Sam Rushworth MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2025 · Road Safety Powers: Parish and Town Councils · Hansard source

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  I agree 100% with that assessment. It seems that it does not really matter who is in power; councillors do not seem to be listened to either. I think it is a problem for democracy that so many people are saying the same thing, only to be ignored over and over again, so I welcome that intervention. I am grateful that so many colleagues have attended this debate, which is testament to the frustrations we all feel. The experience that my hon. Friend expressed is probably one that we will hear several times. Indeed, I have deliberately kept my speech short so that I can take as many interventions— [ Interruption. ] I will give way.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Road Safety Powers: Parish and Town Councils · Hansard source

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  That is a fair point. Again, I pay tribute to all the people who serve at that level of government, particularly people who give their time freely to serve in residents’ associations just to make life better for their neighbours and the people who live around them. I will mention two more places before I move on. There is Chapel Lane in Evenwood, where residents often complain about speeding, as well as High Etherley. We have a bypass running through Bishop Auckland. A year ago, we had a new shopping area built on one side of it, and for a year people have been dangerously crossing the bypass from one side to the other. It is in the section 106 agreement that there is supposed to be a safe crossing point, but it seems to be the last thing on the developer’s mind, with everything else coming first. Every week, people are taking risks as they cross over at that bypass; we have a petition out about that. Further up the bypass, lots of children cross the road at Bracks Farm.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Road Safety Powers: Parish and Town Councils · Hansard source

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  Any way you want to come. For me, this started out as hearing one anecdote, and then I would hear another and another, until it became obvious that this is a serious issue. It is about not just fatalities—I accept that fatalities are low, thank goodness—but the quality of people’s lives. It is about the fact that too many children are missing out on play, and that too many older people are missing out on social activities, because they do not feel safe crossing their roads. I have looked at the regulations that these faceless bureaucrats are using when they so regularly say no to people, and it turns out that the Road Traffic Regulation Act came into effect in 1984. That is the year I was born, so it is as old as me, and it does not give powers to parish and town councils—they have no statutory role beyond advisory consultation.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Road Safety Powers: Parish and Town Councils · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent intervention. I have mentioned High Grange and Hamsterley—I have only got to “H” on my list, so I had better move on. The residents in Coundon Gate, in my constituency, have to put up with 60 mph traffic driving past just 2 metres from their front windows, and they have asked for traffic calming.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Road Safety Powers: Parish and Town Councils · Hansard source

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  I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s point about joined-up thinking. I will make some brief progress in my speech, because at the heart of what I am asking for is for town and parish councils to be listened to. I meet them so often, and they are the most local level of government and the closest to people who live in those neighbourhoods. Time and again they ask for the same basic things and they are not listened to. I will give some examples. The village of High Grange in my constituency has two 60 mph country lanes that run either side of it. I am speaking tonight on behalf of the children who ask, “Mam or dad, can I go across the road to the park?”, but whose parents do not feel safe letting them cross that 60 mph lane to get there. I speak also for the pensioners on the other side of the same village who want to get across the road to the allotments, but who do not feel safe crossing over.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Road Safety Powers: Parish and Town Councils · Hansard source

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  How could I not?

• 30 Jun 2025 · Road Safety Powers: Parish and Town Councils · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend’s extension of the debate to parking, which is also a road safety issue. I have lost track of how many times residents in the different villages and towns I represent have talked to me about ambulances that could not make their way up a street because there was no space given that people are not respecting traffic rules. That is just another way in which people feel that they do not have control over the very street they live on. Parish and town councils operate under the Local Government Act 1972, and have no highway or transport powers unless they are explicitly delegated, so powers could be delegated to them. They can raise local issues, but cannot initiate or enforce any regulatory changes. As such, my asks of Government are simple: first, could we look at primary legislation to grant town and parish councils the power to set enforceable speed limits? If that is a step too far, could we at least provide stronger statutory consultative powers, so that they can force a review of speed limits, and stronger powers to appeal the bad decisions that get made and demand proper explanations for the number of times that the computer says no?

• 30 Jun 2025 · Road Safety Powers: Parish and Town Councils · Hansard source

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  That important data gives force to my argument. We are not talking not about killing people’s joy but enhancing joy in their lives so that they feel safe to walk in the roads in their villages.

• 19 Jun 2025 · Warm Home Discount · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for this announcement. As she will recall, we met back in September to discuss my concerns about fuel poverty in my constituency, including the number of children living in cold homes. We specifically talked about this measure. She has taken it away, done the hard graft and delivered, so I thank her for that. As she said in her statement, there are people who may not get the discount because they do not know that they are entitled to it. The Government will know which people are receiving the warm home discount and which people are on a means-tested benefit and are not receiving it. Will she consider writing to those families to make sure that everybody knows the good news that this Government are putting more money into their pockets?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend that these women need help, but I cannot imagine a more lonely and difficult experience than being a woman who has an abortion under the circumstances she is outlining, and I think that is a problem with new clause 1. Would it not actually make abortion much more dangerous and much more lonely by simply decriminalising the woman, but not those who may be there to give support? I cannot think of any other time when someone might be more in need of support.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I recall, a few years ago, supporting a woman in a hostel who was traumatised by her own decision to abort a child. Does my hon. Friend agree, in the context of this language about protecting people, that we also need to protect people from these decisions when they are not made with the proper safeguards and protections in place?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  On that point, will my hon. Friend give way?

