Tim Farron MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Saudi East-West Oil Pipeline · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question) : To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if she will make a statement on the implications of the closure of the Saudi east-west oil pipeline for UK energy security, fuel prices and global oil supply, and on the steps the Government are taking in response.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Saudi East-West Oil Pipeline · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his reply. Saudi’s closure of the 1,200 km east-west pipeline is a massive blow. The pipeline allowed Saudi Arabia to export millions of barrels of crude a day, and it has been the key alternative route to the strait of Hormuz since Donald Trump’s war led to its regular closure. The closure has predictably led to further increases in already high oil prices, which stand at $106 a barrel just today. We have reports that Saudi Arabia could exhaust crude available for export within days unless that pipeline resumes operation. The consequences are huge for my constituents and everybody else’s. We are already paying through the nose for fuel as a result of the war in Iran, and they are now being hit by even higher prices because of this closure. Rural communities relying on heating oil are especially vulnerable to shortages and price hikes. The impact on farmers and food production could do further damage to the UK’s food security. The tragic reality is that while the UK will struggle if the pipeline is not reopened, this could mean starvation for millions on the African continent. The latest crisis puts a further spotlight on our failure as a country to be energy secure. Even those few people who are not yet convinced that climate change is real and needs tackling surely now understand that energy security really matters. Neither Houthi rebels nor Putin nor Iran nor Trump can turn off our waves, wind, sunshine or nuclear industry. It is time for siren voices to stop whining about wokery and start focusing on security. So I ask the Minister, what oil reserves does the United Kingdom have? Will the Government accelerate domestic energy generation? Will they implement a 10p temporary fuel duty cut, and cuts in bus and rail fares, so that people in Cumbria and across the country are not plunged into further hardship as a result of this crisis? What plans does the Minister have to accelerate the warm homes plan, which, sadly, has insulated only 0.3% of the expected homes this year—especially in communities such as mine, where a quarter of the housing stock was built before 1900 and is in need of more bespoke solutions? What will he do to introduce an energy price cap for heating oil, and what extra work is he doing with our allies in the middle east and NATO to ensure that the pipeline reopens as soon as possible?

• 15 Sept 2026 · English Whisky: Single Malt Definition · Hansard source

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  English whisky rightly has a growing reputation, and it is right that it should have geographical indication status. I confess to being a single malt enjoyer myself, as well as the owner of a decent collection, including a fine bottle of Lindores. I am also an avid supporter of the annual Kendal whisky festival, where Cumbria whisky distilleries proudly tout their wares alongside whiskies from all parts of the British Isles, and indeed beyond. So English whisky is good, and English whisky from the lakes is even better. However, DEFRA’s proposed criteria for English whisky are not good, nor is the tiny appeal period on that status. To put it bluntly, English whisky is too good to be held to this low a standard. It will damage the English whisky brand and, in turn, impact on the brand and reputation of Scotch whisky, along with whiskies from Wales and Ireland. It is also quite wrong for this consultation and the appeal period to be open for only two parliamentary sitting days. Without this urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), there would have been no parliamentary scrutiny of this at all, and even with this question, the appeal period is far too brief or fair to be adequate. I urge the Minister to think again.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Curriculum and Assessment Review · Hansard source

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  indicated assent.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Curriculum and Assessment Review · Hansard source

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  I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for her Bill. I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to the recent change of the law by the Scottish Parliament that entitles every young person at school to five days outdoors with four nights in residential accommodation, which brings massive benefits to their resilience, love of learning and capacity to work together in teams. Given that 81% of children from the poorest backgrounds never get access to outdoor education, is it not time that we considered doing something similar?

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Coercive control is by definition insidious, and we do not find out about it until years later—the victim themselves might not even be aware of it until years later. With assisted dying, a victim of coercive control would have no “years later”, would they?

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the excellent points he is making. Let me add that in Lancashire and south Cumbria, only 29% of cancer patients get access to radiotherapy. He will be aware the Government’s target is that 85% of people diagnosed with cancer should be treated within 62 days, but only 41% of patients who are recommended radiotherapy get treated in those 62 days. He will also know that for every four weeks of delay in cancer treatment, there is a 10% lower chance of survival. Should the Government not accept new clause 114 to make it mandatory for people to be treated within two months so that they get the best chance of survival?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Housing Revenue Account: Council Houses · Hansard source

