Richard Foord MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2026 · Historical Forced Adoption · Hansard source

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  It is barbaric that 185,000 babies were taken from young mothers across a quarter of a century until just 50 years ago, and the Prime Minister is right to say how wrong that was. In apologising on behalf of the state, he acknowledged that, of the children who were taken, some were raised in loving homes by adoptive families. Does he accept that it is possible to say sorry to birth parents and their children while simultaneously being grateful to parents who did their very best to adopt children over that period, many of whom did not know about the circumstances in which those babies were removed from their birth parents?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Israel: E1 Zone Expansion · Hansard source

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  In June last year, the UK sanctioned Israeli far-right Minister Bezalel Smotrich for inciting violence against Palestinian communities. In recent weeks, Smotrich has issued an order to displace the Palestinian Bedouin community. The UK position on sanctions against Smotrich was part of a joint statement last year with Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Canada. What talks have the Government had with those same partners about further united sanctions against other Israeli Ministers?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Flood Insurance: Reform of Flood Re · Hansard source

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  A Government consultation on changes to the planning system closed on 10 March. It included consulting on weakening flood protection in planning guidance, which could lead to greater house building on land prone to flooding. To avoid the need for new insurance schemes such as Flood Re, which supports people after their homes have been flooded, the Government should seek to prevent house building in areas subject to flooding in the first place. When will the Government respond to the consultation that closed on 10 March?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Coastguard Volunteers: Remuneration and HMRC Guidance · Hansard source

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  For coastguard rescue officers, remuneration provides recognition of the sacrifices that they and their families make: the nights away from home, the cancelled plans, the annual leave taken for training and the loss of income as a result of having to go out and answer calls. These coastguard teams are not built overnight; skills in search and rescue, casualty care and water navigation take years to acquire. Local knowledge, local experience and team cohesion are impossible to replace. If experienced coastguard rescue officers leave, those capabilities cannot simply be replaced. I am particularly concerned about the impact on smaller and more remote coastal communities, where recruitment is already challenging. For the Jurassic coast, that might mean the team at Beer having to become dependent on teams at Exmouth and Lyme Regis. When an emergency occurs, the public do not distinguish between those organisations and others.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Climate Change · Hansard source

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  The real choice before us is whether we prepare our economy for the future or watch other countries seize the opportunities that we allow to pass us by. The UK has every reason to be proud of its record on international climate leadership and diplomacy. The Climate Change Act 2008 has become a model for climate governance around the world. Some 76 countries have followed the UK’s lead in developing climate governance frameworks and we have stood at the forefront of international co-operation on the issue, positioning Britain as a key player in securing the 2015 Paris agreement and COP26 in Glasgow. We have shown that reducing emissions and building prosperity can be complementary: this is not just an environmental question but an economic one. Recent years have shown that the cost of our dependence on fossil fuels is serious. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit suggests that the energy crisis following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine cost the UK more than £180 billion, including a rise in food price inflation of 19%, whereas the economic opportunities are significant. Britain’s green economy now supports around 1.1 million jobs and generates more than £100 billion. It is one of the fastest growing parts of our economy, creating productive, well-paid jobs across manufacturing, engineering and technology. Whether Britain embraces the energy transition or not will not change whether the transition happens. The question instead is whether the jobs, the investment and the expertise are located here or somewhere else. History rarely rewards those who cling to yesterday’s technologies when the world is investing in tomorrow’s. Members need not trust me on this point; they should trust the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. On 23 June 1914, Winston Churchill was being travailed in this House by MPs who were pursuing an old energy source in the face of a new one. On the eve of the first world war, Churchill pursued oil for powering the ships of the Royal Navy in the face of MPs who pressed the case for coal. This was long before Britain had access to our own oil, but Churchill could see that this new technology was going to change the way that the 20th century would be powered. A century later, we are faced with another transition, from fossil fuels to clean energy generation. That is particularly relevant where I live in south-west England. Yesterday afternoon, I hosted the Great South West new nuclear futures event here in Parliament. This debate is ultimately about whether Britain chooses to lead or to follow. It is about whether we develop the industries of the future or allow others to forge ahead. The cost of inaction will ultimately be far greater than the cost of transition.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Farming Road Map and Profitability Review · Hansard source

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  The Great South West pan-regional partnership produced an agrifood growth plan which I commend to the Secretary of State. It was launched by Baroness Batters back in February. The south-west region accounts for one third of England’s dairy farms and makes an outsized contribution to the UK food system. How will the Government’s farming road map affect farmers in the south-west in particular?

