument then at least through a clear public commitment, so that transparency will be central to the Government’s approach to AI and copyright?

• 14 May 2025 · Gaza: UK Assessment · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for all his work—it must sometimes feel very lonely on that Front Bench—and particularly welcome the urgent session that we managed to secure at the United Nations, but things have become more difficult in recent days, and we must ask whether we are doing enough with our allies on a number of fronts, particularly recognition. A private letter has been sent by dozens of my colleagues on this side of the House, and there is unity on both sides of the House in favour of recognition of the state of Palestine, action on sanctions for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and on the violent settlements. Above all, can we please rule out a trade deal?

• 12 May 2025 · Young People not in Education, Employment or Training · Hansard source

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  Over the weekend I was shocked, but not surprised, to see the new statistics for young people in Thanet who are not in education, employment or training—having hit 11.6%, the figure is the highest in the south-east. Some 3% of young people in Thanet also experience support for special educational needs. Although I am not suggesting that correlation equals causation, can the Minister explain how denying access to the health-related element of universal credit will help those young people into work?

• 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  One of my colleagues had a conversation with representatives of the AI sector. She was very enthusiastic about the idea that there would be an enormous amount of growth in this country if they were able to adopt what they wanted, so she asked, “What would you like?” They replied, “We want the BBC archive, for free.” In circumstances of this kind, we need to think not only about transparency but about the second stage, which is licensing. Without the opportunity for small creators to have the power to permit and therefore to be paid, all this will be for nothing.

• 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I observe that there is an issue of territoriality here. We have actually managed to get carve-outs and protect this country from deepfakes, for example; if something is made abroad, it cannot be used in this country. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be able to have similar carve-outs for creatives, such as her constituent and my constituents, so that if AI-generated material is made elsewhere, it cannot be deployed in this country, in order to preserve a proper legislative framework to protect the rights of our creatives?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am struck by the hon. Gentleman’s interest in making sure that young people get the opportunities that they deserve, because in East Thanet—far away from Scotland—we are deeply concerned that one in 10 young people is out of education, employment or training. I wonder what he has to say about the SNP’s record on this issue, given that one in six young people is out of education, employment or training in Scotland.

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am struck particularly by what my hon. Friend says about the impact being felt elsewhere in Whitehall when a lever is moved. I give the example of a friend of mine, who was a doctor working in a depopulated part of Cumbria for part of the month and in Orkney for another part of the month. How would we organise the visa that enabled her to serve the population in Orkney? Would she need a visa to operate in west Cumbria or, indeed, in both places? Those problems that cannot be solved by a one-line Bill. We need to be serious about the fact that we need an overall immigration policy, rather than one entirely designed by and for Scotland.

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  What is important is not only economic security for individuals and the opportunities that a strong economy would provide for them, but the economic security of our country. The SNP voted against Great British Energy and opposes nuclear power, both of which are vital to our energy security and our economic security. If it is opposed to those, how can we be sure that it would be competent to deliver immigration policy?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  SNP Members talk about a period before Brexit that was ideal, and yet their proposal for this immigration system would increase the complexity at the border, including by creating a land border, despite the complexities of dealing with the island borders that we already have.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Lesbian Visibility Week · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. In the light of what she is saying about young lesbians, I want to champion the work of Schools OUT, which is led and was founded by one of my constituents, Sue Sanders. The organisation educates people in school about the importance of LGBT diversity, challenges prejudice at exactly the important moment in young people’s lives when they will be exploring who they may want to be as they grow older, and increases the tolerance and respect that everybody deserves.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Lesbian Visibility Week · Hansard source