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  The average house price in my constituency is 12 times average household incomes, so the desperate need for more social housing is plain for everyone to see. Westmorland and Furness Council does now have a housing revenue account, inherited from the previous Barrow borough council, but it is unlikely to spend any of that money—unlikely to build council houses—while the right to buy remains unfettered. If council houses are built in the lakes and the dales, they will be sold, and they will become Airbnbs and second homes before the year is out. What will the Government do to encourage the likes of my local authority to build with confidence that people can have affordable homes that they can guarantee will remain so?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  Will the Secretary of State confirm that the mayoral election in Cumbria will go ahead as planned and that the planned combined authority will be introduced without further hindrance, disruption or uncertainty? Will she also take this opportunity to review the other mistake that this Government have made on devolution in the last couple of years: the errors when it comes to what is referred to, wrongly, as “fairer funding”? Westmorland and Furness is the most rural unitary authority in England, and for that crime it has borne the penalty of a 31% cut in its funding from the Government, meaning that devolution no longer looks like devolution of power and instead looks more like a delegation of cuts for the people of Cumbria.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Direction of Government · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) asked the Prime Minister about bluetongue. He gave an answer about farming, but he will recall that he did not address the issue directly. He was elected for the first time to this place in 2001—I welcome him back—in the election that was postponed because of the foot and mouth disease outbreak. There are 754 reported cases of bluetongue in Great Britain already. It takes three weeks after the first dose of vaccine for sheep to become immune, and six weeks for cattle. This is an animal welfare disaster, a human tragedy, and a farm business nightmare. Will the Prime Minister make the tackling of bluetongue and the immediate delivery of the vaccine an urgent priority for him and his Government?

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  This Bill is riddled with bogus context and false premises, as are most debates on this issue. It is worth bearing in mind that the majority of European Union countries take more asylum seekers per head than the United Kingdom. We heard from the Conservative Front Benchers this stuff about young men coming here in disproportionate numbers as irregular migrants. I just want to tell the House a little story on that, which I am sure the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) will also recall. Just over a year ago, we went to Cairo, where we met some young women, mostly refugees from Sudan. One of them was presented to us as the chair of the young mothers group—it all sounded very lovely. It turned out, though, that every single person in that young mothers group had been a victim of sexual violence between the ages of 14 and 20. There are reasons why women do not end up on these boats, and do not take those risky journeys. I wish that we could have a debate on the reality of fleeing for your life from war-torn circumstances. The problem with this Bill is that it is a set of proposed changes that are a combination of the ineffective, the performative and the cruel. Let us start off with the new appeals body. We already see 40% of decisions successfully appealed. How does it make any sense to reduce the quality of the decision-making process now? They tried the same thing in Australia, and it clogged up the system even further. On article 8, 382 applications under the ECHR were decided against the Government in the last 10 years. How many of those were under article 8? Just one. Again, the Government are being performative, and are not tackling the issue. When all is said and done, human rights matter for all of us. To throw them out of the window because of a few difficult cases is to throw human rights out of the window entirely. Telling asylum seekers who have been successfully granted refugee status that they will have to repay the cost of their asylum is performative and cruel. This Government are refusing to allow asylum seekers the right to work.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  I certainly think that people who are seeking asylum in this country should be given the right to work. First, it will help them to integrate, if their asylum claim is successful; secondly, it will enable them to cover the cost of their accommodation and many other things while they are here. How cruel it is to tell people who have gone through goodness knows what and have been granted refugee status that they have to pay it all back. We do not make British prisoners pay back the cost of their time in prison, but we are going to do this to asylum seekers. Again, this is performative and cruel, and it will probably end up costing as much to administer as it would bring in. Victims of modern slavery are terrified of their captors. They are often under coercion, and may not realise that they are victims of modern slavery until much later, so giving people only a handful of days to declare themselves victims is cruel and, again, performative. There is nothing in this Bill to undo or relax the moratorium on family reunion, which is a safe route. Nine times out of 10, the beneficiaries of that safe route are women and girls. The failure to restore family reunion is a deliberate decision to remove a safe route that would have been a good and positive way to counter the need for people to cross the channel irregularly. For the Government to give raw meat to people who will never vote for them anyway—to people who already take the view that immigration and immigrants are bad—is utterly and totally pointless and counterproductive. When the last Government—some of whom are in the Reform party now—did this kind of thing, I thought it was despicable, but at least they meant it.

