Sarah Coombes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2026 · Discrimination against Trans People · Hansard source

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  I recently spoke to a trans woman at my coffee morning. She was in tears, as she feels that life for trans people in Britain has gone backwards. She was always able to live and work in peace and dignity, but feels that her right to do that has been severely impacted, and she is worried about her chances of getting new jobs because of the Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance on, for example, toilets. Can the Minister reassure me and my constituent that this Government will fight to protect the rights of trans people in Britain?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Climate-related Transition Plan · Hansard source

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  Britain has been overly reliant on oil and gas for decades, and fossil fuel companies have profited hugely from that. I was glad to see the CBI report today, which said that the net-zero economy is now worth more than £100 billion to the UK. Given that electrification is essential to the UK’s energy future, what role will different types of energy company, who will eventually reap the profits of electricity use, have in investing in infrastructure for that transition?

• 21 May 2026 · Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  The future of the car industry is in electric and automated vehicles, and the west midlands and the UK have always been leaders in car manufacturing across the world. Can the Minister say more about what we are doing to protect the industry and ensure that its future lies in the UK?

• 21 May 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Angela and Terry, a couple from my constituency, were the proud owners of Otis, a little three-legged shih tzu dog. Angela, who is in her 80s, was walking Otis a few weeks ago when two rottweilers got loose and savaged Otis terribly. Angela took him to the vets and paid thousands of pounds, but, sadly, Otis died. It is very brave of Angela and Terry to speak out, and the community are up in arms. Please can we have a debate to talk about the owners of dangerous dogs, as it is the owners who are often the problem here, and about who pays when one dog attacks another?