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  A third of children in Bishop Auckland live in poverty, so I welcome today’s spending review, which set out how they will benefit not just from the free breakfast clubs, but from the extension to free school meals, warmer homes, more access to sports and the arts, and their parents getting the pay rises that they deserve under this Labour Government. But many of those children live in deprived neighbourhoods, which have seen big cuts to social infrastructure over the past 15 years, including the closure of swimming pools, youth clubs, Sure Start centres, boxing gyms and the like. I noted with interest that, on page 36, there was a reference to 350 deprived communities across the UK receiving Government investment. Will the Chancellor say more about that, because there are no figures in the spending review. If she cannot give a full answer today, perhaps I could engage with her office on this later.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Energy Efficiency · Hansard source

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  What is the Secretary of State doing to make it more affordable for households to make their homes energy-efficient? The current model is that those who can afford to outlay some funding then get a taxpayer-funded subsidy, but those who cannot put down those first few thousand do not get that support.

• 10 Jun 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his diligence and his patient answers and for an excellent statement. I agreed with every word of it, and I appreciate the actions that the Government have taken to sanction two Ministers, both of whom have expressed genocidal intent. The Minister is also correct in saying that the two-state solution is in peril. It seems from today that there is an overwhelming majority in this place that support the immediate recognition of Palestine, and I sense from his answers that the Government are moving in that direction. What can he also do around the ICJ judgment that the west bank has been annexed, and what more can we do to ensure that others are punished for their crimes in the west bank?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  On 3 September, I said in this House that I represent England’s coldest and snowiest constituency, where even people on a living wage can be in fuel poverty, as can children and pensioners. That is why, as the Minister knows, I pressed the Government not only for the changes that he has announced today, but to widen the eligibility criteria for the warm home discount scheme, which is the smartest mechanism we have for tackling genuine fuel poverty. He has only gone and done both those things, so can I thank him for listening not to me, but to the people I represent? What assessment has been made of the impact of these changes on lifting children out of fuel poverty?

• 4 Jun 2025 · Swimming Facilities · Hansard source

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  Sixty seconds is not long enough for a speech, but there is clearly a lot of strong feeling in the Chamber today about this issue, so I hope that one day we will make more time for a longer conversation about this really important issue. We all know what the physical and mental health benefits of swimming are. For me, one statistic that really stands out is that nearly half a million people have either reduced or stopped taking medication for their mental health because of swimming. Today though, I will quickly mention Crook in my constituency—it lost its swimming pool over a decade ago, and every promise of one since has come to nothing—and Stanhope, which lost its lido during covid and it has never reopened. Pools like these are important parts of our social infrastructure that keep people fit and healthy. It is important that we look at funding models for swimming, potentially looking to pension funds for the investment we need for new infrastructure, and support swimming pools in combining swimming with other social infrastructure to make them viable. Finally, I will give a quick shout-out for open swimming. We need more safe open swimming spaces. I welcome the work that this Government are doing to clean up sewage, so that people can enjoy open water swims.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Veterans · Hansard source

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  I regularly speak to veterans in Bishop Auckland and, although they mostly reflect positively on their military service, they often mention the need to improve homes for forces families. Will the Minister welcome this week’s announcement that Labour will improve 3,000 forces family homes in Scotland as part of a £1.5 billion investment, and does the Minister agree that all those who serve our forces in this United Kingdom should have a home fit for a hero?

• 4 Jun 2025 · Veterans · Hansard source

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  3. What steps he is taking with the Scottish Government to support veterans in Scotland.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Regional Growth · Hansard source

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  As the shadow Chief Secretary was comparing the records of our Governments earlier, I was reminded of the moment when they made all these transport announcements, and it turned out that half had been delivered already and the other half were cancelled within 24 hours. They included the Leamside line in the north-east, so I am absolutely delighted for my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) that, after 20 years of campaigning, she has secured it, which is also great for growth generally in the north-east. As a champion for my community, I will keep banging the drum for the Weardale railway line and the West Auckland bypass. They will not be funded through this funding settlement, so my question is: will this be the only transport infrastructure spending this side of the next general election, or will there be future rounds that we can bid for?

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend mentioned his elderly constituents, and I have similar issues in my constituency. People are telling me that they cannot even do their shopping anymore because of bus cuts in Shildon. One person feels that she will have to leave the village that she has lived in for decades because she is losing her eyesight. Does my hon. Friend agree that as local authorities get that control, it is important that they use it to look at people’s needs and to put on bespoke services, such as to shops and hospitals?

• 22 May 2025 · Access to NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the 2006 NHS dentistry contract, which clearly needed revision. Why did his party not do that in 14 years in government?

• 22 May 2025 · Access to NHS Dentistry · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  “Angry, disappointed and betrayed” are the words that the chairman of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations used to describe the Brexit deal that the hon. Gentleman voted for. Why did he vote for that deal?

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  Inevitably, in any deal, you have to put something on the table in order to get the benefits of that deal. Could the hon. Gentleman give me an example of a UK trade agreement where the UK has not had to put something on the table?