Tony Vaughan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2025 · Artificial Intelligence Skills · Hansard source

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  Research commissioned by DSIT estimates that by 2035 approximately 10 million UK workers will be in jobs where AI will be part of their responsibilities. PwC estimates that 18% of existing UK jobs face a high probability of automation by 2035, so what steps are the Government taking to ensure that young people in my constituency are well prepared for the integration of AI into their daily working lives, so that we can minimise the chances of unemployment in the future?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that that is not the scenario I was setting out. I was trying to be helpful by identifying the fact that, if a vape shop is selling £5 cigarettes, they are obviously unlawful, so there is reason to probe further, but the police do not have the ability to verify right to work. Obviously the state should, in that scenario, where there is already a basis to look further—but I am not trying to say that this scheme is entirely fine. I started my speech by identifying the legitimate concerns of my constituents and many other people. It is vital that we look at the details of everything that is proposed and ultimately have a consultation that listens to the concerns expressed, so that the policy ends up reflecting the positive benefits that I think we can get from such a system—if we get the details right.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  My specific example was about where an individual has a £5 packet of cigarettes that is obviously unlawful. The police have no power at all to demand right-to-work checks in that situation. Why do the Opposition oppose that principle?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Not at the moment. Six per cent of the population do not have access to smartphones. Pensioners, the disabled and the homeless could be particularly affected. I believe it is vital that the Minister and the Government listen carefully to those concerns and that they be heard during the public consultation, which will begin in the new year. I will be making my representations; I urge my constituents to do so too. I want to make two points about why, in principle, I support the idea of digital identification. First, I believe that a digital credential has the potential to make an individual citizen’s day-to-day life easier and more convenient. In a world where we already pay, bank and travel digitally, book and manage GP appointments digitally, file our tax returns digitally and access many public services digitally, the argument for secure, universal digital credentials to replace multiple forms of verification is highly appealing. It would be more secure than many citizens’ existing password systems. My dad would remember his early attempts at passwords, such as “password123”, later improved to “Sausages123” —with a capital S for added security. The most important point is that I believe that digital ID will strengthen right-to-work checks. One reason why that is important is to fight back against the epidemic of organised crime across our country. I was in one high street in my constituency a couple of weeks ago where three vape and tobacco shops have sprung up over the last few months selling £5 packs of cigarettes, which are obviously illegal. I was told that it takes His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, trading standards and the police to shut one of them down, and that even when they do, it reopens in a few hours. We should be making it easier for the state immediately to verify a person’s right to work. If the police need to probe someone’s right to work, they have no ability to do so on the spot. We need to make it easier for the state to check someone’s right to work.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank the petitioner, Mr Sutcliff, and I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for opening the debate. The issue of digital identification has certainly added to my postbag in recent months. Many of my constituents’ concerns are real, legitimate and understandable. They include data security, the cost of the scheme, the potential for infringements of the right to liberty, the creation of a “papers, please” society, the chance of ID theft and fraud, and concerns about accessibility for all, as about 1.5 million people in this country are digitally excluded.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  If it is possible for the police to verify, in that moment, whether a person has a right to work, that will assist. The details are not there, but I am making the point that it is open to consultation. I am not here to defend the position of the Government; I am here to say that, in principle, the position has not been set out, because they are consulting on it. Let me come back to the point, because it is really important, and the Conservative party is not engaging with it at all. If the police do not have access to right-to-work data in the moment, it makes it harder to close down these entities. No one is explaining that there is a power, because there simply is not.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Immigration Reforms: Humanitarian Visa Routes · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that this policy framework distinguishes between immigration control on the one hand and, on the other hand, how we treat lawfully present migrants? Does he agree that we must restore order and control to the system for those coming into the UK, but that once people are here, we need to encourage integration and value non-monetary contributions as well, so that we do not skew the system away from the integration that we ultimately need to see for those who are lawfully here?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Obligations · Hansard source