• 13 Jul 2026 · State of Climate and Nature · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for early sight of the statement. On my way into Kendal this morning, before I came down to Parliament, I observed the jarring reality of fields yellowing in the dry heat and the River Kent so low that I could see the bedrock. Alongside it, defensive walls were being built on the banks of the river in the aftermath of devastating floods—a reminder that climate change has brought extreme weather. It has brought different threats at different times, but they have been equally challenging and dangerous. I am afraid that those who continue to deny climate change look more foolish by the day. We see the danger of climate change especially in the terrifying wildfires in the Peak district—a reminder that we do not protect nature if we completely remove livestock and the human beings that manage nature. The Government aim to reclaim 30% of our land and seas for nature. I welcome that, and much of the action plan, but 70% of England’s landmass is agricultural land. Does the Minister agree that we must start by ensuring that all farmers have access to environmental schemes—not just those who apply for them the quickest? Will she give more detail on the welcome proposal that the Liberal Democrats have long fought for to now permit those who farm common land to access payments to help restore nature in our most precious landscapes like the Lake district, the Peaks and Dartmoor? Farmers estimate that hot weather this year will cost them 20% of their harvest. What is the Minister’s plan to remove barriers so that farmers can build on-farm reservoirs and take other measures that will protect our natural environment and food security? Finally, if the Government want to meet their targets—we really want them to—are they not being unwise in their rush to deregulate on planning? Should we not be increasing the ability of local communities to resist the destruction of nature and to have greater power to direct developers to protect and enhance nature rather than being at the whim of those whose only motive is profit?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Waste Crime Action Plan · Hansard source

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  My constituents who live close to the Flusco landfill site in Newbiggin are one of many communities right across the country bearing the brunt of this nationwide scandal. The owners of the site—a legitimate one on paper—have been judged to have flagrantly broken environmental regulations. Like many other sites, this one has been ineffectively regulated and poorly policed. Residents cannot leave out their washing or let their kids play outside. In this heat especially, the stench can be unbearable, and the leachate and gases utterly intolerable. Meanwhile, the country is being ripped off as the Government’s landfill taxes are being flouted to the tune of at least £1 billion every year. Will the Government act urgently and powerfully to help my constituents and all those living near landfill sites, which in recent years have become toxic in every sense?

• 7 Jul 2026 · Summer Jobs · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 7 Jul 2026 · Summer Jobs · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making some important points. Obviously, in some parts of the world, including mine, many jobs are on offer but it is hard for young people to take them up. Some 60% of employers in the hospitality and tourism industry in the Lake District find it difficult to recruit staff. One reason is the lack of public transport to get young people to the places where they are needed. Another reason is the lack of affordable housing. Does he recognise that this is a structural problem affecting young people everywhere, but particularly in rural areas such as Cumbria?

• 7 Jul 2026 · Summer Jobs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She mentioned the youth mobility scheme. At present, the UK has youth mobility visa arrangements with a number of countries around the world, but with only one country in Europe, Andorra, which is a fat lot of good. As I mentioned, those in the hospital sector desperately need to recruit more staff. A youth mobility scheme arranged with our neighbours in the European Union would enable young people in this country to gain experience overseas, but would also enable the hospitality sector in the Lakes, in London and elsewhere to recruit the staff who they need to work over the summer.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Summer Jobs · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and for raising the issue of the tourism levy. We will have a mayor in Cumbria next May, and one of the considerations they will have is the fact that we have 20 million visitors every year to a county of 600,000 people. Those visitors use facilities in our communities—police, hospitals and many council facilities, not least the roads. They are very welcome to use those facilities, but not a penny is contributed towards them. I think people will instinctively be against a tourism tax, but the Government’s choice to cut the local authority’s funding by 31% is going to put the mayor—of whatever political colour—in a position where they feel they have no alternative but to introduce it. Would it not be better if mayors were able to make decisions and have our services funded properly by taking into account the visitors in the first place?

• 30 Jun 2026 · High Streets · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. I concur with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The removal of banks from our high streets and village centres in Westmorland has had a huge impact. The relationship with post offices is important. High street banks have saved about £2 billion every single year by evacuating our town and village centres. For doing their work, post offices receive from the banks merely £350 million a year, less than 20% of that saving. Does the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) agree that to underpin our post offices, which are the centre of our village and town centres, the banks need to pay more of what they have saved?

