Rachel Taylor MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  It was an honour to serve on the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill and to help deliver on our general election promise to extend the armed forces covenant to every area of Government, to better support armed forces personnel and veterans. I was delighted to be joined on the Committee by so many veterans with experience, particularly the Minister for the Armed Forces, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), my hon. Friends the Members for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) and for South Ribble (Mr Foster), the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) and, not to forget, the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst)—I would not want to upset him as he is almost a neighbour. Their input to the Committee and the work that we were able to do, across parties and with good temper, was extremely valuable, and the time spent was worth while. As the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford has mentioned, it was extremely helpful to visit veterans and armed forces housing, and to meet members of the armed forces justice system and ask them questions. While our recollections of some of those conversations may differ slightly, it was still extremely useful to see how that system works in contrast to how our non-military justice system works. I welcome this Government’s commitment to placing a legal duty on public services to consider the circumstances of armed forces personnel and their families. My constituents want veterans to be supported and for those who serve to be able to do so with dignity and respect. It was encouraging to hear evidence from representatives of armed forces charities, the service families federations, officials from the service justice system and personnel from across the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence. They all recognised the importance of the changes we are making to turn the tide after years of under-investment by the Conservatives. Our armed forces are a source of national pride, and I want younger generations to see the armed forces as a future for themselves and an opportunity to do more for their country and contribute to the security of our nation. To make that a reality, armed forces personnel and their families need our full support and respect as they make daily sacrifices in their service to our country. That is why I am pleased that after years of military families being forced to deal with the lowest level of satisfaction with service family accommodation on record, we have brought 36,000 family homes back into public ownership, with the savings being reinvested in fixing and improving forces housing.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for giving way. I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the organisations he mentioned. I, too, hear stories in my constituency of people who have been evicted from their supported housing when they have gone on to get work. They should be good news stories, but instead those people find it extremely difficult to get accommodation with other landlords. They cannot get a reference from the previous landlord, because they were kicked out for not paying over-inflated rents. It really is high time that this Government, with our values, does something about that appalling situation.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Housing Conditions in Temporary Accommodation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her tireless work in this area and for her fantastic stewardship of the Select Committee. The report is harrowing to read. Such reports cannot be written without witnesses giving evidence, and very often in doing so they put themselves on the line and at risk, so I commend all the witnesses who wrote to or appeared before the Committee, or who participated in roundtables. It is a scandal that children and families are living in these conditions in Great Britain in 2026. Will my hon. Friend impress upon the Minister that we really need to see a change? That means every single local authority making that change and committing to it, in particular in rural areas such as mine, where temporary accommodation is really scarce, meaning that people are living many miles away in areas they do not know or understand and without family support networks.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Rail Connections to London: Rural Towns · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate. She has spoken passionately, as she always does, about the benefits of a new route to link towns and cities from Wrexham through the west midlands to London. The proposed route would make a real difference to my constituents, particularly those living in Coleshill and the surrounding villages, who currently do not have a direct link to London. For them, that lack of connectivity represents not just an inconvenience, but a barrier to opportunity. For too long, parts of the west midlands have been left disconnected from each other because of poor planning and under-investment. We are rightly encouraging more sustainable travel and balanced regional development, and the importance of strong local rail connections cannot be overstated. Constituents in Coleshill and the surrounding villages, such as Curdworth, Lea Marston, Nether Whitacre and Shustoke, deserve rail routes that take them directly to London and to other west midlands towns and cities, opening up opportunities for work and leisure, particularly in the motor manufacturing supply chain across the Black Country. We have already seen the benefits of improved rail connectivity for constituents in Atherstone, who can now travel directly to London from the town’s station every hour, although it would be good to have a later service back home, so that we could enjoy the theatre and still get back. It has removed the need to drive to neighbouring stations such as Nuneaton or endure long indirect journeys with multiple changes and cold waits in platform shelters. It has made travel simpler, quicker and more accessible. I intend to work with constituents to ensure that everyone can benefit from that route by improving bus routes from Polesworth and villages in the north of the constituency. My constituents who use Coleshill Parkway deserve the same quality of rail service—a direct, reliable connection to London. They should be able to travel easily to nearby towns and cities across the west midlands, such as Walsall and Telford, as well as Shrewsbury, without the need to travel into Birmingham only to come back out again. That kind of inefficiency discourages rail use and, as other Members have said, once people are in their cars, they will stay in them to make relatively local journeys.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Bedworth in my constituency hosts the largest armistice parade in Britain. It is truly the town that never forgets. Today I want to pay tribute to all the veterans across North Warwickshire and Bedworth, especially those who lost their lives in Afghanistan, including Sergeant Simon Valentine. When I speak to people across my constituency, they tell me that they are proud of their armed forces. Just last week I met a constituent on a visit to Parliament who proudly told me about his time serving in the RAF. At a time of growing international turbulence, we need more people who look to our armed forces with national pride and who can see a future for themselves in our armed forces. For too long, those opportunities were undermined by years of under-investment by the Conservatives. In 1996, the Conservative party privatised military housing. This decision cost taxpayers billions and left too many service personnel and their families living in substandard conditions. Between 2018 and 2023, military families lodged almost 53,000 complaints about their housing. By 2023, satisfaction with service family accommodation had fallen to the lowest level on record, with only one in five service personnel satisfied with the repairs and maintenance carried out. This Labour Government have started to turn the tide. We have brought 36,000 forces family homes back into public ownership, saving over £200 million a year in rent payments. These savings are already being invested in fixing and improving military housing, but we need to do so much more. In the run-up to the election in 2024, we promised to extend the armed forces covenant to every area of Government. Through this Bill, we are delivering on that promise. The armed forces covenant promises to deliver fairness for serving personnel, veterans, families and the bereaved, and for the first time, this Government will extend the covenant across social care, employment support and other public services, placing a legal duty on them to consider the unique circumstances faced by forces personnel and their families. It will deliver better support for tens of thousands of service personnel and veterans across the country. As part of improving that help, I am proud to have supported Op Valour, which is extending more support for veterans and their families in my constituency. All those who serve our country must be able to do so with dignity and respect. They deserve confidence in a service justice system that stands with them and that supports victims and delivers justice. That is why the Government are ensuring that the service justice system can better protect those who experience the most serious offences. It will give the military police enhanced powers to investigate wrongdoing, provide service courts with stronger tools to hold perpetrators to account and, crucially, improve the experience of victims as they navigate the justice process. I am proud to stand behind this Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls, and this Bill will help us in that mission, because it includes a comprehensive set of measures to protect those at risk of violent behaviour, domestic abuse, stalking and sexual abuse and harassment. I also want to see this legislation protecting our armed forces in their role combating terrorism at home and abroad. The first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe. Today, the threats we face are growing closer and closer to home. We have seen Russia’s illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine, and we have seen the rules-based international order fracture and strain. In response, we have to strengthen our armed forces and ensure that we are prepared for an era of ever increasing threat. Finally we have a Government who are standing side by side with our armed forces through real, tangible measures, backing our armed forces, supporting their families, treating them with dignity and respect, giving them choices and ensuring that our nation’s security is fit for the future.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Cost of Living: Wales · Hansard source