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

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  I thank the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) for securing this important debate. Roads are the arteries of our nation, keeping us and our economy moving, and the rules governing our roads rely on being able to identify vehicles and their drivers, which is the responsibility of the DVLA. It really matters. It matters to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for road tax to pay for upkeep; it matters to those of us who want to walk, drive and cycle safely; and it matters to the police, who can use number plates to work out who is using our roads. When the rules of the road are not enforced—when people flout them with no punishment—it degrades trust. I will highlight two elements of the DVLA systems that are failing: first, the regulation of number plate sales, and secondly, the rise of ghost vehicle owners due to there being no registered keeper. I will start with number plates, the little piece of plastic on the front of a vehicle, which most people hopefully never have to think too much about. Number plates are the quiet bedrock of how we enforce the rules of our roads. Number plates should tell us who owns a car, and they should be readable by cameras so that the police can use automatic number plate recognition software, which is essential for their work. In many other countries, number plates are treated as what they are—passports for our roads—and are highly regulated. In France, for example, vehicles are allocated a plate for life, with no changes permitted, and in many other countries only one or a few companies can sell plates. The UK system looks absurd in comparison. To become a number plate supplier here, someone simply pays a £40 one-off fee to the DVLA. There are no background checks and no criminal checks. This has led to a situation where the UK has more than 34,000 suppliers registered as selling number plates with the DVLA. For context, that is four times the number of petrol stations in Britain. If the DVLA had the ability to check that all those companies were doing the right thing—that they were asking for ownership documents and ID documents when they sold the number plate to someone, and only selling plates that were fully readable and not ghost plates—the situation would be fine, but the DVLA does not do that, and it will never be able to check so large a system. I have no doubt that most people buying a number plate are doing so for innocent reasons, but it is crystal clear that many people are buying dodgy number plates to make themselves invisible to speed cameras, to avoid paying road charges and to commit serious crimes, and unscrupulous sellers are allowing that to happen. To give an example, in 2025 a young man was murdered in cold blood in Slough, and the police eventually worked out that the killer’s car was using a cloned plate. When the police found the car, it had no plates on, but it had a stash of different registration plates in the back. They found the person who sold the cloned plates, and he was fined £5,500 and removed from the DVLA register for five years, after which time he is perfectly allowed to start selling number plates all over again. There is a live rape case, which I will not go into any detail on, where a driver used a ghost number plate on his vehicle when he committed the alleged offence. I have heard so many cases of drug dealers using ghost plates to go undetected by ANPR and fraudsters copying other people’s number plates. These dodgy companies sell cloned number plates without a second thought, and law-abiding drivers are left to pick up the pieces as they fight to prove that they are innocent of a crime or appeal against huge financial penalties. Dodgy number plate sellers are a public scandal waiting to happen. They are the next chapter in the candy shops or dodgy vape shops story. Those businesses are really fronts for money laundering and criminality. Rochdale trading standards has been superb at exposing this. Its work has uncovered links between DVLA-accredited suppliers and individuals with histories of murder, firearms, drugs, robbery and violent assault—you couldn’t make it up. In one of its inspections, it found 20 number plates that had been sold with none of the legally required ID checks or proof of vehicle checks. Almost half of those plates were later linked by the police to serious and organised crime. Rochdale trading standards officers described finding DVLA-registered suppliers operating out of back bedrooms and garden sheds. One supplier was at 33 Smith Street. The next supplier was at 35 Smith Street. I hope I am painting a picture of the serious systemic failings in how the DVLA operates number plate sales in Britain. With some estimates saying that up to one in 15 of all vehicles on UK roads has some kind of non-compliant plate, we can see the scale of the problem. Some of these suppliers are using ghost materials so routinely that even law-abiding members of the public may be inadvertently buying ghost plates. I urge anyone listening to this debate that if they need to buy a number plate, they should please ensure that the seller asks for their car ownership document and ID. If they do not, that person is buying from an illegal seller who is breaking the law. Last year, the all-party parliamentary group for transport safety carried out an inquiry into registration plates and made 10 recommendations, all of which I believe the Government should implement. They include banning the use of 3D and 4D plates, introducing background checks on suppliers and restricting the number of licensed sellers. I would like to praise the Government for committing to action on this in the road safety strategy, and in particular I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who has been absolutely great. However, can the Minister update us on when he hopes some of these system changes will be made to tighten up the number plate system? In particular, will he ask the DVLA what is going on with banning 3D and 4D plates, which are the vast majority of ghost plates, and will he update us on when the next Department for Transport roadside survey will take place, because the last one was in 2023? I will now move on to the second topic that I am concerned about: vehicle registered keeper information. Even if a driver has a fully compliant number plate, it is still possible for them to cheat the rules and become a ghost on the roads in another way. All cars should have a registered keeper listed with the DLVA but, unfortunately, lax rules mean that many cars do not have, and their owners are therefore completely untraceable. Think about it: with hit and runs, excessive speeding and running red lights, even when a vehicle gets caught on camera doing any of those things, if the DVLA has no information about who owns the vehicle, there is no way to hold those people to account. According to the DVLA, 7% of vehicles have no registered keeper, and it argues that the majority of them are in the motor trade, but I just do not think that is true, and I have a personal anecdote to explain why. Last summer, I was out with the roads policing team in West Brom, and the ANPR monitor in the police car kept dinging every 30 seconds. I asked the officer, “What is setting off the ANPR?” and the officer said, “Those are cars with no registered keeper.” Today, The Guardian has covered a shocking freedom of information request made by the British Parking Association to the DVLA. When a car has no registered keeper or it has an outdated or incorrect keeper address, the DVLA sometimes registers the vehicle to its own address. The DVLA has admitted in answer to this FOI request that, at the latest count, 18,260 vehicles are currently registered to its own office in Swansea. The rise of these ghost owners undermines our ability to enforce the rules of our roads, and it is not just a safety risk. I spoke to the Motor Insurers’ Bureau about the rise in the number of collisions when one party cannot be traced because the vehicle has no registered keeper, the number plate is fake or a ghost plate, or the driver raced away. We all pay a premium on our insurance to cover the costs when uninsured or untraceable drivers are involved in a collision, and that adds up to £50 on the insurance premiums of all of us every year. There is also a big cost, or rather a big loss, to the public sector through this issue. I feel the pain as much as anyone does when I get slapped with a parking ticket when I think I have done the right thing, or I get a fine for driving down the wrong road. However, some people are flouting the rules constantly, and they are getting away with it by having a car with no registered keeper, or registering with a NIP—notice of impending prosecution—farm so their fine gets sent to a totally anonymous post office box and the fine does not get passed on. Since I started doing this work, I have realised how much of an issue unpaid fines are. In Hackney, for example, a single individual owes the council £250,000. I recently asked my council, Sandwell, how much it was owed, and I was shocked to discover that almost one third of penalty charge notices had gone unpaid since last April, equating to £1.2 million. Can hon. Members imagine what that money could have been spent on? I will finish because I know other Members want to speak. A great many good people work in the DVLA, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole mentioned, and I know that because I have spoken to lots of them. What is failing here is the system, including how we sell the very plates that identify all our vehicles, and how we regulate and monitor who actually owns the cars on our roads. I know the DVLA has a lot on, but this is a very serious problem, and there is huge opportunity to grasp here, to fix the system for the future.