• 30 Jun 2026 · Antisemitism: University Campuses · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your guidance in the Chair this afternoon, Sir John, and a genuine privilege to follow the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards); I congratulate him on making an excellent speech, on putting this issue forward and on giving it the prominence that it deserves. Like him, I was a sabbatical union officer—some time before him, I suspect. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, I was a member of the national executive of the National Union of Students, when the marvellous Maeve Sherlock, now Baroness Sherlock, was president, followed a year after by a friend of many of us here, Stephen Twigg. I remember the role that the Union of Jewish Students played not just through the Jewish society in Newcastle University, where I went, but nationally. It was a place where I felt safe as a non-Jewish person spending time with Jewish students who just wanted to talk about the things that students mulled over in the late ’80s—normally the fate of Margaret Thatcher and other such things. I was aware even then, in a perhaps less fevered time, of the threats to Jewish people, as someone who comes from a gentile background and a relatively non-diverse part of north-west England. As I became friends with many in the JSoc at Newcastle, I understood what it means to live life as a Jewish person and the persecution that is always around the corner. Antisemitism is perhaps the oldest and most insidious form of racism—and all forms of racism are thoroughly evil. I pay tribute to the UJS again today for the work it is doing in even more fevered and dangerous times: supporting its members, reassuring Jewish families and challenging university establishments so that they actively take care of Jewish students and positively fight against antisemitism on campuses. I recall being in this place a week or a fortnight after the 7 October pogrom. I was in Portcullis House at about 8 o’clock in the evening, and saw two Jewish friends of mine having a cup of tea in the atrium, as everything else had closed. “Why are you still here at this time?” I asked them, and their answer was, “I don’t feel safe going out in this”—there were, of course, anti-Israel, pro-Palestine protests taking place on the street right around Westminster. As the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley said, it is perfectly legitimate to strongly criticise the Israeli Government; I do it all the time. Netanyahu is an appalling man and the current Israeli Government are guilty of all sorts of terrible actions. That is probably the view of the majority of citizens in Israel, and we await an election there with some eagerness. Nevertheless, let us remind ourselves what it means for two young Jewish people to feel that they cannot leave this building when there are protests of that sort going on outside. Give me all the what ifs and what abouts—that does not change the fact that two Jewish people felt unsafe walking on our streets. All of us here have security at our surgeries these days. We regret that we have to have it, but after the deaths of our dear friends Jo Cox and David Amess, we accept it. Last week, I was talking to the security guard at my surgery in Kendal. He said his work has increasingly been around Greater Manchester supporting Jewish communities at primary school gates and synagogues. It occurred to me that I can just walk into our local primary school and go to my church without any thought whatsoever of security. Yet for some Jewish people in our communities, these are not safe spaces to go. We have heard accurate reports of Jewish children who go to Jewish schools being told not to wear their uniform on public transport. That should make us shudder and feel totally appalled. In the past couple of years, I have been privileged, as many Members have, to meet with the hostages’ families. We post supportive comments on social media and then see the bile we get for having done that. That gives us a tiny fraction of a sense of what it must be like to be Jewish in this utterly toxic environment. Earlier this year, I was privileged to do something that I had never done before: I took advantage of a four-day visit to the west bank and Israel. I am obviously not an expert from having spent that time there, but it gave me great insight. It gave me the opportunity to meet with victims of the Nova festival massacre and visit a kibbutz where Hamas murderers—racist, violent thugs—attacked and murdered people in front of their children and children in front of their parents. I got a sense of why the people of Israel feel a sense of utter and complete collective trauma. Unless we understand that, we will not have wise reactions to what is happening. Again, that does not change the fact that I am a complete opponent of the current Israeli Government, but we can separate that from the question of believing that the state of Israel has a right to exist and the people of Israel have a right to self-determination. I saw how appalling the illegal settlements on the west bank are. I saw how the Israeli Government withholds tax money from the Palestinian Authority in the west bank. That is costing schools and hospitals and causing active harm. I spoke to many Palestinians and saw many things that I am deeply angry at the Israeli Government for, but I also saw a country that is the only liberal democracy in the middle east, which we should be careful to respect. I also recognise how important Israel is in the hearts and minds of so many Jewish people around the world and in this country. If we conflate the Jewish people with the state of Israel, and especially with the actions of the current Israeli Government, we will have sadly tip-toed, if not strode confidently, into antisemitism. The Minister will be unsurprised to hear me ask: what can we proactively do to tackle antisemitism in education? My constituency may not be the most diverse, but, as the Minister and hon. Members will know, it is the place where half of the children who survived the Nazi death camps were rehabilitated in August 1945. They are collectively known as the Windermere children, and we are deeply proud of their legacy. Some are still with us, but sadly most have now passed on. Their story is one of the horrors of the consequences of antisemitism in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, but there is a little extra something to the story of the Windermere children. It is a story not just of the horror of the death camps and of where antisemitism can lead, but of hope and what it meant for those young people when they began life on the banks of Windermere in my constituency. Those young people, in their own words, went “from hell to heaven.” They went from the horrors they had experienced to being welcomed by a country that they fell in love with, served and became utterly committed citizens of. That is a reminder of what is true about Britain—certainly in my community, and everywhere else as well. In our hearts, we are an accepting and tolerant people. That does not apply only to our Jewish communities, of whom we are deeply proud. As the Minister knows, we have put a bid in to honour the lasting legacy of the Windermere children by rebuilding the Lakes school on the site where they lived. It will be a place for Holocaust education and remembrance, where hope can be built for a country that does not tolerate antisemitism and where we teach a hatred of hatred to the youngest in our society. That is a real opportunity, and I ask the Minister to look favourably on the bid to rebuild the school and create a lasting memorial to the Windermere children. Antisemitism is with us in every single generation, as is racism of all kinds, and that makes me angry, but it is our job to sow the seeds to tackle antisemitism from the youngest possible age and to declare proudly that this is a country where we welcome our Jewish family and friends—our brothers and sisters—and that we support and stand alongside them against the scourge of antisemitism.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Asylum Accommodation · Hansard source