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  In the context of my hon. Friend’s experience as a lesbian mother, will she consider the experience of lesbian mothers in their 70s and 80s, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance)? Does she agree with me and my hon. Friend that there is an argument now for an apology to those mothers, who experienced not just shouting in the street but institutional attacks on their right to family life as a result not of the law, but of the prejudice of the courts?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Intellectual Property: Artificial Intelligence · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I first declare an interest: my wife is a professional photographer. People who create art in any form add value to the world. They inspire people, provoke ideas and push boundaries—and deserve to be fairly paid for it. In East Thanet alone, we have the famous names of J. M. W Turner, Vincent van Gogh, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Jane Austen—all inspired by that constituency, all having called it home. Current creatives who live there must be paid to be able to do the same. The image of an artist in a garret has become romanticised to the point that it is almost used as an excuse not to pay creatives properly. The Government are currently taking the Employment Rights Bill through its legislative stages and, once introduced, it will be genuinely transformative for people in low-paid and insecure work. Simultaneously, the Government are consulting on proposals that could actively take away rights and protections from creative workers. The right to have one’s work protected by copyright law is enshrined in British law. Copyright exists to protect not just the wealth of the individual but the wealth of the nation. It is fundamental to the success of innovators, entrepreneurs and creatives—and it is fundamental to our economy. The claim that AI and tech firms will take their business somewhere else if they do not have free access to people’s work is, quite frankly, extortion. We do not expect or allow other industries to do that, so why do we think it is acceptable to force creatives to accept this deal? I am not here to defend the status of our copyright laws—we are not starting from a high baseline in this country. Sadly, creatives are all too used to being ripped off and taken advantage of. The Government have acknowledged that our copyright regime is out of date, and I absolutely agree. However, it cannot be right that the answer is simply to make it harder for creatives—to make low-paid work even less rewarding and insecure work even more insecure. If we choose to modernise copyright law to increase protections for our national cultural wealth, we can turbo-charge the growth potential of this industry. Currently, we are on a path to undermine an industry that is already insecure. One of the staples of British values is fairness; if someone does a fair day’s work, they get a fair day’s pay. Not only is allowing creatives to have their protection eroded not fair, but it is simply not British. We ask for simple fairness, the right to permit or protect, and the right to be paid.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Intellectual Property: Artificial Intelligence · Hansard source