• 24 Jun 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q14. Tony Blair suggested that at the beginning of his premiership he was at his most popular and least capable, and talked about ending his time in office at his least popular and most capable. For the sake of people in the south-west and across the country, what tips can the Prime Minister offer his successor?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  So far, the debate has been about how much funding should be found for defence. We should also think about the resignation speech by the former Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who said last week that the DIP, which he has seen, does not strike the right balance between high-end sophistication and low-end mass. He said that “the defence investment plan does not strike that balance”. —[ Official Report , 16 June 2026; Vol. 787, c. 732.] Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to think about the balance between sophistication and mass?

• 22 Jun 2026 · G7 Summit · Hansard source

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  A week ago, the Prime Minister said that the UK would support the deal between the United States and Iran by standing up a “defensive, independent, multilateral mission”. At the planning stage, that was designed to restore freedom of navigation to the strait of Hormuz. In May, the UK was supposed to deploy drones, Typhoon fighter jets and HMS Dragon to such a future mission, whereas today the Deputy Prime Minister spoke of “immediate support for de-mining.” What will the deployment involve, and what might trigger it, please?

• 18 Jun 2026 · River Otter: Sewage Pollution · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of sewage pollution in the River Otter, a river that flows through many of the Devon communities that I represent. I should say at the outset that, this morning, I declined an offer of hospitality from the new chief executive of South West Water and its parent company Pennon Group. They offered breakfast in Parliament, but I did not accept as I was here, in the Chamber, trying to catch Mr Speaker’s eye to talk about the Jurassic coast UNESCO world heritage site, and it is helpful that I will get to talk a little bit about that now. My office has written back to South West Water to request a separate meeting with the chief executive to talk through some of the issues that I will raise in the debate. In fairness, the debate is also about issues that apply across the water industry, not just with Pennon Group. I pay tribute to the more than 75 water testers, campaigners and citizen scientists of the Otter River Catchment Action group—ORCA. The ORCA group developed out of the Otter Valley Association, and it has devoted almost as many hours to understanding and protecting the cherished River Otter as there have been hours of sewage spills into that river, which is saying something. The work of ORCA has provided much of the evidence in my contribution. The dedication of the ORCA volunteers represents the very best of self-organised civic community action and public service. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to Bruce McGlashan, who passed away suddenly in April this year, just days after ORCA hosted a public meeting at The Institute in Ottery St Mary. Bruce brought to ORCA his experience of having been a manager at the Environment Agency for 30 years. He was also secretary of the River Otter Fisheries Association. Bruce was central to ORCA, and helped us to correspond with South West Water and the Environment Agency. It is hard to believe that he, Peter Williams and I stood on the shingle outside the Otter Inn at Honiton, after a meeting with the Environment Agency, just days before Bruce died. He should have lived to see the River Otter returned to full ecological health. The Otter should be one of England’s ecological success stories. It runs through a beautiful valley in Devon that supports agriculture, tourism and recreation, and ought to be a rich and diverse habitat. Yet today, most sections of the Otter and its key tributary, the Wolf, are classified by the Environment Agency as having poor ecological status. That places the rivers within the 20% of water bodies with the poorest ecological status in the country. This issue does not just concern the local environment: it also concerns public health and infrastructure, and it is increasingly a question of public trust in the Government’s ability to regulate companies that provide utilities properly. The facts on the ground are damning. Data obtained from South West Water through freedom of information and environmental information regulation requests reveal an alarming picture of bacterial contamination in the River Otter. Between November 2024 and May 2025, average daily levels of E. coli measured in the river were five times higher than the acceptable level for safe swimming. After periods of rainfall, those levels spiked up to 100 times the safe limit, remaining at increased levels for days or weeks at a time. During the period analysed, E. coli levels exceeded the safe swimming limit on more than 90% of days. Budleigh Salterton, where the river meets the sea, lost its blue flag status this year because of a deterioration in water quality. Following the loss of that blue flag status, South West Water stated publicly that the E. coli levels at Budleigh’s beach “could be caused by birdlife in the new Otter Nature Reserve”. However, ORCA samples from the mouth of the River Otter show E. coli surges correlate with surges upstream of the nature reserve. We should be honest about the scale of the sewage problem. This challenge is made more difficult by the fact that regular monitoring has been limited. Until recently, nobody was routinely measuring E. coli levels along the River Otter. ORCA volunteers are collecting samples every two weeks. They do so at three locations along the river, building a much-needed evidence base to understand pollution levels, rainfall impacts and likely sources of contamination. In 2024, South West Water released untreated sewage into the River Otter for more than 9,500 hours. In terms of duration, that is three times more untreated sewage hours spilled into the River Otter than into Exmouth bay. In 2025, more than 8,000 hours of untreated sewage were discharged into the river and its tributaries, following hundreds of monitored sewage overflow events. Untreated sewage is entering the river on a routine basis, and at a scale that cannot be dismissed as a consequence of exceptional weather. Phosphate pollution further damages the river’s ecology. High concentrations of phosphate cause algal bloom and eutrophication and