Tom Collins MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 3 Sept 2025 · Diabetes in Sport · Hansard source

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  Diabetes is a disability that is often hidden and not well understood, and people with it suffer from all the stigma that my hon. Friend has described so well. It is complex to manage, especially being metabolic, and especially in relation to sport, so listening to parents and families, and young people and others with diabetes, is vital. We have benefited in Worcester from the fantastic Warriors Foundation and the Chris Pennell rugby academy, and I have seen the incredible advantages they have brought for people with type 1 diabetes in our area. They have shown how sport can facilitate community, better awareness and better management of the condition for people with diabetes. Does my hon. Friend agree that in sport, diabetes should be managed at an elite level, so that there is a real opportunity for people with diabetes to own the condition and their sports performance?

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You have just mentioned that you are looking broadly at SAF production and how that is going to play out into the future. Compared with other northern European countries, the UK has excellent access to renewable energy, and we had a very early responding hydrogen industry. What do you see as the UK’s unique opportunities in SAF production? Ruben van Grinsven: There are two elements. One is the fundamentals: affordable renewable energy, other feedstocks, then the cost of building plants, labour, and everything else. At the moment, in terms of the fundamentals of renewable electricity, the UK does not have a clear advantage because power prices are slightly more expensive, and most of the renewable power in the UK is intermittent. That is an important thing that needs to be overcome. You have a slight disadvantage compared with, for instance, the Nordics, such as Sweden and Finland; they have a lot of hydro and stable baseload renewable power. On the fundamental side, especially for power, I think there are other places that are currently a bit more competitive. However, many of the other elements, such as feedstock supply, labour and knowledge, are quite similar. The biggest differentiator is probably the legislative and regulatory landscape. You are creating a market through mandates, which I think is extremely powerful. If you also increase investment certainty through an RCM, that element is unique and, at this point in time, very helpful.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q As you mentioned, this is an enabling Bill and what will really count is how the RCM rounds are designed. You have talked about the need for us to realise economies of scale and advances in technology as we move through larger and larger availability of feedstocks. Do you see that kind of mechanism as being a useful vehicle for us to make those economies of scale and bring that innovation to bear? Geoff Maynard: The short answer is yes, I do. I think it will be very effective. As many previous witnesses have said, it provides a guarantee to investors that they will get a return on their money. A point that perhaps has not been made is that it gives quite a lot of authority to the Secretary of State. If he sees that the process of moving to SAF is slowing, he can instruct the counterparty to let additional contracts and thus speed up the process and the amount that we have. There is a considerable degree of confidence that, properly used, it will produce the desired results.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q We heard some of the evidence about how effective the RCM could be in light of the difference that CfDs have made. You have already explained how to manage the levers and the number of contracts allocated to get the economics right, but can you explain how that sits alongside the SAF mandate to help us to steer UK innovation and maximise the opportunities for the UK to lead in this sector? Mike Kane: When we came into Government in July, we had two key aviation policies. The first was airspace modernisation, and we set up the UK Airspace Design Service and passed it into legislation just the other week. In addition to improving resilience in our skies, we hope that that measure will stop planes circling and allow those that currently do not fly in a straight line to fly in a straight line, which reduces the cost of fuel—to go back to the shadow Minister’s point. Lahiru from easyJet said in his evidence that the best energy is the energy we do not use, and airspace modernisation helps us with that piece. The second part of our manifesto commitment was SAF. After we were elected, we laid the mandate for 2% of all aviation fuel in the UK to be SAF. That came into force on 1 January. Airlines are sourcing SAF and getting supplies of it, but too much of it comes from abroad. While we have a good industry in the UK, companies need the confidence to scale it up. I will make no party political points, but four or five years ago we were promised that by 2025 five plants would be up and running. If I were going there, I would not be starting from here, but we are getting on with doing this now. I think everyone on this Committee can be extraordinarily proud that this will be the moment that we stepped up and began to decarbonise the aviation industry.