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  Given the ICJ ruled last year that there is a “plausible” case of genocide in Gaza, and given that the humanitarian situation has drastically deteriorated since then, does my hon. Friend agree that the UK must actively support efforts to ensure that every rejection of aid and refusal to allow trucks in for spurious reasons is documented, so that it can be put before the ICJ in the South Africa case to hold Israel accountable for breaches of international humanitarian law?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Asylum Policy · Hansard source

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  I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I acknowledge the gargantuan task that the Home Secretary has to regain public confidence in our asylum system. We must ensure that reflected in our asylum system is not only fairness and contribution, but compassion, which is also a quintessentially British value and is reflected in the work of charities like Napier Friends in my constituency, which supports those staying at Napier barracks. My question is about the appeal reforms. What is the rationale for the professionally trained adjudicators when we already have a specialist judiciary with expertise to decide these cases? What is it about the adjudicator model that will mean that adjudicators are in a better position to decide these cases than those under the current system?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Pollution: Kent · Hansard source

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  5. What steps she is taking to help to tackle water pollution in Kent.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Water Pollution: Kent · Hansard source

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  Littlestone and Dymchurch are two popular beaches in my constituency, but they are subject to no swim advisories, which are seriously harming local tourism, residents and businesses. What urgent measures will the Minister take to ensure clear accountability for water companies, rapid infrastructure upgrades and a transparent timetable for lifting no swim advisories, and will she meet me to discuss how we can create safer seas for my constituents—and possibly join me for a swim when it is safe to do so?

• 12 Nov 2025 · SEND Provision: Kent · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered SEND provision in Kent. It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Sir John. Many dedicated people are working to support children with special educational needs and disabilities in my constituency—in schools, doctors’ surgeries and social services, alongside many other professionals—but I am afraid to say that children in Folkestone and Hythe are being failed every day by the broken SEND system in Kent, which is presided over by Reform UK-run Kent county council. This is not an entirely negative speech, but I do need to start by describing what we are seeing on the ground every day, before I move on to the way forwards. The reality in Kent is that, under Reform’s stewardship, the situation for SEND support has deteriorated to crisis point. My inbox is full of emails from desperate parents. This is not a bureaucratic failure alone: it is a moral failure. In 2025, children in Kent with SEND are still denied the basic dignity, respect and support that any civilised society should provide. The stories from my constituency are not just troubling; they are harrowing indictments of a local authority that has lost its moral compass. Let us take the case of one boy who was diagnosed with autism and pathological demand avoidance. He is now in year 6 at a specialist SEND school. His parents, supported by professionals, identified the secondary school that could best meet his complex needs, but instead, Reform UK’s Kent county council named a different school, which itself had admitted that it could not meet his needs. To compound this, the education, health and care plan, which is meant to be a living document, mostly referred to his infant years. He is 11 now. Disgracefully, his future is being locked to outdated paperwork. When his parents challenged the decision at tribunal, KCC brazenly admitted that its sole reason for choosing an inappropriate school was money. Let us call that what it is: institutional neglect, sanctioned from the very top of the council. KCC is gaming the tribunal system as a delaying tactic, to push back the date when it must pay for SEND children’s needs. KCC spends far more on SEND tribunals than any other local authority in this country, amounting to millions of pounds every year, despite losing almost all of them. That is a failure of leadership of epic proportions. My team is inundated with accounts of heartbreak, of children’s needs dismissed and of families abandoned. Another local child with complex SEND has been on a sharply reduced timetable since February 2025. The school was forced by a lack of resources to push forward a plan at pace and in a fashion entirely unsuited to him. He was failed not by his teachers but by the absent leadership of the council. A child in my constituency was for an entire year denied any placement, simply due to the delays in drawing up an EHCP, which were a direct result of council paralysis. A further example, which is perhaps the most shocking and saddening, is a family whose child has been driven to despair by the failed system and has voiced the wish not to go on living. That should horrify all of us, and it is happening under the council’s watch.