reduce oxygen levels in the water, causing significant harm to aquatic plants, fish and wildlife. The evidence gathered by ORCA is striking; its monitoring suggests that the presence of a single sewage treatment works on the river can increase harmful phosphate concentrations in the river by around 80% during the summer months. Its testing indicates that around 70% of phosphate found in the middle and lower River Otter can be attributed not to agricultural pollution, but to treated sewage effluent. One of the most frustrating aspects of this situation is the gap between the pledges we have received from South West Water and the delivery we have seen on them. In August and October 2025, South West Water’s then CEO, Susan Davy, publicly committed to three critical objectives for the River Otter by the end of 2029, which I will quote. The first objective is that “any storm overflow that is persistently releasing more than 20 times a year will be tackled following investigation of the cause”. The second objective is that “where our assets are not performing as they should, or where they are causing environmental harm, we will act”. The third objective states: “As part of our 2025–2030 investment programme, we’re targeting improvements across the Otter catchment—including at Ottery St Mary—to reduce storm overflow use, and lower phosphate in our treated discharges”. At the time, those commitments were welcome, but residents are entitled to ask what progress has been made in the last year. First, at the 11 worst discharge points along the river, there was still an average of 67 untreated discharges in 2025. That is not fewer than the 20 that we were pledged. Secondly, South West Water has published only a limited programme of what it describes as “tactical improvements”. That is hardly action. Thirdly, despite repeated engagement from local campaigners and community groups, South West Water currently has no scheme to remove phosphate from treated effluent by 2030 and no published plan to meet the commitments made by the former chief exec. There was a time when South West Water talked about a phosphate reduction scheme for Honiton sewage treatment works, which would have removed 35% of all South West Water-sourced phosphate before 2030. According to South West Water more recently, the scheme “had been removed from the 2025-2030 plan.” Another consequence of sewage pollution is its impact on housing developments. East Devon district council commissioned a water cycle study as part of its local plan. Honiton sewage treatment works—the largest treatment works on the river—is already operating at 40% above capacity. That is projected to rise to 73% above capacity when future building plans are taken into account. The council’s report identified many serious failings in South West Water’s sewage infrastructure in the River Otter catchment. That includes failings at three major sewage works that are already operating in excess of their capacity. Their excess untreated sewage is being discharged regularly into the River Otter. Effectively, South West Water has been using the River Otter as a conveyor—a free, open, half-pipe sewer—resulting in significant environmental harm. The council’s report was plain that new housing approvals will require that South West Water delivers suitable additional treatment capacity. The costs of inaction are mounting: we have environmental degradation, risks to public health, constraints on housing, additional pressure being added by new housing, and growing public frustration. Residents ask a simple question: why must local communities accept continuing environmental damage, rising bills, and insufficient investment in the infrastructure required to clean up this mess? According to Ofwat’s most recent water company performance report from 2024-25, South West Water had 108 pollution incidents per 10,000 km of sewer, based on self-reported data—more than double the average for the sector. In fact, South West Water failed to meet its own performance targets for pollution incidents for each of the five years of the 2020-25 period. ORCA’s trained citizen scientists have logged over 2,800 individual tests and observations, whereas the Environment Agency carried out 24 location tests on the River Otter over that period. The public should not have to rely on volunteers to provide the evidence base for environmental protection. The volunteer action we have seen is invaluable, but safeguarding rivers must be the responsibility of water companies, regulators and, ultimately, the Government. Are we going to have to wait years for the Otter to be coaxed back to health? What specific measures to address these local issues might we see in the Government’s upcoming clean water Bill? Residents of towns and villages across this corner of Devon would love to know. Over 50,000 people have signed a petition that was initiated in February by Marc Astley. Marc lives in Ottery St Mary, and he and his family put together a petition stating that “if environmental standards aren’t being met, executives shouldn’t be receiving bonuses. The government has introduced new powers intended to block payouts when environmental performance fails…But loopholes remain—rewards can still be restructured as retention payments or routed through parent companies. To the public, that looks like bonuses by another name…The end goal is clear: close the loopholes and link executive rewards directly to measurable environmental outcomes—cleaner rivers, healthier seas and fewer sewage discharges.” I know that the Minister also wants to see cleaner rivers and seas, and that she is committed to her brief. Can she confirm to the more than 50,000 people who signed that petition that those loopholes will be closed by new legislation? The River Otter is not a cost-free extension of the sewerage infrastructure network that enables bill hikes and increased shareholder returns. It is supposed to offer a living ecosystem, a valued recreational resource, and an integral part of the lives of the people who live in east Devon. The people who live along the banks of the Otter are not asking for miracles; they are asking for honest monitoring, adequate infrastructure and accountability, with pledged commitments being met. The River Otter can recover—we have seen elsewhere that targeted investment in treatment infrastructure and phosphate removal can make a real difference—but recovery will require urgency, transparency, and a willingness to move beyond promises and towards delivery. Bruce McGlashan’s legacy will live on if the polluters, the regulators and we Members listen to, and act on, the citizen science carried out by the volunteers I represent today.