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q As someone who works in research and innovation, you will be familiar with the UK pain point, where we are often excellent at planning the technologies at low technology readiness levels, and then we lose them to that mid-level valley of death. The UK is strong in sustainable fuels at the research level; this mechanism is intended to help us to navigate through the valley of death, and to reach scale and economic viability. Do you think it is a good mechanism for that and that it will help us to break that trend in the UK? Professor Maslin : Other levy systems that have been used in the energy sector have been very successful, so I am personally very positive about this because it gives a guarantee. We have seen what I call the solar rollercoaster: suddenly everyone has solar panels, and then suddenly all the companies go bust. What you are doing, very sensibly, is trying to level those bumps in the road. That worked for offshore wind and it should work for this, but there also needs to be support through other mechanisms, such as R&D and mechanisms designed to support small and medium-sized enterprises, so they can get the research they need, to go from “Wow! That’s a brilliant idea!” to being world leading. This is a great mechanism, but the Government need to use the other mechanisms to fund those companies to develop as well.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You have mentioned that the UK is taking a strong leadership position on this stepping-stone technology with SAF. If the UK were to prepare itself now, early on, to be in a leadership position in sustainable aviation using hydrogen, what do you think that would look like? Matt Gorman: I think it would look broadly like what the UK is doing. We think about it in three buckets: the plane, the airport infrastructure and the regulatory environment. It is worth remembering that UK aerospace is one of the jewels in the crown of our manufacturing sector. We have a very long history in aerospace, and the Aerospace Technology Institute funds some of that technology development alongside the private sector. That is important. With airport infrastructure, we have always said, certainly for Heathrow, that we do not want to be a blocker. We do not want a hydrogen plane to be designed but not able to fill up at our airport. We keep an active watching brief on technology developments. We have taken a stand at Heathrow to trial hydrogen technology so that we can understand and build understanding. That is partly to influence the regulatory environment so that we are supporting the roll-out of hydrogen. The latest views from manufacturers are that we will probably start small with hydrogen—small plane sizes and small ranges—and build confidence there before getting bigger. However, that could play a real role in domestic connectivity. I think we are doing the right things, but it is a both/and with SAF and hydrogen, not an either/or. I would also say that SAF is the solution that we know exists today and that we can deploy today, so we need to get it moving.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Obviously, Innovate UK is our key player in that space. Do you see it as active in this space? Is there anything you would like to see us doing slightly differently to support SMEs and innovators better? Professor Maslin : I have been very lucky, because in the past I have been able to get funding from Innovate UK and even from the TSB before that—that is how old I am. Innovate UK needs direction, with top-down prioritisation of this sector for the UK. Sometimes Innovate UK has stuff coming in, then selects what it thinks is good, but I think you need to mandate, in concert with the Bill, that it focuses on SAFs and makes that one of its priorities.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You have talked a little about this already, but I am interested in the conditions you are operating in and the constraints you are facing. You mentioned regulations and planning, but I am also interested in the availability and maturity of standards and the particular different types of biofuel. I am also interested in how you store intermediates and if there are any issues around that, because I have heard from others that there is perhaps a lack of regulation on the safe storage of some of these intermediates. I do not know whether you are using hydrogen for upgrading at all, but I am interested in whether you have a vision for a future UK hydrogen system, and what that might look like. Noaman Al Adhami: In terms of standards, as I mentioned before, our route is approved as per the ASTM route. The rest of the standards—mainly on feedstock—are already there in the SAF mandate with all the details, and we are complying with that. I think one of the big advantages of SAF, compared with other means of decarbonising aviation, is that it is a drop-in fuel. It is a liquid fuel, very similar to the jet fuel kerosene, so it is easy to store and transport; you can use existing pipelines. Obligated parties, whom we may potentially supply with SAF, have the capability to blend it. Currently, it can be blended up to 50% drop-in, and they can do so using the infrastructure that is already available. If you compare hydrogen with SAF, SAF is much easier, because you can use the existing infrastructure in airports, storage and logistics. To be frank, we do not see any challenge there in Teesside, which is an industrial area with storage facilities. We do not see any issues. With hydrogen, as I explained, we can use hydrogen not necessarily to power the plane directly, but we can certainly use it to boost production of SAF. That is possible. I have the CO that I mentioned earlier, which I am currently capturing to reduce carbon intensity. I can convert this to CO, mix it with hydrogen, and produce more SAF. The issue in the UK is the cost of producing green hydrogen. We, as a global developer of renewables, know the cost of producing green hydrogen in the UK is very high. If you have this valuable green electron, is it better from an efficiency perspective to use it to electrify cars and heat homes, where you can get up to 80% efficiency, or to produce fuel at 30% or 40% efficiency? But things are happening; once hydrogen storage and production costs advance—we think perhaps between 2035 to 2040—hydrogen will potentially be available in quantities. We will need large quantities, of course: for our project alone, we will need 1 gigawatt of hydrogen to fully utilise the biogenic carbon we produce.

