Rachel Gilmour MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  I wanted to speak earlier on social mobility, which the hon. Lady mentioned. If anybody wants to see what happens to social mobility under the Conservatives, all they need do is come to Minehead in my constituency, which is ranked 324th out of 324 for social mobility in the entire country, having had a Conservative Member of Parliament for 23 years who did nothing.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. When I was in Ukraine last month I met senior Ukrainian figures, all of whom told me the same thing: they need more support from Europe to win this war. With that in mind, will the Foreign Secretary finally commit to seizing the £25 billion-worth of frozen Russian assets held in the UK and deploying them to Ukraine in its hour of need?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Lasting Power of Attorney · Hansard source

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  Minehead has a very large elderly and deprived population. Could we, as Members of Parliament, help the hon. Gentleman in his best endeavours by encouraging our constituents, particularly if we live in or represent constituencies with large elderly populations, to come forward and talk to us as their MPs, so that we can pass on their representations to him, because he is doing an excellent job?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have met many pensionable-age constituents, most of whom live on the Duck estate, who have lost their entitlement to pension credit because of as little as 50p. Does the Minister agree that pension credit, the employment and support allowance and PIP assistance could all do with more common sense and a little less of a “computer says no” mentality?

• 21 Oct 2025 · Mandatory Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that the very idea of “Ihre Papiere, bitte” is not something that my constituents, or the British people more broadly, will stand for? That explains this cross-party opposition—which I, as a true Liberal, fully endorse.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I sit on the Public Accounts Committee. Earlier this year, we investigated the state of our prison system and all the sorts of things that one should describe as restorative justice. The facts are that our prisons are overflowing, they are not making anybody any better or turning people around, and they do not provide restorative justice. As I know to my own cost, it costs four times more to keep a prisoner in prison for a year than it does to send a boy to Eton.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Social Housing: South Cotswolds · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that schemes such as the new social housing in Minehead—the first social housing for a generation—coupled with more social housing in Mid Devon specifically for elderly people to downsize from their own social housing are the way forward? Does she also agree that the Liberal Democrats in both institutions should be recognised for doing a jolly good job?

• 16 Oct 2025 · Ada Lovelace Day · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I thank the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) for securing this debate. Ashley Combe, which sits above Porlock Weir, was Ada Lovelace’s home for many summers. She would walk across west Somerset, admiring its fauna and flora, including the forked spleenwort. There is a famous quote from the late, great Christopher Hitchens: “The cure for poverty has a name, in fact. It’s called ‘the empowerment of women’.” It is in that spirit that I speak today. Despite the rich intellectual legacy Ada has left behind in her summer spot, STEM paths in the area, and in particular the numbers of girls going into STEM, leave much to be desired. The west Somerset part of my constituency, for all its natural beauty, suffers from the country’s lowest social mobility and ranks among the poorest for travel times to employment—at the 96th percentile. In our part of the world, we are hampered by inaccessibility which stifles ambition and aspiration. The development of Hinkley C in the years ahead will lead to inward commuting and a further exacerbation of inequality in transportation. I laud the fact that Nicola Fauvel has been appointed station director at Hinkley Point C, having migrated from Hinkley Point B, where she became only the second woman to head a British nuclear power station. A cultural sea change was needed, and I know that Nicola has been supported no end by the group chief executive officer for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, David Peattie, and his fantastic team. Enter the wonderful Ada in Porlock community action group. And I am delighted to say that members from the committee at Ada in Porlock join us here today. Still somewhat in its infancy, having run for just a year and a half, it has been at the heart of a number of community projects. Those initiatives have unveiled the truth that the gap between male and female interest in STEM widens, although the number of STEM students has risen by half in the last five years. In each generation there is an Ada Lovelace and a Marie Curie. Somewhere out there today is a female scientific savante who does not know it yet. It is that potential force—the potential energy, to borrow from scientific speak—that has not been tapped into to the fullest extent. That is where the wonder lies: the randomness of greatness, the untapped potential of so many. There are more Adas out there. We know it, especially in Porlock in west Somerset—in my beautiful, wonderful constituency.

• 16 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  In my constituency, there is a fantastic organisation called the Filo Project, a community interest company that provides innovative and award-winning dementia care. When people come to the Filo Project, however, their care is subject to VAT of 20% simply because it is not commissioned by a local authority, which can claim back VAT. Will the Leader of the House find time in Government business for a debate on the VAT status of community interest companies that are providing this level of dementia or other disability-related daycare, so we do not stay with a system where there is VAT on life-altering social care?