• 16 Apr 2026 · Modernisation Committee Report: Access to the House of Commons · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) for that powerful speech. I agree wholeheartedly with him about the need for reform of the proxy voting system and for some humanity to be introduced for such circumstances. I was proud to serve on the Modernisation Committee and to take part in gathering evidence for the report. The Committee very much appreciated all those who took the time and effort to submit evidence and to give oral evidence, including Mr Speaker and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as the wider team, many members of House staff, and campaigners. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball), who has already been mentioned. She is a tireless advocate for disability rights and access. It is thanks to her advocacy that the door handles across the estate are now properly usable by those with disabilities. Before, as we heard earlier, many disabled people were unable to go to the toilet unaided, which was scandalous. In this place, many people often talk up a tension between modernisation and tradition, which does undoubtedly exist, but the Committee’s role is to find a way through that does justice to those who have every right to be properly represented here. As has been mentioned, this Parliament is unique in that over half of MPs were new in 2024. I think that is the highest turnover of MPs in any Parliament. Many of us came here from modern workplaces in which the accessibility, inclusivity, hybrid working, productivity and efficiency standards far exceed those in this place. In coming to work here, a lot of us felt that we were walking back in time, not just because of the ancient building, but because of the way some of the processes here work. The Committee’s report is comprehensive. We have heard excellent speeches about the accessibility of the building, but I will build on what my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said about the accessibility of parliamentary procedures, particularly speaking, bobbing and voting. I will also mention gender representation among speakers. Before I go through those points, let me say that the staff here do excellent work and are very considerate; they work with MPs to help us do our jobs and speak for our constituents. I wanted to put on the record in this debate some of the powerful and eye-opening evidence we heard from current and former Members during the report process. I will not speak for other members of the Committee, but I honestly found some of the evidence we heard shocking. It is hard for those who are not MPs to understand how speaking in this Chamber—our No. 1 job as Members of Parliament—works. For those listening who do not quite understand how it works, an MP informs the Speaker’s Office of their desire to speak. They then come to the Chamber, “bob” and wait until they are called to speak. That can mean waiting for three or four hours—and sometimes up to six hours. I have learned much sitting in this Chamber and listening to other Members speak, but the process certainly does have a disproportionate impact on some MPs. Let me mention a few examples from our evidence sessions that stayed with me. One MP with severe physical disabilities told us how difficult they found waiting hours and hours to speak in a debate. They felt physically exhausted by the time they were called to speak many hours later, and felt that they just could not do justice to what they had hoped to say on behalf of their constituents. Another MP with musculoskeletal issues sat on these Benches and waited to speak for so long that they were in agony for days afterwards. Another told us that voting 10-plus times over hours left them practically unable to walk in the days afterwards. One woman MP in the very early stages of pregnancy felt extremely ill but waited hours to speak. In all fairness, she did not want to confide in the Speaker’s team about the situation. Another woman MP told me about experiencing pregnancy loss in this House, and feeling that she had to disclose it to her Whips. I do not think anybody would want that. We had an evidence session with disabled MPs. A Member of the House of Lords who was in attendance said that he was completely shocked by the disparity in reasonable adjustments between this House and the other place. I am very glad that many of those issues were addressed by the recommendations in the report, including the recommendation that a reasonable adjustments card be introduced, which would allow a seat to be saved for disabled Members. That has been an ongoing issue. Other recommendations include potentially using the Reasons Room for voting in a way that is inclusive and not so exhausting; and a new disabled toilet near the Chamber. I hope that wider issues continue to be considered, however. The evidence we heard strongly suggested that the best processes are accessible by design; that is preferable to forcing disabled people or those with conditions to ask constantly for exemptions, or to explain themselves. I know that many of those who submitted evidence to our inquiry were disappointed by the outcome of the Procedure Committee report on call lists, which could have made a significant difference by providing more certainty to those who have conditions but do not want to disclose them, or to people who have to take medicine at mealtimes, for example. Voting is at the heart of what we do in this House. Surely more can be done in 2026 to preserve all the good bits of MPs physically voting together, while speeding up proceedings enormously through the use of tech, particularly on days with 10, 12 or 14 votes, such as those we have experienced lately. I also want to address the gender split of speakers. The one thing that MPs can do that no one else can is speak in this House on behalf of our constituents, but if we consider the speaking statistics, all is not equal. Women make up 41% of all MPs, but a rough calculation —such as the one the House of Commons Library has done for me—shows that just 35% of contributions made in this Chamber are from women. In the Lords, where 34% of Members are women, 41% of all contributions are from women Members. I wonder what we can learn from the structure for speaking in the Lords. I note that the Lords have a form of call list for some proceedings, and it seems to benefit women’s voices. I realise that I am still a relative newbie in this House, and I am sure that the views of MPs change over time as they experience different iterations of Parliaments, but I hope that, in addition to the good changes that have already been made as a result of the report, there will be further progress in the future.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  Is it not the case that Britain’s renewable economy is growing three times faster than the rest of the economy? If we were to retract our commitments to renewable energy and net zero, the investor confidence would reduce, which would be really bad for our European economy and the brilliant jobs that have been created in this industry, yet that is exactly what the Conservatives are proposing today.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Oil and Gas · Hansard source