• 14 Jul 2025 · State of Climate and Nature · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for placing this issue on the agenda. Nothing could be more existential or vital than tackling our climate and nature crises, because we live within the natural system, not outside it. We and nature are in this together, and nothing could be more important, or better for building the foundation of how we shape our communities and economy into the future. Industry understands that, and I have had the chance to convene industry and bring forward ideas such as the diversification of technologies, which we support, and the build-up of strategic national clean energy reserves. Would the Secretary of State meet me to discuss those ideas that are coming from industry?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Heathrow Substation Outage: NESO Review · Hansard source

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  Like any serious incident, this one had multiple causes, both operational and relating to design. I urge the Minister to ensure that the lessons learned are applied not only to electricity transmission and distribution sites, but to energy storage sites, for which we have an absence of standards. He rightly mentioned the need for redundancy and flexibility in our electricity systems, and the need to avoid having single points of failure. That applies well to large pieces of essential infrastructure, but is harder with our distributed critical infrastructure, for example around telecommunications, so we need diversity in our energy system as a whole. Does he agree that in our energy system, we need widespread availability from multiple parts of the energy sector, with electricity being backed up by, for example, hydrogen and ammonia?

• 23 Jun 2025 · UK Modern Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  As an engineer, I am incredibly excited by the vision of engineering, industrial and innovation renewal that the Secretary of State is describing. In Worcester, we have a mission to make ourselves the best city in the best country in the world to start and grow a business. Time and again, though, the funds and research facilities intended to support innovation have not worked for our local businesses, and there has been a lack of support for mid-technology readiness level technologies. How will this strategy help businesses across the country to bridge the valley of death and grow in this decade of renewal?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Future of the Gas Grid · Hansard source

