Rachel Taylor MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jun 2026 · Road Safety: West Midlands · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the leader of Warwickshire county council consulting the public on whether children should walk up to 8 miles to and from school was a bad move?

• 23 Apr 2026 · Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency · Hansard source

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  In the west midlands, the average waiting time for a driving test is 22 weeks—nearly six months, up from 12 weeks in October 2022. That often means that young people are unable to take a driving test before taking their A-levels or leaving home for university. When I was growing up in Atherstone, getting my driving licence was a milestone for my independence. It meant I could see friends, share the driving with my parents when they picked me up at the end of term from university, and take up jobs that simply were not reachable by bus. And when I reached 21, driving the Leeds University night-time women’s minibus provided me with a good income and some great fun, and I was providing an excellent service. In fact, without learning to drive as a teenager and building up my confidence in driving, I would not have been able to drive a group of students from Leeds down to London, and also across to Manchester, to protest against section 28. That is why I find it so frustrating that so many young people in North Warwickshire and Bedworth are now stuck on endless waiting lists for their driving tests. In a rural area with poor bus connections and unreliable timetables, a driving licence is not a luxury—it is crucial. It gives young people the independence and confidence to pursue education, training and work in neighbouring towns and cities. I also want to talk about the freight and logistics industry. It is one of the largest employers in my constituency, offering excellent apprenticeships and training opportunities for school leavers ready to start their careers, but buses simply do not run frequently or at the right times for shifts at those hubs. My constituents who are waiting for driving tests are effectively locked out of those opportunities. An elderly constituent called me because her driving licence was stuck with the DVLA, preventing her from being able to get around. My team and I contacted the DVLA and spoke to a member of the team, who reissued her driving licence fairly promptly. She told me how grateful she was and how much it would help her, but it should not take MPs getting involved to deal with these issues. For people like my constituent, a driving licence is a lifeline, allowing her to get to appointments, shops, and nearby villages and towns to see friends and stop being isolated. The DVLA must process requests in a timely manner to ensure that people are not left isolated in rural communities. In 2021, the UK experienced a huge shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers, which was compounded by the delays in tests for HGV licences. Luckily, that situation has improved, with current practical test wait times broadly acceptable at around three weeks; the real problem now is with the availability of theory tests for HGV drivers. As HGV candidates must sit multiple theory tests—

• 14 Apr 2026 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I know that feeling safe is very important to my constituents in North Warwickshire and Bedworth, and that is why the Bill is so important for so many people. Today I am immensely proud to welcome the Government’s amendment to equalise hate crime law—Lords amendment 301. I proposed a similar amendment in the House of Commons, and I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) and for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) for their support, along with that of over 100 colleagues across the House. I welcome the Government’s introduction of a new offence of misogynistic hate. I got into politics to fight section 28 and the hate it created. Section 28 attacked the right for people like me to live openly. It stigmatised lesbian, gay and bisexual people. It pushed us out of public life and made us fair game for attack. I got into politics to fight that cruel law and everything it represented. Today I am proud to continue that fight for all LGBT people, for disabled people and for victims of misogyny. Our politics is becoming increasingly hateful and divisive, and the impacts are heartbreaking. Less than half of LGBT people feel safe holding their partner’s hand in public. As many as 70% of disability hate crimes go unreported. Girlguiding UK revealed that one in 10 girls have missed school to avoid sexual harassment. Hatred towards women and girls, disabled people and LGBT people threatens our entire society. It creates fear—fear to go outside, fear to speak up, fear to be seen. It silences people. It makes all of us afraid. Lords amendment 301 now shows that whether it is due to someone’s race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, or indeed their sex or disability, Britain is a country that will not tolerate hate, that all hatred is equal and that all those who commit vile acts of hatred will face the same grave consequences. Because of this amendment, victims of hate will have more time to report crimes. For victims who may not feel safe reporting hate crime instantly, that is a lifeline. Perpetrators will get tougher sentence and higher maximum penalties. Aggravated offences are often pursued in the Crown court, where better victim support is available, including the ability to keep them apart from defendants. I know that some people thrive on the politics of hate. Today, I am proud that the Labour Government have stood firmly against hate in all its forms. We will halve violence against women and girls in a decade, we will fight homophobia and transphobia, and we will confront ableism and hate against disabled people. I welcome, in addition to the tougher action on hate crime, the measures on antisocial behaviour, fly-tipping, knife crime, illegal trading, intimate image abuse, violent pornography and the exploitation of children. This Government are clearly standing with victims, creating safer communities and safer streets. I commend the Bill to the House.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Armed Forces Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member makes a very valid point. I invite him to submit his speech to the consultation on the Government’s White Paper on special educational needs. If he is going to withdraw the amendment, perhaps he would consider that, and then we could move on.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Armed Forces Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and that is exactly the point I am making. We need to encourage the best from all our services, local authorities, police, education, courts and so on. We should not lose the approach of striving for the best, in favour of having a national minimum, because that becomes a drive to the bottom. We need to allow organisations to design their own approach with their local community to do the best they can for the armed forces—veterans and serving personnel—within their communities.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Armed Forces Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Although the amendments are well-intentioned, they are somewhat problematic because they target health, education, adoption and fostering, which are all devolved to the respective Governments. They risk recklessly breaching our devolution conventions, including the Sewel convention. The purpose of the Bill is not to strain relationships with the devolved Governments; instead, it seeks to empower them to design the right solutions for each nation. The covenant duty is intentionally flexible and is supported by guidance and existing frameworks. It allows each Government to design their response. I believe that this Government should seek to work collaboratively with the devolved Governments on supporting our armed forces, rather than prescribing duties to them in legislation. Furthermore, our NHS already works effectively with the covenant duty to support continuity. The amendments would risk governance and clinical risks. Instead, the Government are focusing on initiatives that aim to promote awareness of the armed forces community. The Ministry of Defence already provides comprehensive guidance for service families through the adoption and fostering defence instruction notice, which embeds the MOD’s role firmly within existing civilian-led systems. These long-standing frameworks already ensure continuity for families when they move. In combination with the strengthened covenant duty, they will provide a far more practical and effective approach than is proposed in the amendment.