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  Is it not true that the number of jobs in the North sea oil industry halved in the last decade when the shadow Secretary of State’s party was in government?

• 19 Mar 2026 · Serious Fraud Office · Hansard source

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  Scams are devastating for the victims in my constituency, but serious fraud is insidious and is undermining the UK economy. Given the Serious Fraud Office recently found that just 10% of fraud referrals are coming from whistleblowers, what more are the Government doing to empower whistleblowers to come forward and to protect them when they do?

• 12 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  This week, there was a mass release of balloons in Birmingham in memory of my friend, Councillor Waseem Zaffar, who passed away suddenly and tragically at the age of 44. There was no prouder Brummie than Waseem: he loved the city, he loved the Villa and he loved representing the people of Lozells. As the cabinet member for transport, he was the driving force behind the city’s clean air zone, and he fought every day against the health inequalities that mean so many Brummies die too young. I will miss Waseem more than I can say. He leaves a hole in the city that will be very difficult to fill. Will the Leader of the House join me in sending deepest condolences to Waseem’s wife Aysha, his four sons and his wider family? Can we have a debate on the health inequalities that Waseem cared so passionately about?

• 9 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. The situation we inherited at the election, with one in eight young people not in education or employment, is a national scandal and I am glad that this Government will put it right. In West Brom, there are lots of opportunities in the manufacturing sector, but lots of young people often think of a different reality when they think of factories. In fact, many of the jobs are high quality, well paid and involve modern machinery and robotics, and are not the back-breaking work that many think it is. What are the Government doing to ensure that jobcentres connect young people with the opportunities in all different sectors, particularly in manufacturing?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Thanks to the policies of the Labour Treasury team, Sandwell will receive £1.5 million to smarten up our towns. Does the Chancellor agree that local people should have a say in how that funding is spent, and will she encourage people in Rowley, West Bromwich and Oldbury to fill in my survey about how we spend this Government cash?

• 8 Jan 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Guru Nanak gurdwara in West Brom recently suffered a horrible incident of anti-Sikh hate. An unidentified vandal ran past and dumped a bag of meat on the doorstep. As many Sikhs are vegetarian, that is obviously a horrible, offensive incident. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate about how we reject that type of hate, how we protect our places of worship, and how we celebrate the contribution of Sikhs and all faith communities in our areas?

• 27 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Solar geo-engineering is the idea of injecting particles into the Earth’s atmosphere to dim or reflect the light of the sun and cool the planet, and it has been the subject of science fiction and conspiracy theories for many years. However, recent reporting by the respected Politico journalist Karl Mathiesen has thrown light on an Israeli company, which is developing technology that it says could halt global warming temporarily. Given the potential risks of the technology, may we have a debate on how Britain will work with other countries to regulate experiments with the Earth’s atmosphere, and to ensure that we co-operate with other countries on solutions that actually tackle the root cause of climate change?