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  I take this opportunity to wish my hon. Friend and office mate a very happy birthday. This is a very important debate, and I am grateful to him for securing it. I am looking forward to the discussion and I have much to share later, but for now I emphasise how timely the debate is as we face uncertainty in national security and a huge energy transition that will create opportunities as well as challenges.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Future of the Gas Grid · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. What better birthday present could my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) have than debating such a crucial and timely topic? I anticipate that perhaps, as he blows out the candles on his cake, as someone who cares deeply about the energy transition, he might wish for something remarkably similar to a clean and green national gas network. Electrification is inevitably going to be a go-to tool for decarbonising many parts of our economy, but it is equally clear that it cannot do everything. First, gas can do things that electricity cannot. Industry needs it: around half a million businesses in the UK currently rely on gas for their operations, and around 30% of those say that electrification is simply not feasible for them, technically or economically. Those businesses are spread across our nation, not just in clusters, so a national gas system is the only way for UK industry to not only survive but thrive. Secondly, our national security depends on us having a multi-vector energy system. The UK has always ensured that homes, businesses and critical infrastructure have multiple energy sources available, typically electricity and either gas or oil fuels. As the world becomes increasingly uncertain and dangerous, now is not the time to roll back on the essential principles of security and resilience. Thirdly, as we face the challenge of rapidly delivering an energy transition, gas provides us with vital flexibility and optionality, which means that we can make it over the finish line in our target time. Industry, transport and heat are all transitioning with uncertainty about the final mix of technologies. Government can secure the successful transition not by picking technologies to win or lose but by specifying a clear set of core energy vectors for the transition and investing in their core infrastructure. I put on record that those might be, for example, electricity, hydrogen and ammonia. As a case in point, my hon. Friend mentioned that his installation of a heat pump was fairly typical, costing around £15,000. My discussions with industry indicate that the installation of a hybrid heating system, even a new one, would typically come in at under £7,000—a significant difference in the up-front cost, which is a major barrier for homeowners. Alongside that, installation times are shorter, and homeowners avoid the need to install hot water storage tanks or replace radiators. Industry has already indicated that it will be ready, in four years, to make all its boilers 100% hydrogen-ready. It also indicated to a previous Secretary of State that it would provide price equivalence with the products in existence then. I recognise that the Climate Change Committee has tried to move us along by suggesting that there is no role for gas in the future of heat, but as someone who spent my entire career trying to decarbonise heat, I would humbly say that, although that guidance was well intended, it might be misguided. Even as electricity remains our primary energy vector, reliable energy generation depends on large-scale energy storage, and that means gas. A system that can produce, store and utilise clean gas is vital for electrification to be successful. Although gas is seen as cheap and dirty today, it does not have to remain so tomorrow. Its versatility means that it will be a valuable resource in the future. While forecasts are for the cost of clean gas to reduce dramatically in the future, its role will be one where its value is recognised, and cost parity with today is not a prerequisite for a future clean gas market. Private capital has successfully been released to deliver billions of pounds of investment into our gas networks, making them safe, fit for the future, and ready for future gases such as hydrogen and methane. More capital stands poised and ready to be invested. However, our previous Government, who should be congratulated on putting the UK in a leading position for a few years in the 2010s, then created a cloud of uncertainty that has left our gas industry in limbo. Our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower should be a powerful beacon that burns that uncertainty away, but it must include a tangible future role for the gas networks in our envisaged energy system. Ambition must be converted into some techno-economic goals that are clear and certain. For gas, that means committing to two things: storage and transportation. The prize is for the UK to once again lead and be an innovating leader in a new global energy outlook. It has become dazzlingly clear from my discussions with industry that storage is a key enabler. It provides a price and a sink for producers to make clean gas, and a price and a source for users to plan their transition. It could be delivered by establishing and planning a progressive build-out of a strategic national clean energy reserve, which could utilise private capital but, crucially, be publicly commissioned, operating in the national interest for resilience and stable markets. For those markets to develop, storage must be backed up by transportation. Fortunately, that solution already exists in our world-leading gas networks and can be completed through the delivery of a national hydrogen backbone. We could make a decision on blending now, and that would unlock those markets and allow for the large-scale production of clean gas. The key signal to unlock all that is reassurance from the Government that the gas system, having transitioned to low-carbon gas, has a future for decades to come. That single declaration—one line that says, “We can see clean gas playing a role in the energy future of our towns and cities”—would be transformational. With it, we can ensure that the industrial economy spread across our country has a sure and hopeful future of opportunity and renewal. With it, we can ensure that the UK’s energy system is resilient, robust, secure and a source of strength, not vulnerability, in our national security. With it, we can deliver a deep and rapid energy transition through agility, partnership and UK innovation. With it, we will be on a strong pathway to making the UK a clean energy superpower.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Outdoor Education · Hansard source

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  The incredible outdoor educators we have in and around Worcester, including the Bramblewood Project, have shown just how transformative outdoor education can be for students who would otherwise struggle to engage with education. We have seen incredible impacts on children with special educational needs and disabilities, but every child and every person can benefit from a real and living relationship with nature. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that outdoor education should be not alternative provision, but provision?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Grenfell Tower Fire: Eighth Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Last week, the residents of more than 40 flats in Barbourne Works, Worcester, were suddenly evicted after an inspection of unremediated cladding found such severe fire hazards that an immediate prohibition notice was issued. How that was able to happen is a question that must be answered. In the meantime, does the Minister agree that the building managers—in this case, FirstPort—must put residents first, and must not be allowed to let legal disputes or the allocation of blame slow down the urgent work of making the building safe and allowing residents to return home?

• 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 14 May 2025 · Infected Blood Inquiry: Government Response · Hansard source

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  Families in Worcester have spent years in limbo, grieving the loss of loved ones while navigating decades of delays and bureaucratic mazes that were handed down by the very systems intended to support them. I therefore welcome this statement of ambition in urgently delivering compensation and justice to those both infected and affected. The changes outlined at the end of March relating to people who lose their spouses as a result of infected blood are causing anxiety in my constituency. My constituents are concerned that the injustice of delay will be extended to them more severely than to others. Will the Paymaster General reassure widows and widowers whose spouses die from April this year that they will not be waiting years and years for support payments?

