Rachel Gilmour MP: speeches

Speeches

• 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.