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  The use of hotels for warehousing asylum seekers is expensive for the taxpayer and utterly miserable for the people who are stuck there waiting for their asylum cases to be heard. Does the Minister share my fear that the atmosphere of hostility towards those seeking asylum is hurting those who desperately need sanctuary. I have an Iranian constituent who is a critic of the regime and a Christian convert—and therefore guilty of apostasy under Iranian law. By any stretch of the imagination, they cannot safely be returned to Iran, but they face that fate unless their case is accepted. Will the Minister look at that case and, more broadly, ensure that genuine refugees do not become victims of political posturing?

• 29 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit: People in Employment · Hansard source

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  The University of Cumbria has shown that average hill farm incomes are less than the national minimum wage in our communities and beyond. Despite their poverty, farmers of all kinds and small businesses often cannot claim universal credit at all because of the way that universal credit is assessed on the basis of monthly income, when they might have fluctuating annual income. Will the Minister meet me and farmers’ representatives to ensure that farmers in poverty get the support that they deserve?

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

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  I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of her statement and I echo her thanks to Baroness Batters for her fantastic work on this issue. I also welcome the relatively new Farming Minister, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), to his place. The Liberal Democrats welcome the production of a long-term vision for farming and look forward to engaging with Ministers on the details. The road map rightly states that “food production will remain the primary purpose of funding”, but it continues to leave England as the outlier. It is now the only country in Europe with a farm payment system that does not actively support farmers to produce food. The consequences are as inevitable as they are inexcusable: the loss of farm businesses and the loss of food security at this dangerous time. I ask the Secretary of State to think again. The road map also rightly observes the unfairness in the system, and that unfairness to farmers is a block to increasing output. Dairy farmers, especially, are right now being forced into ruin and despair because of unfair and sudden changes to farmgate prices, but there is no plan to strengthen or unify the Groceries Code Adjudicator and the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator, two frankly weak and under-resourced referees with too few powers to protect our farmers from the abuse of market power from supermarkets and processors. Will the Secretary of State act, and if so when, to give us a strong referee to protect our farmers? The reopening of the SFI is welcome, as is the update on the upland review, but still the Government insist on a first-come-first-served application process which always disadvantages our poorest farmers. On the uplands, the continued failure to provide support for common land is leaving our most precious landscapes, which make up 25% of the land mass of my constituency in the Lakes and the Dales at the risk of wildfires and biodiversity collapse, while our upland farmers sink into greater poverty. Is the road map not warm words but cold comfort for the uplands? The review fails to put into practice the recommendations, in any serious way, of the Rock review on farm tenancies. [ Interruption. ] I will come to a conclusion. Does the Secretary of State not see that if tenants do not have protected long-term tenancies of at least eight years, they will have no chance of meeting the long-term environmental goals? Will she protect tenants from being evicted from their land in order to meet those goals? Very finally, this is a report—

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

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  The hon. Gentleman is right to hold the Government to account, because the plan is massively delayed. He is surely aware that all of us here, including those from my party, who spent time in government in the last few years, know that ever since the fall of the Berlin wall, we have been complacent as a country about the scale of the threat we face. Do not all parties need to recognise that? We have the smallest Army since Napoleonic times. We have 8,000 drones in stock, while Ukraine is using 8,000 drones a day. Is it not time that we worked together across the parties to make sure we defend our country in the way we all need to in the years to come?