• 6 May 2025 · Energy Resilience · Hansard source

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  Yes, diverse energy sources will be critical for future system resilience. The Minister has clearly shown that the operational constraints for a robust electricity grid are known and in hand. The challenges of a future electricity system go far beyond those we face today. Three quarters of a century ago, when our energy systems were built in the shadow of world wars, resilience was front and centre, but the guiding star was efficiency, ensuring that energy taken from the ground was transferred with minimal loss. The defining challenge of tomorrow is to take energy that appears in places and at times determined by the weather, and deliver it in places and at times determined by the people who depend on it.

• 6 May 2025 · Energy Resilience · Hansard source

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  I agree that with the correct technology, those systems can provide local resilience. The fundamental change to the core role of the energy system has been from efficiency to storage. How we achieve that future system is already well debated. We start with energy efficiency and insulation, then we move on to shifting the time of demands, and we can enhance that with intraday storage in some buildings. The way we actively control and manage the response to demands and our storage is the big question for the future electricity system. Currently, moment-by-moment control is achieved technically using the A/C power itself as a signal. Control over longer time bases is co-ordinated and partially directed through markets. In the future, we expect markets to play a bigger part in our electricity system, working in shorter timeframes and in a more distributed way. When we think about resilience, the design of our economic and commercial energy system and the digital systems that enact it will be absolutely critical. The commercial energy system will be as critical as the physical one. Whereas markets may be good for some resilience attributes such as flexibility and diversity, they are often bad for others, such as redundancy, continuity and headroom. Also, our new digital communications channels offer potential single points of failure for our system. This is a fundamental question of national security. In the light of a string of cyber-attacks, it is crucial that when our digital world fails, our heating, lights, sanitation and vehicles must not. Either our grid must not depend on signals such as dynamic pricing to keep working, or those signals must be multiple-fault tolerant. With distributed generators playing a larger role in future, avoiding cascade failures requires them to support graceful degradation instead of disconnecting in the face of uncertainty. This dynamic, digitally enabled future can introduce other risks, not only for resilience but for social equity. It must not penalise those who cannot afford battery storage, and each internal system boundary and each new pricing location threatens overall value. Alongside markets, our systems must incorporate core features that function primarily in the public interest. The system must be resilient against market-induced price instability and commercial failures, both for our security and for those markets to function healthily. That all misses the single largest and most novel component of our future energy system: clean, long-duration energy storage at scale—storage, not just for seconds through inertia, not just for minutes through demand-side response, and not just for a day or night through in-building storage, but intraweek and longer to ride through long stagnant weather events or other major disruptions. Today, our energy resilience is assured by the incredible flexibility and capacity of fuels: oil in transport and off-grid heat, and methane gas for heat in buildings and industry. Those fuels intrinsically store energy indefinitely and carry vast amounts of energy through simple infrastructure, such as pipes and tanks. Our gas system currently carries three times as much energy each year, and up to four times as much in a day as our total electricity system. It shares its energy storage capability with the electricity system through gas power stations, our core electricity resilience assets. We have found our dependency on gas to be a weakness, but only because we depend on it for our system’s strength. So, we face a crux. How might we win the energy resilience prize, benefiting from the clean versatility of electricity and the stabilising, security-critical storage capability of fuel? There is one answer that the UK has itself pioneered. There is a fuel that is carbon-free and 100% interoperable with electricity, and capable of being manufactured from electricity and cleanly converted back into it again at will: hydrogen. The Government, and others, have spotted the unique potential of hydrogen to fuel a clean and secure future for British industry. I would argue that they could go further, enabling industrial renewal in and around national clusters, but also in our towns and suburbs. As we seek to secure a material supply chain, the UK could deploy our immense wind resource and become a circular economy material recovery superpower of Europe. Over recent years, however, the debate has become paralysed by an either/or question. Electrification and hydrogen have been presented in some sectors as mutually exclusive. Hydrogen has been presented as scarce and expensive. Policy has been asking whether the answer in various sectors is electrification or hydrogen, but the design answer is resounding and simple: it is both. These two energy vectors are complementary, with hydrogen power stations able to provide our grid with headroom, responsive generation and inertia, and hydrogen storage able to provide our national asset of inter-day and inter-week energy storage. Our future electricity system needs hydrogen, and at a vast scale. The truth of the matter is that hydrogen will be as cheap and abundant as we design it to be.