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  Copyright is often enforced by people who have licensing departments to enforce it, but smaller creatives, such as many in my constituency, find it extremely difficult to enforce copyright as it currently stands. That is one reason why we should use this opportunity to strengthen our copyright law to protect those low-paid workers.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify whether he was aware that the Chinese company that is now in possession of British Steel was sold it by a Conservative Government of which he was part?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Energy (Social Tariff) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require energy companies to provide social tariffs for low income customers; and for connected purposes. Last week, we saw people’s energy bills go up by another 6%, as Ofgem raised the energy price cap again, meaning that typical households now face bills of not far off £2,000 a year. My argument for a social tariff is born out of a career spent grappling with Britain’s energy market, including in my work with the current Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero in the old Department of Energy and Climate Change, where we saw, through the global financial crisis, the need to better protect consumers from volatile energy prices. Watching him trying to convince energy companies to lower their prices as the country faced spiralling costs and economic chaos convinced me that a social tariff was the least a Labour Government could and should do to protect the most vulnerable. Much has changed since then. There has been significant success in shifting to cleaner power, as a result of a political consensus—held across this House until recently—on the need to decarbonise our energy system to tackle climate change. This Labour Government’s mission to achieve clean power by 2030 is part of our long-term solution to bring energy bills down for good. People see increasingly that there are further benefits to such a shift: greater energy security from generating our own energy rather than being exposed to the whims of petrostates and dodgy regimes, as well as a reduction in the costs of generating that power. Some 96% of newly installed solar and wind capacity has a lower generation cost than natural gas. However, consumers are not feeling the benefits of cheaper costs as much as they could, partly because our energy prices are set by global oil and gas prices. As an MP, the reality of fuel poverty is frequently rammed home to me on the doorstep, where concerns are raised about the rising costs of energy and the pressure that they put on household budgets, especially among those on low incomes. I remind the House that East Thanet is not a leafy, affluent community of the kind that many people associate with the south-east. It is a coastal community with high levels of deprivation, much low-paid and insecure work, many elderly residents, many families with a disabled member, and many cold, old and draughty homes. In Thanet, a quarter of all working-age adults claim universal credit, and over 40% of people claim at least one form of benefit from the Department for Work and Pensions. These are the people who suffer most from increasing energy bills, and who often have to choose between heating and eating. A social tariff that supports the most vulnerable with their energy bills and prevents them from falling into fuel poverty would protect them from some of the failures of the current energy market, and shield them as that market is reformed to make the most of leaving fossil fuels behind. The energy market needs to change so that the efforts the Government are making to decarbonise our energy system truly deliver benefits for consumers. The reform of retail prices will need to be part of that. As a member of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, I have heard witnesses’ growing calls for such change. The vast majority of homes are heated by gas, while electricity is much more expensive. The costs of shifting to cleaner power have been loaded on to electricity bills, creating a disincentive for many to choose to shift to electric heat. We artificially make electricity more expensive, which makes it impossible for some to move to clean power. It is those who cannot pay who are least prepared. Rapid change has always been associated with upheaval and risk. A social tariff, working as part of the welfare state, can support people as we make these changes. This is the right thing to do from not only a fuel poverty perspective but a decarbonisation one. A modern welfare state has done this before, and it can do it again. The Labour party is the party that created the welfare state, and on these Benches, we understand why having a strong social safety net is vital, but energy is an area where the safety net has a gaping hole in it. That is why a targeted social tariff is needed—so that we can provide vital support for those in the greatest need. There is also an increasingly chronic problem with consumer energy debt. People owe more than £2 billion in energy bill debt, and that figure has doubled in the past three years alone. Those in debt then become stuck in a cycle where they face an increase in energy bills while also trying to pay off the debt they have built up. That is not sustainable for those consumers or even the energy retailers, which have to deal with the fallout from fuel poverty debt. The warm home discount is the most prominent current scheme to help with this issue, but it is simply not sufficient for the scale of the challenge. It has not scaled with retail prices—as energy bills have increased by hundreds of pounds, the warm home discount has increased by only £10 since its introduction. The discount is also limited to households receiving means-tested benefits, meaning that many families living in fuel poverty miss out on this vital support. A social tariff should build on the warm home discount but not replace it. The purpose of the Bill is to enshrine in law the principle that a social tariff should be provided by all energy companies, to ensure there is no supplier lottery for those who need support. It should be additional to existing and planned support, it should be targeted, and it should be sufficient enough to reduce costs to an affordable level. National Energy Action has argued that we need to aim a social tariff at people on low incomes, people with disabilities, carers, households with low energy efficiency, off-gas grid homes and households with prepayment meters. There are far too many complaints by energy companies that they cannot identify the people who need this support. These categories tackle that problem, because we already have the data: we know who is in receipt of universal credit, disability benefits and carer’s allowance; we know those on prepayment meters and the homes with poor energy ratings. These are people who face huge financial pressures and who are at the forefront of the cost of living crisis. These are the people who are most at risk of fuel poverty, and, crucially, we can find these people, so that those who need the support get it. This Government have rightly established a child poverty taskforce to tackle the scar on our society of children growing up poor. A social tariff can be part of a wider approach to tackling this moral outrage by ensuring that the families who are most in need have to worry less about their energy bills. Children who grow up in households that struggle to pay their energy bills are more likely to struggle at school and more likely to end up struggling in life. However, simply protecting people from a failing energy retail market is not sufficient. We should be developing a package of measures that prioritises shifting the most vulnerable on to the cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy that we are generating ourselves. There is always a risk that the case for such market interventions is made simply by talking about protecting people from the worst extremes of the market, but it is also important to say that such a measure increases economic security and is therefore good for economic growth. It puts money in people’s pockets. Money they are spending on excessive energy costs is money they are not spending in their local economies. With this relief, they can be part of the economic revival of the places in which they live. This is not a new idea; social tariffs are already working in many other countries. For example, Spain has a tariff that provides a 35% discount for vulnerable customers and a 50% discount for severely vulnerable customers. I have spent a lot of my career working on how energy can be generated, supplied and consumed in a way that does not cost a packet or the planet. For far too long, energy companies have urged consumers to “engage” with the energy market. That, in my view, has always been based on a failure to understand that for most people, energy is a means to an end. It is not exciting, and it can be stressful, especially for those who are struggling. We should be in the business of reducing that stress, so that people can spend their time and energy doing things that are more interesting and fulfilling. The very least we can do for those who already struggle to do exactly that because of limited means is to protect them from the market. That is why a social tariff should be part of our plan for change and our national mission to transform this country for the better. Question put and agreed to . Ordered , That Ms Polly Billington, Yuan Yang, Torcuil Crichton, Andrew Pakes, Pippa Heylings, Luke Murphy, Wera Hobhouse and Mike Reader present the Bill. Ms Polly Billington accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 2 5 April , and to be printed (Bill 220 ).