• 17 Jun 2026 · High Street Shops: Illicit Activity · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. On 17 July 2025, trading standards closed an illicit vape shop on Honiton High Street and seized a large amount of illicit tobacco. Does he think that this change in the law, which allows the closure of shops for 12 months rather than just three, will mean that these shops might close altogether?

• 17 Jun 2026 · National Security (State Threats) Bill · Hansard source

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  Earlier today, I and other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee met the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional delegation to the UK. The ICRC makes the point that while it is not a non-governmental organisation, it needs access to state actors on both sides of a conflict. I am curious about whether the prohibited purpose test is specifically looking to protect NGOs and organisations such as the ICRC, or whether it is also to do with compliance with international law, such as the European convention on human rights.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Community Hospitals · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for providing us with this opportunity to talk about community hospitals. In particular, I pay tribute to the fantastic NHS staff who work across Devon. They pull off an incredible level of service in spite of the constraints they are working under. In my constituency, we have five community hospitals across Axminster, Honiton, Ottery St Mary, Seaton and Sidmouth. Years ago, they all provided in-patient beds, minor injuries units and rehabilitation services, acting as halfway houses after discharge from the acute hospital, which for us was the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, and before home. They also provided support after operations, cared for the elderly and freed up beds in the RD&E and other acute hospitals. Today, much of that capacity has been stripped away. Of those five community hospitals, only Sidmouth retains in-patient beds—and a mere 25 at that. For a region of 150,000 people dealing with constant discharge pressure from Exeter, that is plainly insufficient. Honiton is the only one of the five that still has a minor injuries unit. I wrote to the new interim cluster chief exec for NHS Cornwall and NHS Devon two months ago to demand assurance that our community assets and services would remain safe from closures; it concerns me that, two months later, I have not had a reply. I ask Members to imagine being an elderly resident in Axminster faced with a medical emergency. A constituent who came to see me at a surgery in Axminster was dreadfully worried about the discharge of her husband from the acute hospital, the RD&E, because she was so frail and elderly that she felt unable to look after her frail and elderly husband. Apart from anything else, she was absolutely distraught with worry about not being able to look after him. The nearest major hospital from Axminster is an hour away at Exeter, and the journey there through the countryside is not just inconvenient for people at that stage of life; it is unmanageable. In preparation for this debate, I spoke with the president of the Community Hospitals Association, Dr David Seamark. David is not only president of the CHA but a constituent and a GP based in Honiton. He told me that community hospitals were designed precisely to face down these sorts of challenges. Community hospitals are embedded in rural and coastal areas, which is particularly good for older and more vulnerable populations. Across the UK, there are around 500 community hospitals, and many of them are located in these sorts of places, outside of cities and where access to centralised care is far more difficult. This is not the stuff of romance. These are not leftover legacies from a bygone era, and they are not historical; they are well placed assets for this era. They are adaptable, thanks to their autonomy, and they are capable of delivering wide-ranging, complex medical services. Our east Devon hospitals perform X-rays, surgeries and diagnostics. Despite losing their in-patient beds 10 years ago, they remain vital hubs of care for the local community. We have seen proposals to close wings and services, and even to demolish facilities, as was the case in Seaton, where the local community understood what was at stake. It was impressive to hear about the petition that my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds put together, which so many people signed in support of her community hospital. In Seaton, more than 9,000 people signed a petition to retain the community hospital there, and we had a public meeting in Colyford where people queued out the door to show their support. These are cherished institutions, built on decades of trust and born from community investment. The chief medical officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, agreed when he spoke at the Community Hospitals Association’s annual conference last month. He echoed the words from his 2023 annual report, “Health in an Ageing Society”, which is well worth going back to, and said that ageing and the resulting increased frailty were key issues for the future of UK healthcare. He argued that community hospitals are in just the right places to be on the frontline and tackle this issue for generations to come in our rural and coastal communities, and described community hospitals as “an essential part of provision for both inpatient and outpatient care for many citizens in England and the wider UK.” That clashes with the Government’s insistence that centralisation and the creation of large neighbourhood health centres will deliver progress and better outcomes. Neighbourhood health hubs are being exposed as a contradiction in terms. They misunderstand both geography and demography: geography, because they do not fit rural and coastal areas and suck resources into the nearby conurbations, and demography because, if the challenge facing our health service is an ageing population, solutions must be about proximity, accessibility and the continuity of care. The choice is plain for all to see: do we continue down this path of centralisation—closing, cutting and consolidating—or do we build on what we already have and cherish? When Seaton hospital was built in the 1980s, people were told that they should be a brick and buy a brick. We need to build on that legacy. Community hospitals should not be sidelined; they should be strengthened. They should be the backbone of genuine neighbourhood healthcare, not displaced by some remote health hub that, in an Orwellian turn of phrase, is moved further away and deemed to be a “neighbourhood health hub”. If the Government are serious about delivering care closer to home, supporting our ageing population and relieving pressure on our hospitals, they must invest in, not abandon, our community hospitals.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Social Media Disinformation · Hansard source