• 6 May 2025 · Energy Resilience · Hansard source

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  I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. I am so glad that Members have identified how critical it is that we have a diversity of energy sources, that we have energy storage, that these are distributed around our system, and that we invest ambitiously now to bring them into reality. Our energy system has always been multi-vector, and it must be in the future, too. By embracing this reality, we have an opportunity to design and choose how our electricity and gas systems are coupled: upstream through underground gas storage and power stations; mid-system with smaller distributed generators, including fuel cells; downstream in areas on constrained legs of the network; or perhaps even in homes through smart hybrid heating systems. We can deploy hydrogen production wherever it is most helpful: offshore, onshore, or at critical nodes in the transmission system. Pipe infrastructure is relatively low cost, high capacity and, being underground, intrinsically secure. The size of our supply of green hydrogen is our choice. If we choose constrained supply, we choose constrained growth. If we choose ambition and abundance, that will also be worked out in our economy. It is time to move on from old ways of thinking. There is virtually no risk of stranded assets; investment in both electrical capacity and hydrogen production is zero regret. The call to action for both sectors is simple: go big. That is, and must remain, the message of the Government. Now is the time to convert this ambition into concrete goals in the technical domain. Industry’s voice is clear: there is an urgent need for decision making. We must deliver our ambition not by iterative cycles of consultation, but rapidly through partnership. We need to short-circuit policy silos, get all the stakeholders in a room and thrash it out. We must be open to answers that back multiple technologies. Our problem is not that we need a silver bullet, but that we had one that was literally too good to be true. Moving on from fossil dependency means diversification. Historically, we have always relied on multiple energy vectors in homes to provide energy resilience. That is still an option now. It means moving away from questions of either/or to answers of both/and. Those decisions are not easy, but they can be made. The end point is not crystal clear, but it is sufficiently in focus. Our industrial community has the knowledge and evidence we need, and the risks from here can be managed. This is a moment for leadership and, fortunately, this Government have the will and the opportunity to deliver it. As corporate players scramble to shape this debate to create future opportunities, investors are seeking a clear statement of ambition and for the Government to get hands on, set goals and pick winners. Recognising that there will be more than one winner in a diverse and resilient future, we can show ambition now for electrification and a powerful UK hydrogen economy. In the end, a resilient energy system is about putting people first and making power, warmth and movement dependable, affordable and accessible to all. Seventy-five years ago, the UK built energy systems with world-leading reliability and resilience. Now it is time to do it again, and to secure a new era of economic renewal, growth and security. With ordinary people as our guiding star, through ambition, pragmatism and practical collaboration, we can deliver an energy that, for the next 75 years, through night and day, come rain or shine, dependably keeps every single person in our fantastic nation empowered.