• 20 Nov 2025 · Russian Ship Yantar · Hansard source

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  The first duty of any Government is to keep our citizens safe, which is why this Labour Government are delivering a historic uplift in defence spending, in stark contrast to the cuts of the Conservative Government. The Minister set out a potent example of the rising threats to our country. Will he say more about how our increased defence spending will keep us safe and support jobs in the defence industry, such as at the Westley Group in my constituency, which makes all the castings for our UK submarine fleet?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Connected and Automated Vehicles · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree that the infrastructure needs to be in place and the benefits of autonomous vehicles need to be felt across the whole country—in coastal areas, but also in urban areas and towns, such as those that I represent. Car clubs have never reached their full potential in the UK—I think that is because of the cost and lack of density of vehicles—but if people could order an AV to their home and it was cost-effective, safe and reliable, I can see a world in which families do not necessarily need a second car, or perhaps a car at all. What plans do the Government have to harness the power of autonomous vehicles to complement, rather than replace, public transport and how could we use it to fill in the gaps? The main issue that I want to talk about is growth and the potential benefits that technology and automation on our roads could bring to the UK economy. The Government estimate that the automated car industry could add £42 billion to the UK economy by 2035, not least through 38,000 new jobs. This is a difficult topic because I know that many people who drive for a living are worried about potentially losing their jobs as a result of self-driving vehicles.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Connected and Automated Vehicles · Hansard source

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  I agree that exciting pilots are going on. I am sure Kettering and many other parts of the country could benefit. Wayve is an example of a company leading the way in helping the UK to become a global leader in this technology. Although the company was founded out of the University of Cambridge and is now based in King’s Cross, there is an unmissable opportunity for industry up and down the country. My own region of the west midlands is an automotive manufacturing heartland. Jaguar Land Rover produces the Jaguar I-PACE, the vehicle used by Waymo robotaxis. Some of the factories in my constituency make parts for Nissan, which has announced a partnership with Wayve for new AI driver software.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Connected and Automated Vehicles · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered connected and automated vehicles. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. Yesterday, I jumped in a car with a couple of other people near King’s Cross station. It was a pretty normal journey. We watched the world go by, chatted and got stuck in a bit of traffic. The journey was completely ordinary, except for one thing: the car was driving itself. That 20-minute journey represents the future of what our roads could look like, which is why I am pleased to be leading today’s debate. I originally applied for this debate for reasons related to road safety. I have met too many families in my constituency who have lost a husband or a mother through other people’s dangerous driving. I am fascinated by how automation and technology could help us to eradicate road danger and death, but getting deeper into this topic, my speech will focus on not only safety but accessibility and economic growth. Turning first to safety, in the UK, 30,000 people are killed or seriously injured on our roads each year. If we speak to the police, they will say that most deadly crashes are caused by the “fatal five”—speeding, drink and drug driving, mobile phone use, antisocial driving, and not wearing a seatbelt. I do not need to be a machine learning expert to know that automated vehicles, trained by safe, expert drivers and programmed to comply with the strict rules of the road, could avoid all five of those issues and the needless death they cause. A self-driving car is not going to be drunk, high or scrolling through TikTok. During the passage of the Automated Vehicles Act 2024, the last Government rightly put safety at the heart of the regulation, stating that a self-driving vehicle should be at least as safe as a competent and careful driver. There are still some questions about what exactly that means. In the US, where the roll-out of autonomous vehicles and robotaxis is far ahead of here, the safety statistics on automated versus human-driven vehicles look impressive. Waymo, the Google-owned company that runs self-driving taxis there, claims that its vehicles have 80% fewer injury-causing crashes compared with the average human driver, but within the human average there will be drivers who are neither careful nor competent, so these figures are quite hard to compare. What progress has the Minister made on expanding the safety expectations for automated and connected vehicles, and what is the timeline on the remaining regulations that need to be set out? Furthermore, what do the Government hope the safety gains from automated vehicles could be? Proving the reliability and safety of automated vehicles is essential for public acceptance of this new technology. Lots of people might feel reticent to get in a self-driving car because they do not feel safe, but I found my own experience yesterday in a Wayve autonomous vehicle reassuring. During the journey, we had cyclists jumping red lights, pedestrians walking out on to the road and other drivers cutting across our right of way. The car dealt with it all. The whole journey felt safe and smooth the whole time. Some critics say that these cars cannot handle British roundabouts because they were made for American grid cities. I can confirm that the Wayve car handled the roundabouts with ease. We had a safety driver sat ready to take the wheel if any issues arose, but none did. Other areas of safety are important to mention too. In a world where cyber-attacks are becoming more common and more devastating, there is a fear that fully connected and autonomous vehicles could be hacked. Could the Minister say more about that and the protections that are being put in place? Another key element is data sharing, particularly in the event of a collision involving cars that are either fully automated or have advanced autopilot systems. The latter is where a vehicle can steer itself, but drivers must keep their eyes on the road, ready to assume control if needed. Many of these driver-assist functions are important safety enhancers, and these functions, including things such as lane assist, should not be so easily turned off. However, in other countries, there have been examples of cars in self-driving modes where collisions have occurred, and companies have refused to share all the data with families and authorities. Is the Minister confident that we will not have the same issue here? My personal campaign this year has been to address the wild west that is the British number plate regulation system. The traditional number plate, as the public identifier or passport of a vehicle, has been mandatory since the Motor Car Act 1903, but they are still as important as ever—even more so for determining ownership in the era of driverless cars. Can the Minister, who is in charge of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, reassure me that he is looking at the gaping holes in regulation of number plates and the sale of vast numbers of illegal ghost and cloned plates?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Connected and Automated Vehicles · Hansard source