• 12 Nov 2025 · SEND Provision: Kent · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we are looking at how to change the system overall, we have to avoid a situation in which we have postcode lotteries and inconsistency, because a child who lives on one side of a border should not take any blame for the failures of the two local authorities. The safety valve system has created financial targets that have led to perverse incentives to withhold help, suppress demand and punish aspiration. That is not reform: it is rationing. The result is that we see inappropriate placement, adversarial council relationships and broken trust. Kent’s families have had enough. The safety valve programme was policymaking for short-termism, not for real change. It was exactly the kind of sticking-plaster politics that we saw in recent years under the Tories, and Kent’s children are paying the price. I demand from Kent county council urgent, transparent and measurable actions to improve SEND support in our communities. I will say a few words about those who have been running Kent county council since May. Reform UK recently accused SEND parents of “abusing the system”—a view that shames that party and this country. Reform UK was elected in Kent because it said it would cut waste and abuse, yet when its baseball cap-wearing smart young guys turned up, they found what everyone else already knew: after 14 years of Tory austerity, there is nothing left to cut. They promised millions in savings, but delivered only empty rhetoric and more hurt for those in need. According to Reform, the reason for our SEND crisis is waste and abuse, but that grotesquely misreads the reality faced by the children and parents who are battling for support. Genuine, practical, long-term change is needed, and long overdue. As Folkestone and Hythe’s first Labour MP, and as part of a Labour Government determined to repair what has been broken, I am committed to forging solutions, not division. I therefore welcome the Government’s drive to build a fairer and truly inclusive SEND system, and agree with the Government’s position that inclusivity for SEND students must be embedded in mainstream schools and accountability moved to the heart of the Department for Education’s schools group, led by the Minister for School Standards. Reform has to have inclusivity at its core. I fully support the Government programme, which covers one in six primary schools, to train teachers in understanding neurodiversity. I recently read an article in The Economist about how Portsmouth is providing an inclusive approach to supporting children with SEND. In Portsmouth, students with behavioural and learning difficulties are no longer automatically referred to the NHS for a medical diagnosis. Instead, each school’s SEND co-ordinator, or a designated teacher, sits down with parents to draw up the child’s neurodiversity profile, which allows teachers and parents to identify how best to accommodate the children’s needs and to identify stressors that make it harder to learn. This helps to identify specific things that could help the child. Only if that approach does not work are medical professionals brought in. The adaptions that are needed are often quite simple. At one school, some students have a time-out pass to leave class for a few minutes when they need a quiet space, a reset, or a short break to run up and down the stairs. Tinted plastic overlays can help children with dyslexic symptoms. Teachers use an empathetic approach to things such as missing a uniform tie: a friendly greeting before asking nicely about the tie’s whereabouts prevents the build-up of tension, which causes problems. The approach ensures that help for children with additional needs does not depend on a formal medical diagnosis or referral, and creates a culture where everybody can receive timely assistance through flexible, graduated support. Portsmouth’s commitment to shared best practice and ongoing collaboration makes SEND support a normal part of mainstream education, which benefits everybody. I am glad to say that Kent has started to pilot the same approach. I support the Government’s work to ensure that Ofsted now grades down any school that excludes or off-rolls SEND students. The additional investment from the Labour Government, including the real-terms increase to the core schools budget, is crucial for SEND children, as well as for recruitment and retention. Frontline staff deserve security, reward and respect. Last year’s autumn Budget pledged an additional £11.2 billion in education spending by 2025-26, with £1 billion ringfenced for SEND. The new funding will enable more children with SEND to thrive, and not simply survive, in our schools. It is right that the Government are carefully considering how SEND should be reformed, and I support the Education Secretary’s commitment to real co-creation and to reform that is designed with—not for—children, families and practitioners. I want to end on a positive note. I recently visited the Beacon school in my constituency, which supports children and young people with profound, severe and complex needs. I was blown away by the dedication of the staff, who were not just educating children but setting them up for life. I enjoyed meeting the children and young people, who were learning, creating, building and thriving. The school’s work to prepare children and young people for the world of work was cutting edge. To every teacher, support worker and professional working with children with special educational needs across all Folkstone and Hythe schools, and in Kent, I say a huge thank you. They hold the system up. I will make sure that the system backs them and the children whose lives they change every day. We must ensure that every child gets the support they need to thrive and achieve their potential in life. That is the mission of this Labour Government. Despite the scale of the challenge, we will and must make this hope a reality.