• 6 May 2025 · Energy Resilience · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered energy resilience. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I submitted this motion before the power failures at Heathrow and the Iberian peninsula, before the latest run of cyber-attacks, and before international conditions led us to increase our spending on defence. A more volatile and uncertain future is changing the question that we expect our energy system to answer but, as an engineer who spent years working on low-carbon energy technology, I know that the question changed before that. The question changed when offshore wind became our cheapest source of electricity and when the payback period for photovoltaics dropped below just a handful of years. The question changed when the world woke up to renewables and we, an island nation with exceptional wind resource, favourable geology and a skilled energy sector, realised that we could become a clean energy superpower. The prize is lower bills, increased security and the re-industrialisation of our economy, with all the jobs, innovation, trade and growth that come with it. To win that prize, our electricity system will need to double in capacity, accommodate dispersed, wild and unpredictable generation, and support varying demands that will become more mission-critical for our economy and everyday lives.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Modern Slavery Act 2015: 10th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  As a child I was taught that 200 years ago we abolished the transatlantic slave trade. As a young adult, I learned that that had not marked the end, and that modern slavery was a booming global industry. Then, as I became a young father, I learned through the excellent work of Hope for Justice that there were slaves right here in the UK—hidden even within my own city. And I learned that many of those slaves were children, not unlike my own. I felt a hint of the desperation that I would feel if one of my children had been trafficked into slavery—how I would pray that there would be someone to rescue them, someone who would not rest until slaves had been found and released. I realised that, for somebody else’s child, I had to be that someone. Fortunately, I was not alone, and 10 years ago this place once again passed legislation to end slavery in our nation. It recognised our duty to eliminate slavery from our supply chains, and it introduced a key revelation to policing: that someone presenting as a perpetrator might in reality be a victim. The world has continued to change, however: our protections have weakened and the challenge has grown. It is estimated that there are 122,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK, yet fewer than 20,000 were referred to the national referral mechanism last year. Detecting modern slavery is hard. It is a crime in which the victim is intrinsically hidden—often as invisible and elusive as the perpetrator. The policing challenge is unique. Furthermore, victims of modern slavery are often forced to break the law or are camouflaged among legitimate yet exploited workers who are themselves insecure, transient and unrepresented. We are combating highly organised and effective international criminal networks—they are agile, opportunistic and embedded in our communities. Our system is vulnerable. It has been too easy for children to disappear. Siloed public services are too ineffective in recognising and responding to potential cases. Our systems are divided, and the traffickers have conquered, yet there is hope. Once local authorities are trained in what to look for, they begin to identify victims and, working with partners, can disrupt this crime. If we ensure clearly defined and resourced roles, and are empowered to work across multiple organisations and departments, we can ensure that these complex crimes, which intersect multiple agencies, can be detected. We can ensure that victims become survivors, and that perpetrators are convicted. We need to work across Government to deliver that. To eliminate slavery, we must no longer tolerate exploitation of any kind. This Government have taken great steps in improving workers’ rights, and that must continue. We must be responsive and fast, keeping up with the highest international standards in law and human rights. The Council of Europe’s convention on action against trafficking in human beings provides a framework that could be adopted broadly. Similarly, we must ensure that the requirement for businesses to audit their supply chains has teeth. The Modern Slavery Act required large businesses to publish details of the actions that they were taking to identify and tackle exploitation in their supply chains; we now need checks, and penalties for failure to effectively keep supply chains free from slavery. Like survivors of stalking, domestic abuse and sexual abuse, survivors of modern slavery need access to independent advocacy. We must embed that in our national response, together with long-term holistic support. That is crucial both for survivors’ recovery and to reduce vulnerability to further harm or re-exploitation. We cannot treat this problem as business as usual. The world is becoming increasingly unstable and unpredictable. International conflicts and climate pressures are making people vulnerable and providing the perfect conditions for traffickers. That is visible in the English channel, but that is just the tip of the iceberg; what is hidden are the tens of thousands of victims living in the fear and despair of slavery right here in our towns, cities and rural areas. We are taking firm and decisive action to protect our borders, break criminal gangs and clear the backlog of immigration cases. I recognise the point that the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) made about the distinction between people smuggling and human trafficking, but the sectors overlap. The action being taken is a good start, and I recognise the impressive impact that the Minister and our new Government have already had through our investment in hiring an additional 200 modern slavery case workers, but that is smashing the iceberg only above the surface. To solve the problem, we need a response that matches the scale of the hidden challenge. Modern slavery is a complex crime that cuts across all aspects of Government and society, and our response must match it, cutting across the whole of Government. I put it to this House that we may already have a golden opportunity. This Government have already committed to a fresh approach to governing—one of collaboration, partnership and agility. We are also undertaking a historic and ambitious programme of local government reorganisation and devolution of power from Westminster to our regions. We have already seen programmes tested and proven that provide a model that we can deploy through local government. The Human Trafficking Foundation has worked with nine local authorities that have appointed a designated modern slavery co-ordinator. Those co-ordinators have deployed training in local authorities, improved partnership working, increased the quality and quantity of referrals to support, and delivered prevention strategies. The work of these modern slavery co-ordinators has been remarkable.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Modern Slavery Act 2015: 10th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Lady for that clarification. In 2023, there were 218 local authorities that made referrals using the national referral mechanism for adults. The nine authorities with a designated modern slavery co-ordinator position accounted for 18% of those referrals. That figure rose to 20% in 2024. They trained thousands of local authority staff and partners and increased confidence rates in reporting modern slavery from around 45% to close to 99%. Critically, these measures led to prosecutions. We can learn from that, and devolution is a ripe opportunity to deploy the lessons. It is clear to me that the Government can no longer delegate responsibility for modern slavery to a single Department; we need to build both passive and active immunity into every area. Our modern slavery response must saturate our work at both national and local level. Alongside that collective duty, dedicated roles with cross-organisational links and clear ownership are key. A national strategy that factors in local partnership responses would be transformative. An example of this can be seen in the devolved decision-making pilots, in which multi-agency teams, led by a local authority, made national referral mechanism decisions for children. This approach was over four times faster than the Home Office at making decisions, and it encouraged information sharing across agencies and local partnership working to keep children safe. The success of devolved decision-making panels demonstrates the effectiveness of co-ordinated local efforts under a national framework. I welcome the Minister’s commitment in the recently published action plan to rolling out these panels. Local authorities already have duties to disrupt modern slavery. With a clear cross-cutting partnership approach, facilitated by clear, dedicated local leadership, we could start to build real immunity into our communities. We have embraced the mission to deliver a decade of national renewal. A decade of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 has allowed us to begin the abolition of modern slavery. We have the tools, but we must not rest. Rather, we should recommit ourselves to the most ambitious goal of ending slavery in our nation and our supply chains. We can see what needs to be done. We have begun; now we must deliver the collaboration, commitment and resources to do it. There are people in our country who are utterly hidden, isolated, fearful and hopeless, but they are not alone. Today I urge all in this House to recommit with me; we will not rest, but will instead forge on, and will do what it takes, and what the evidence has taught us to do, in order to find slavery out, prosecute the perpetrators, break the networks, and march on until every person is seen and slavery is finished.