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  It is absolutely about creating a safe system for the future. If AVs are involved in an incident, will they be able to get to hospital? All those questions have to be talked about, as we begin to see fully driverless vehicles on our roads. One person who has benefited from new employment in the AV industry is our safety driver at Wayve yesterday. He told me how thrilled he was to have secured a job there. He spends at least six hours a day training and testing their cars around the streets of London, having formerly worked as a delivery driver.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Connected and Automated Vehicles · Hansard source

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  It was very important that the Government intervened after JLR suffered a cyber-attack and went into full shutdown, because many businesses in my area rely on JLR. I agree that cyber-resilience has to be at the heart of this. I want the west midlands to feel the benefit of manufacturing the hardware and the vehicles that will be the self-driving cars of the future. What discussions has the Minister had with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade about how to ensure that the west midlands and the whole UK realise the benefits of the autonomous vehicle boom? So far, the regulatory environment in Britain is very attractive to companies in this space because it is safe and sensible. The UN is responsible for much of the international vehicle safety regulations. Will the Minister reassure us that Britain will not diverge, putting us at a disadvantage, and that the remaining regulations being consulted on will not be delayed and hold us back? In San Francisco, robotaxis, as they are called, are a tourist draw. People travel from all over to see the future in action. Waymo has announced that the vehicles are coming to London but I would love Birmingham and the Black Country to be an early adopter of driverless taxi pilots too. Birmingham is the youngest city in Europe, full of innovation and entrepreneurship. Previous automotive revolutions have started there. Frederick Lanchester built what is considered to have been Britain’s first four-wheel petrol car in Birmingham in 1895. There is a reason why Birmingham is often called the workshop of the world. There have already been driverless cars zipping up the M6 through my constituency, training the vehicles on highway driving. I would love local people to experience that at first hand. I will finish, as I know others want to speak. Yesterday, I experienced the future of driving. As the automated steering wheel turned itself and we manoeuvred deftly and safely around packed and unpredictable London streets, it felt as if that future was being built on firm ground. As with any new technology, there are risks that must be managed, but the safety, accessibility and economic benefits could be huge. The UK Government have been leading the way. I know the Minister is certainly not in auto-pilot mode as we continue to shape the self-driving century that is upon us.

• 11 Sept 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Sikh Helpline is a fantastic charity in my constituency that supports Sikhs and people from all backgrounds with abuse, addiction and mental health issues. Over the summer, it did a 350-mile bike ride from Scotland to West Brom to raise money. Will the Leader of the House congratulate all the riders who took part and make time for a debate on the importance of such civil society organisations?