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  At the end of March, the Foreign Affairs Committee published a report into disinformation diplomacy. We investigated how malign actors are seeking to undermine democracy in the UK from overseas using information manipulation and interference, with such techniques as spoofing, bots and co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour. The Committee recommended that the Government demand greater transparency from social media companies in relation to the algorithms exploited by malign actors overseas. What discussions are being had with other Government Departments to make that so?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Russian Shadow Fleet · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Secretary of State for Defence on his appointment. Given his experience as Security Minister, few Members of the House understand the threats better than he does. It was welcome to learn last Friday that the Government have committed to banning imports of diesel and jet fuel made from Russian oil by 1 January, and it was impressive to see a shadow fleet vessel interdicted in the English channel this weekend. Given that that is one of 550 sanctioned shadow fleet vessels, does the Secretary of State think that the Government would do well to revoke the licence to import diesel and jet fuel made from Russian oil before the end of this year?

• 15 Jun 2026 · NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  I pay credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) for working with the Backbench Business Committee to secure this debate. He knows that the south-west is the worst-affected region for NHS dentistry—according to NHS data from March 2025, fewer than one in three adults in the south-west had seen a dentist in the previous two years. That is the lowest rate of any region, and a full 14 percentage points below the north-east or the north-west of England. When people cannot access a dentist, they end up in an acute hospital. In 2023-24, one in every 460 people in the south-west went to accident and emergency for a dental problem; that is almost twice as common as in London, where the figure was one in every 860 people. The south-west has the highest vacancy rate for NHS dentists in the country, at 22%, and it also has one of the lowest ratios of full-time dentists to head of population. Despite the Government’s pledges and dental plans, little has changed on the ground. In 2025, just 38% of adults in Devon had been seen by a dentist in the previous two years. That is down from 54% a decade ago. Only 47% of children in the county had seen a dentist in the previous 12 months—down from 61% a decade ago. Those who cannot afford private dental treatment are often left with no choice but to let their children go without care for years. We must move towards a preventive model of dentistry. Affordable, routine check-ups can catch problems early, saving the NHS the greater cost of emergency care later. I want to give the example of Ken from Northleigh. Ken is a pensioner. He has dentures that no longer fit, and with no NHS dentists accepting patients in our area, he went to a local private dentist. That dentist told him that it would cost £800 to prepare his mouth and a further £3,000 for the new dentures. Ken is lucky—he has savings; he can afford to pay—but how could anybody on the state pension ever afford such a price? The last Conservative Government proposed targeted recruitment incentives, or golden hellos. However, the local democracy reporter Bradley Gerrard discovered that only one had been taken up in Devon in November 2024. Let us properly fund the training and retention of dental professionals. No one should end up in A&E because they cannot get seen by a dentist. The Government say that they are serious about fixing the system; let us see it on the ground in our constituencies.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  President Trump spoke to the BBC yesterday and said that his relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu was such that: “If I tell him to do something, he does it.” It is all very well for the British Government to make contingency plans, such as with the multinational planning conference at Permanent Joint Headquarters Northwood at the end of April, but that will be a mere displacement activity if there is no peace deal. What is the Foreign Secretary doing to encourage Washington to demand restraint from Tel Aviv in Lebanon, to help bring about a peace deal and an end to the blockade of the strait of Hormuz?