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

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  I have come straight to Parliament from Kingsbury school in my constituency, where the year 11 pupils were saying how much they are looking forward to being given the right to vote, so may I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing that forward in the Bill?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that given that Reform is in control of more than 10 county councils up and down the country, which will be responsible for implementing the armed forces covenant in areas such as education and social welfare, the inability of its Members to show up today is shameful?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Academy Trusts: Governance · Hansard source

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  Financial mismanagement by the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership trust has led to disputes with the National Education Union and, currently, strikes, which is disrupting the learning of students across the west midlands, including at the Coleshill school and Curdworth primary school in my constituency. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that academy trusts are well managed and build positive relationships with staff so that students and parents do not have to endure this disruption again?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Energy Costs: Businesses · Hansard source

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  Many pupils have returned to cold school classrooms this week. That is why I am delighted that Kingsbury school, St Michael’s Church of England academy and All Saints Church of England academy in Bedworth, and Ash Green school, have all received funding to install solar panels. Will the Minister outline what support those schools will receive to install the panels, and how the panels will help them to cut their energy bills?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Puberty Suppressants Trial · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for the care and sensitivity he has taken to this subject all along. It has been an undeniably difficult year for transgender people in Britain. I have spoken to young trans people who have been pushed to the brink of suicide by what they hear—that they do not have a right to exist, that they do not deserve rights, that they are legitimate targets for ridicule. We all in this House have a responsibility to lower the temperature and focus on their welfare, health and dignity. King’s College operates the highest standards of safety. Does the Secretary of State agree that its expertise and rigour will support the wellbeing of participants and ensure that we get the robust evidence we need and that vulnerable children are no longer treated as political punchbags?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  As the right hon. Gentleman seems to care so much about those who are not in education, employment or training, why did he allow 88,000 young people to become NEETs, and is he proud that when he left office, almost 1 million young people were not in any form of employment, education or training? Is this not the worst kind of hypocrisy?

• 22 Jul 2025 · NHS Hospitals: Parking · Hansard source

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  University hospital Coventry and Warwickshire suffers from really poor car parking facilities. I have had to take both my parents there over recent years to use its specialist cardiology services. The poor quality of those car parking facilities causes additional stress for patients visiting those services, which they can ill afford when they have suffered strokes or heart attacks. It is becoming extremely vital that something is done, so will the Minister meet me and other local MPs to discuss the crisis in car parking at the hospital?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Educational Attainment of Boys · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on securing this important debate, and I pay credit to the work done by the young men in his office. For too many years we have been sleepwalking into a crisis of boys disengaging, and we have finally had the wake-up calls that we desperately needed to show us that this House must do better. From the TV show “Adolescence” to Gareth Southgate’s lecture on the lack of male role models and the Centre for Social Justice’s report on “Lost Boys”, with its shocking revelation that two thirds of those who are unemployed are young men, it is clear that everyone else can see this problem. Now it is time for us to tackle it. I stood as an MP because I truly believed that this was the party that would break down the barriers to opportunity, and it could not be clearer that that means tackling the issue of boys’ disengagement from education. With only a third of boys on free school meals achieving grade 4 in both English and maths, it is time to ask why and to ask what this Government should be doing to break the glass ceiling for working-class boys across the nation. I have championed the role of sport many times before in this place and I will do it again today, because we have mountains of data that show that access to sport does matter. For boys who struggle to get through the school day, PE is often the only thing that keeps them showing up in the morning; for boys who are on the edge of exclusion, we have seen that sport-led interventions can bring them back from the edge and improve their engagement with school; and for boys looking for community and a sense of belonging, we know that, too often, they find that online in isolated communities or in groups committing acts of antisocial behaviour. The truth is that we are seeing the result of the Conservative party’s decision to spend years starving neighbourhoods of funding for community sports clubs. A local teacher from Nicholas Chamberlaine school in Bedworth in my constituency told me that most children access physical activity only in schools. She told me that this is “because the area is less privileged and so access to sports clubs, safe outdoor spaces and even basic fitness opportunities outside school is limited.” That must change. The evidence is clear: sport-led interventions work. They work when police forces implement them, they work when schools use them and they work when local councils implement them. My ask today is clear: fund sport-led interventions and fund them properly, and give young people the sense of community and access to sport that they are crying out for. Before I finish, I want to take a moment to praise the many wonderful talented and kind young men and boys I have met, including: one of my volunteers, who is one of the most dedicated and hard-working people I know; the young men I have met in my constituency who are coaches for their local clubs or who help out by volunteering and refereeing at local games; and the young men who have joined my team for work experience.