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) on securing this debate. Like everyone in the Chamber, my thoughts are first and foremost with the victims of that dreadful man whose name I refuse to mention. A week is a long time in politics. Last week, we saw the Prime Minister stand at the Dispatch Box to back, and then sack, the now former ambassador to the US. At Prime Minister’s questions last week, my party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), questioned the Prime Minister on Lord Mandelson’s appointment. The Prime Minister stood by it, confirming that rigorous background checks had taken place. This entire situation has left a nasty taste in the mouth, to put it mildly. The fact that the ambassador to the US—the most coveted ambassadorial position in the United Kingdom by many metrics—was seemingly okay with the moral turpitude of the man whose name I will not mention, even after his conviction, casts a long shadow on Britain’s place in the world. The timing and nature of this episode—not that it could ever be anything other than terrible—is catastrophically bad. The optics are dreadful. While we should be demonstrating moral leadership in an increasingly volatile international climate, our emissary to our closest ally has been discredited by scandal. The President of the United States lands in this country today for his unprecedented second state visit. When the Prime Minister wines and dines him, will he take a principled stand on the matters of great importance to the people of this country? Will he press on Gaza? Will he make progress on our long awaited bespoke trade deal to insulate ourselves from Trump’s tariffs? Will he be supporting our NATO allies in making the case for better US engagement in the defence of Ukraine and shoring up Europe’s eastern flank to Russian incursions into Poland and Romania? As if not already bad enough, this murky affair has been thickened by the fact that a source from MI6 has reportedly claimed that they failed to clear Mandelson and warned that his links to the man I refuse to name “would compromise him”. Downing Street pressed ahead with the appointment anyway. It is vital that the Civil Service Commission investigates whether the ambassador broke the diplomatic service code by failing to come clean over these revelations sooner. If it is true, it raises wider questions about what other advice from the security services was neglected. Why did Downing Street officials fail this most basic duty? Why did the team in No. 10 send the Prime Minister out to bat sticking to the line of confidence in Mandelson, only to defenestrate the ambassador a few hours later? Why was the Prime Minister not on top of his brief? If it is the case that key details and information were withheld from the Prime Minister, why has no one been outed and swiftly given the boot? In the late 1920s, a German philosopher called Karl Popper famously said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It is my sincere hope that that is not the case for this Government, for whom I usually have a degree of respect. There are so many questions. We on these Benches and my constituents in Tiverton and Minehead demand answers.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Neurodivergent People: Employment · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that Foxes hotel in my constituency of Minehead is a trailblazer? It is the UK’s only fully operating training hotel for young people with learning disabilities, many of whom have Down’s syndrome. It has shown that structured on-the-job training, dedicated mentorship and clear progression pathways not only transform individual lives but drive outstanding business outcomes. It has been described as the Oxbridge of training for such young people.

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I count a great many hereditary peers among my friends, and I know that they do excellent jobs. However, Britain stands, alongside Lesotho, as a complete anomaly in the 21st century by preserving legislative roles based on lineage. Serving in this House, as in any other, is a privilege of the highest order. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that our legislators should be there on the basis of merit rather than DNA?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  A particular concern of my constituents in Tiverton and Minehead, where we have one local authority in Devon and one in Somerset, is the real difficulties around special educational needs and disabilities. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill could create difficulties for local authorities that are struggling to deliver good SEND education for so many of our children?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life · Hansard source