• 9 Jun 2026 · Water Safety · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey); I am grateful to him for taking the initiative to secure a debate on water safety. We have heard that, over the last six years, 196 children drowned in England. However, the hon. Gentleman went beyond the numbers and read, in a suitably sombre way, the list of young people who died in the heatwave last month. It really is a tragedy that we must reflect on. Of course, people do not drown just in hot weather. Christmas day last year was a time when I, like many others, was wrapped up and getting as cosy as I could, but on the afternoon of December 25 we heard the news of a tragedy not far from us in Budleigh Salterton. Sometimes it is people with the greatest love of life who like to embrace the elements and enter the water, and that is what we heard about in Budleigh on Christmas day last year: two wild swimmers, Tom Johnson and Matthew Upham, who had entered the water on the coast of east Devon but did not return. They were not novices or newcomers to the water; Tom, a father of two, was a physical education teacher, and Matthew, a local antiques dealer, was a regular sea swimmer; he is thought to have entered the water to help another person who was struggling. The Christmas day disaster helped us to realise that drowning is not something that simply happens somewhere else or to somebody else’s family. It can happen very close to home, and that really struck local communities hard. The sea is enormously powerful and must be treated with great respect. I was very struck by the ask made by the hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) on enabling people to learn to swim, which I think is crucial. In the area that I represent, we have one town, Cullompton, that has been campaigning for decades for a swimming pool to enable young people to get those vital life lessons in swimming, and that Cullompton swimming pool campaign goes on and on. Those of us who have observed local authority swimming pools know that maintaining them is really hard going, as many are struggling financially. In Axminster, we have the Flamingo swimming pool, which is run not by the local authority, but by the local community. They established and run the swimming pool, but they often struggle with maintenance costs. Those people who support such local pools do us all a service by educating the next generation to learn the vital life skill of swimming. Of course, the dangers associated with swimming in the wild are additional to those associated with the relative safety of swimming in a pool. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the particular danger associated with quarries, while the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) talked about the Save Lives for Sam campaign, recounting the tale of Sam Haycock, who drowned in a reservoir on his last day of school. Those two stories really struck a chord with me, because my friends and I got away with it. We put on our wetsuits on the last day of school and went tombstoning at a local quarry. We jumped from a 40-foot cliff face into the water below, with no heed for whether there was machinery or supermarket trolleys to entangle us at the bottom. I think now about how stupid that was, the public services that would have needed to find us and the hurt that we could have caused our families if it had gone wrong. I am not advocating for people to take no risk at all around the water—as the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) pointed out, there are mental health benefits associated with cold water swimming, but it needs to be done in an educated way, and we need to have proper conversations about what is a relatively safe use of the water. The Minister knows that my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have campaigned vehemently against sewage pollution in the rivers and seas, and one reason for that is to have cleaner waters in which to swim safely. We will maintain that campaign. We would love to see blue flag rivers—swimming spots where we can swim knowing that, of the dangers we can face while swimming, sewage pollution is not one. Nevertheless, we have to heed the dangers associated with cold water. A yachtmaster wrote to me last week, reflecting on the deaths during the hot weather in May. It was one of those emails from a constituent that we like to receive—ones that do not just tell us about a problem, but offer a solution. He told me that he had done the Royal Yachting Association sea survival course. In a section entitled “What needs to happen”, he said that we need: “A simpler scaled down version of the sea survival course, which explains the inherent risk of open water, inland water and open seas.” He urged us to talk about cold water—we have already heard about cold water shock—and why we should avoid certain places at certain times of year. He wants education about tides and rip tides, and the dangers associated with wind and cold weather. Above all, he points out that those should be taught “in a simple user friendly format and taught at school.” From talking to the Minister’s colleagues in the Department for Education, I know that we all have a particular ask that we want to foist on to the national curriculum, but for those of us who live in rural and coastal areas, the need to teach people about the dangers of the water is particularly acute. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen for securing this debate. I hope we can have a conversation about what can change around public education and the safe use of water.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Water Companies · Hansard source