• 26 Mar 2025 · Smaller Platforms: Regulation · Hansard source

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  The domestic abuse charity Oasis in my constituency has alerted me to the appalling situation whereby young women are being coerced into setting up OnlyFans accounts to generate income. Will the Secretary of State outline what steps he is taking to ensure that the sector can root out coercion and exploitation?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement, and in particular her recognition of the excellent work of Labour-run Thanet district council, which is building more social homes with local firms and employing local people, including local apprentices. The Government’s recent planning changes mean not only council homes for local people, but growth. Will she confirm that the Office for Budget Responsibility has scored only the effect of the national planning policy framework changes, and not the effect of the upcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Coastal Communities · Hansard source

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  Indeed, we need a place-based approach with that active state. If we want economic growth that reaches all parts of the country, invest in coastal communities. If we want public services that really improve the experience of people who are most alienated because of state failures, invest in coastal communities. If we want to create an environment that works for nature and people, invest in coastal communities. I am speaking not just about financial investment, but about investment of Government time, energy and focus. When colleagues and I were trying to work out which Department would be answering this debate, we literally did not know. While I am obviously delighted to see the Minister in his place, the issues raised in this House today span all Departments, whether that is Health, Transport, Environment, Education, the Home Office, the Treasury or many others. I simply note that if there is not one Minister who fits the portfolio, there should be one—a Minister for coastal communities who can focus on regenerating our towns and growing our coastal economies. I will end with a point about the previous Labour Government. In the 1990s, cities were not the places they are today. That Labour Government had a relentless focus on improving them, and the regeneration we have seen is testament to what can be delivered. Coastal towns are in the same position now, and the Labour Government have not only—

• 20 Mar 2025 · Coastal Communities · Hansard source

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  Jane Austen mentions not only Cromer but Ramsgate—in “Pride and Prejudice”—although certainly in a less salubrious way than she may have referred to Cromer. Ramsgate and Wells-next-the-Sea share the concerns that the hon. Member mentioned about short-term holiday lets. Does he support the calls that many colleagues and I have made for not just a registration scheme but a licensing scheme for short-term holiday lets, in order for local authorities to be able to control and shape their own local economies?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Coastal Communities · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend confirm that this Government understand that there is a clear distinction between the challenges in rural communities and those in coastal ones? I noticed that the Liberal Democrat spokesman used the words “coastal” and “rural” almost completely interchangeably, and we know that the levels of deprivation and the challenges in coastal communities are significantly different from those in rural communities. Can he give me that confirmation from the Government?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Coastal Communities · Hansard source

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  I declare an interest as chair of the coastal parliamentary Labour party and co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for coastal communities, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume). We are in danger of violently agreeing with each other, so I will not repeat much of what has been said—needless to say, much of it also applies to East Thanet. What I will cover, however, is the potential that coastal communities have to drive economic growth across the country through our people, our heritage and our environment. Take the Government’s mission to build 1.5 million homes; East Kent Colleges Group is working with house builders and construction companies such as WW Martin, offering apprenticeships to develop the next generation of workers. There is a demand for non-graduate jobs in our community, and if we tap into that potential, there is no reason why it could not be workers from coastal communities who build those 1.5 million homes across the country and refurbish our shoddy, draughty and damp housing stock. It is important that we build on people’s identity and heritage to develop resilient coastal communities. In East Thanet, we have tapped into our artistic heritage of Charles Dickens and J.M.W. Turner—the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate is a monument to what can happen when energy and resources are focused on regenerating coastal towns. Of course, our natural environment is not just a nice-to-have; it is an integral economic asset. However, we cannot talk about increasing opportunity without first providing people with security. How can people look to the horizon when they are having to watch where they step? This is a mission-driven Government with five missions to transform the country.

• 20 Mar 2025 · Coastal Communities · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?