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  The best start in life means a good education; good education means a good school; and a good school necessarily means a learning environment in which children can thrive. Tiverton high school in my constituency should not be an exception to that, but because of the decisions of successive Governments, it has been. I will focus my remarks on the plight of that school, and perhaps it will serve as a microcosm and an example to which other members may well relate in the communities they represent. Upon visiting Tiverton, one could be forgiven for being sucked into a sense of complacency, with the rolling hills and period buildings in and around the area. Yet hidden there are serious pockets of deprivation, economic and social poverty, and we can feel it. Tiverton high school has been promised a rebuild since 1999—yes, that is 26 years ago—but time after time, successive Administrations of different stripes did not deliver, reneging on those promises. Since my arrival in this place, I have pushed relentlessly to secure a concrete commitment on Tiverton high school’s rebuild. Indeed, I was filled with optimism because in November last year, the Department for Education confirmed Tiverton high school’s inclusion in the school rebuilding programme, with work set to commence as early as April 2025. Finally, it seemed that the Government had grasped the nettle. Finally, they had heeded the calls, for they had grown impossible to ignore. It was going to happen, I thought; perhaps this was it. The long-standing promises of a rebuild, which dissipated each time, have meant that Tivvy high, as we affectionately call it, saw routine maintenance and refurbishments fall by the wayside. A culture of “Keep calm and carry on” set in, with the anticipation that the cavalry, or the diggers, would arrive to get the rebuild underway. The 1970s sports hall is riddled with asbestos, rendering it entirely unusable for many months of the year and depriving students of essential physical education. To make matters worse, the school was built on a floodplain, which is a crucial detail that is blithely skipped over and which was not acknowledged in the pre-assessment conducted by the Department for Education. The Environment Agency has also reported the regular flooding of multiple school buildings to be a risk to life, particularly if someone is under five foot. That is utter madness in 21st-century Britain. The school is dilapidated and not an environment that is at all conducive to learning. Instead, such an environment leads pupils to feel unnurtured, thrown on to society’s scrapheap and simply forgotten about. What kind of message does that send to children? If the Department for Education rowed back on the promise of a rebuild, it would be not just a political misstep but would see a whole community shunned again. It would be a cruel volte-face. To be clear, we are talking about the hope of a community that has been strung along for a quarter of a century being reduced to a line in a ministerial briefing. They say that politics is the art of the grey, and I will not walk away empty handed on this. I am absolutely sure of that. After all these years, the community needs this pledge to be honoured.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member accept that even with his emphasis on parental financial responsibility, the two-child benefit cap punishes the entirely innocent party—the children, who had no choice in their existence? Is that not deeply unjust?

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 15 Jul 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  This is a deeply sensitive debate. Two of my brothers served as officers in Northern Ireland, and the memory of Operation Banner has been raised time and again by many of my constituents. The truth is that many of the soldiers in Northern Ireland were young lads from working-class communities sent by their Government and deployed to areas not dissimilar to those they had grown up in. They found themselves operating in some of the most stressful scenarios imaginable. I had a meeting with the Minister for Veterans an hour ago; does the hon. Lady with me and with him that we must focus on the orders that were given higher up the chain of command rather than pursuing non-commissioned veterans in their old age? Does she also agree that there is a desperate need for reform to ensure that avenues to justice for bereaved families are reopened and that all armed forces personnel are treated with dignity and understanding of the complexities of their experiences?

• 9 Jul 2025 · Early Years Providers: Government Support · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member agree that although expanding nursery-based provision in schools is unquestionably laudable in improving access to childcare, we must guard against inadvertently passing on to primary school teachers the responsibility for teaching basic life skills that could and should have been nurtured earlier, thereby stretching resources and risking the lowering of standards? Perhaps the Minister could outline what steps his Department is taking to correct the funding and support imbalance so that childminders who provide vital individualised care are not sidelined.

• 3 Jul 2025 · Women’s State Pension Age: Financial Redress · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Lady profoundly on securing this much-needed debate. Does she agree that it is shameful that Labour made personal pledges to WASPI women over social media as a vehicle to get elected, but then tossed aside those promises and turned its back on more than 7,000 women, including Gill in Tiverton and Helen in Bampton in my constituency, as well as those across the length and breadth of the country? Does she recognise, as I do, that 74% of the British public support fair compensation for WASPI women?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the fate of unpaid carers, given that carer’s allowance hinges on a disabled person receiving PIP? With one in five people in my constituency who are disabled, which is well above the national average, should the Secretary of State commit to delinking carer’s allowance from PIP eligibility, or as a minimum, to providing automatic transitional payments during PIP reassessments, so that devoted carers are not left destitute while assessments drag on?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Economic Growth: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  While I welcome the Government’s rural growth plans, I am concerned about the persistent poverty in many rural areas. The additional costs of living in these communities—known as the rural premium—exacerbate hardship. What specific steps will the Chancellor take to support those in, or near, poverty in rural areas, and will the Treasury commit to revising the indices of multiple deprivation to more accurately reflect deprivation in rural and coastal communities, such as west Somerset and mid Devon?