• 6 Mar 2025 · International Women’s Day · Hansard source

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  As I grow older, I find myself becoming more and more intensely aware of the injustices that confront women and girls every day in the UK. I will cover a few points, beginning with health. It is alarming to note that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recognises that up to nine out of 10 women suffer from period pain—three out of 10 of them severely—and that up to three in eight adolescent girls and women face heavy periods, with one in 20 women in their 30s and 40s taking the difficult step to consult their GP each year because of heavy periods or menstrual problems. Those issues are very common, but we should not accept them as normal—I really welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) on them. It is equally alarming to recognise the error bands in those statistics; they are huge, with the upper limits being five and 10 times the lower limit values for the two stats that I opened with. We simply do not know enough about these conditions. We have a deficit in research, knowledge and clinical solutions, and we need to do more. Those issues are the lived experiences of women, but they are the responsibility of us all. I will talk about an issue that sits primarily with men. I have listened to the stories of men in my constituency of Worcester talking about the impact that pornography has had on their mental health, on their relationships and, by extension, on the women in their lives. Pornography is wildly addictive, harmful to men and hazardous to women. We are now in a world where it is industrially available and increasingly violent, and it is silently fuelling sexual violence and exploitation. I want us to move rapidly to implement regulation and enforcement that is fierce, fast and forceful to make our country safe. I will also raise a local issue in my constituency of Worcester, which is very urgent and important. The DAWN project supports survivors of domestic violence in Worcestershire. I have heard at first hand the stories of survivors who have found their lives transformed by the service. It is saving lives and restoring futures, but it is at risk, as funding streams are drying up. Local people in Worcester are digging deep and trying to crowdfund money to support the charity in the meantime, but I would be very grateful if the Minister would meet with me to discuss ways in which we can secure the future of the DAWN project in Worcester.

• 5 Mar 2025 · Department for Business and Trade · Hansard source

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  Working in industry, I have personally experienced the power of partnership between Government and industry when the Government set clear, powerful goals, and then collaborate with industry on delivering them. That has, in my experience, really fuelled innovation and is key to delivering the growth that we desire. Does the Minister agree that a partnership with industry, in which the Government set goals and we work together to deliver them, is key to delivering a successful industrial strategy?