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  In 2023, South West Water was fined little more than £2 million for seven pollution incidents dating back seven years at South West Water facilities, including at Kilmington. Now we learn that it has been fined less than £2 million for supplying drinking water in south Devon that left 140 people sick and four people hospitalised. This company had revenue of nearly three quarters of a billion pounds last year. How is the Minister upholding the polluter pays principle when the polluter only has to set aside loose change?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Cuba: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  US sanctions on Cuba have been stepped up since Marco Rubio became US Secretary of State. Will the Minister talk about what representations the UK Government have made in Washington about the so-called Donroe doctrine as it relates to Cuba?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Seasonal Hospitality Businesses in Coastal Areas · Hansard source

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  It an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stuart. This debate on coastal hospitality has come just at the right time—just before the summer holidays. While many might be thinking about relaxing, the prospect of a visitor levy or tourist tax represents real concern for the hospitality industry, not least in my east Devon constituency. It is sobering news for many in the industry who depend on the summer months to turn a decent profit for the whole year round. Before I dwell on the tourist tax, I will talk for a moment about two of my constituents, Martin and Shelley from Seaton. In 2016, they purchased a small chalet park in east Devon, which is open for seven and a half months of the year. Despite investing their life savings in the park and working full time, they are concerned that their future livelihood will be wiped out by the unintended consequence of leasehold legislation. We all know that leasehold legislation is rightly required to crack down on rogue landlords and rogue property management companies, and to prevent them from exploiting relationships with tenants, but it is not designed to capture chalet parks. However, my constituents find that under the legislation their chalets may be classed as long leases, subject to the ground rent cap. They fear being caught in the lease extension problem: when the leases expire in about 40 years, they will have to issue an extension, but then they will be able to charge only a peppercorn rate. They are concerned that the very modest park fees they charge, which the current lessees are very happy with, will not be sufficient to sustain the business. The Government should recognise that their leasehold legislation is catching people who were not intended to be caught by it. Let me turn to the tourist tax. Many young or part-time workers at holiday parks and hotels depend on seasonal work opportunities in our local coastal hospitality industry. Local businesses such as Forest Glade holiday park in Kentisbeare support local jobs, local suppliers and the wider rural economy. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), who talked about the visitor levy as the wrong policy at the worst possible time; he has done us a favour by securing this debate. I, too, implore the Government to engage with coastal communities and hospitality, understand their opposition to the measure and abandon the tourist tax before the inevitable economic harm hits our areas.

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member will recall that the Conservative Humble Address motion required the sharing of all communications “between ministers and Lord Mandelson, in the six months prior to his appointment”, and all communications among “ministers, Government officials and special advisers during his time as Ambassador”. That was a hugely broad scope. Does the hon. Member think that when the Government amended that and proposed to exclude any of those things subject or prejudicial to national security and international relations, they were serious in wanting all that information to be shared with the ISC? Or does he think that the Government were trying to be too smart and too clever by half, suggesting that His Majesty’s Opposition were acting against national security and international relations?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Milburn Review: Interim Report · Hansard source

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  Many young people get their first job on the checkouts. The boss of Next, Lord Wolfson, said that two years ago Next received 10 applications for every job vacancy, but that number has since risen to 19 applications per vacancy. He said nothing about how retailers have stripped out jobs at checkouts. Next made a profit of over £1 billion last year. Does the Minister accept that retailers also have a responsibility to create opportunities for young people?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Preparedness for National Emergencies · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 20 May 2026 · Defence Readiness · Hansard source

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  On the point about Ukraine, we learned today about the delay to a ban on jet fuel and diesel made from Russian crude oil and refined in places like India and Turkey. Does the Secretary of State accept that the British people do not want to contribute one more ruble to the Kremlin for use in its war machine against the Ukrainian people?