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  The latest interest rate cut—the sixth since Labour formed this Government—is great news for mortgage holders in Wales, North Warwickshire and Bedworth and across the UK, bringing down the cost of family mortgages by almost £1,400 a year. Will the Secretary of State update the House on how this Government’s policies are helping to strengthen our economy and improve the cost of living as a result?

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

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that what has locked young people out of the housing market over the last 14 years is not the existence of stamp duty, but the astronomical rise in house prices? They have gone from being around three times a first-time buyer’s income to more like 10 times in constituencies like mine and his.

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

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  I will make some more progress. The average property sale in my constituency would see buyers buying for the second or subsequent time paying between £2,000 and £3,600. That is not an insignificant amount of money for sure, but it is just a tiny fraction of the cost of buying an average home. Comparing that with the kind of house bought by, say, the average Tory party donor—perhaps a £2 million property in central London—we see that such a purchase would attract stamp duty of more than £150,000. That is who this massive Tory tax cut would be helping—not first-time buyers in my constituency, but London-based millionaires. Let us be clear that this whopping Tory tax cut would overwhelmingly be spent on the wealthiest in our society, while sucking money out of our public services and local communities. It would do nothing to help young people to get a foot on the housing ladder, while giving a whopping tax break to some of the richest people in our society. Let us be absolutely clear that this is not a tax cut for working people; it is a tax cut for the wealthy. It would take money out of our public services and our local communities, while doing nothing to help young people get a foot on the housing ladder. The Conservatives claim that they have changed, but this latest plan shows that they have not learned a thing. It is the same failed ideology, the same unfair priorities—austerity 2.0—and would cause the same harm to my constituents in North Warwickshire and Bedworth and right across this country.

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

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  Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget impacted on working families up and down this country, resulting in the astronomical mortgage interest rates that they are still struggling to fund?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Energy Planning · Hansard source

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  I commend the Committee and my hon. Friend for their work. The report echoes what National Grid told me when I visited its operation in Hams Hall in my constituency. Does he agree that the Government’s work on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill has paved the way for infrastructure projects to be delivered more quickly, and that businesses such as Jaguar Land Rover, whose battery assembly plant is in Hams Hall, will welcome his Committee’s work and the Government’s efforts on delivering vital infrastructure?