• 12 Nov 2025 · SEND Provision: Kent · Hansard source

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  I thank all Members for their contributions, which echoed the same problems that I identified in my constituency. Kent MPs highlighted similar experiences with Kent county council. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan), with her huge experience in this area, questioned the correctness of taking KCC out of the special measures regime, as did the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) through his colleague, the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden). I am grateful to the Minister for undertaking to write to us about the nature of the ongoing scrutiny of Kent county council. The testimonies that we have heard today and that come into our inbox put pressure on those of us who are in the field, so to speak, to ask whether we are moving forward or backwards. We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) and for Gravesham, and from the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), about the importance of maintaining existing legal protections in the upcoming changes to the SEND system. They are absolutely right about that. Several Members mentioned home-to-school transport. As the hon. Member for South Devon said, it is a huge source of expenditure for Kent county council. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford mentioned that specialist hubs could be a way of reducing travel time. I would add that creating and expanding specialist units within mainstream schools is another way of doing that. There are several examples of good practice in my constituency that avoid the need to travel long distances and that integrate children with special educational needs into mainstream schools, making it easier to go between the two units. I thank the Government for their collaborative approach to formulating proposals for change in the upcoming White paper. We need to get to the point where mainstream schools can meet the needs of the vast majority of children with special educational needs, although I appreciate that they will not be suitable for all. Equally, where a child has a need, the currently available legal protections that enable that child to access the necessary support must be there. That is ultimately the route for children to achieve their potential. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered SEND provision in Kent.

• 12 Nov 2025 · SEND Provision: Kent · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is precisely why we need wholesale change in the system, which is what the Government are preparing to consult on. We will of course listen carefully to the proposals when they come forward. Let me talk briefly about the system in Kent. Nationally, the demand for SEND support has grown, and EHCP requests have surged by 140% since 2015, as per the National Audit Office. In 2022, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission handed down an improvement notice for nine glaring SEND failings in Kent. KCC scrambled to implement an accelerated progress plan and, after Government scrutiny in 2024, the notice was lifted. But still: where are the real improvements? My postbag tells a starkly different story. I must raise concerns about the safety valve programme. The 2021 deal between the Department for Education and KCC was supposed to plug deficits, but in practice it has often made it even harder for families to access vital support. In areas like Kent with safety valve deals, EHCPs have become harder to obtain and parents are forced to jump over ever-higher hurdles. The priorities of the safety valve programme mean that financial savings are trumping the needs of children in Kent.

• 12 Nov 2025 · SEND Provision: Kent · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend’s experience is similar to mine. My postbag reflects a kind of ongoing unresponsiveness, which results in people feeling that they are just lost in the system. That is entirely unacceptable. On a slightly different theme, for SEND children who wish to access a grammar school education in Kent, KCC seems to be refusing requests for extra time for the 11-plus test, in breach of the Equality Act 2010, and without giving any reasons. It is the law that extra time must be granted if a reasonable adjustment is required under that Act, yet Kent’s special access panel unfairly puts roadblocks in the way, stifling opportunities for our young people. The failures stretch beyond Folkestone and Hythe; they blight every corner of Kent, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) said. This is county-wide neglect, shrouded in excuses. I am not blind to the scale of the challenges, but I will not excuse the years of inaction and mismanagement, first under the Tories and now under Reform UK.

• 11 Nov 2025 · Prisoner Releases in Error · Hansard source

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  Under the system that has been in force for many years, the Government cannot initiate deportation action until after minimum custodial terms have been served. Can the Deputy Prime Minister commit to ensuring that measures removing all minimum custodial requirements will be implemented, so that eligible foreign offenders can be removed as soon as possible after sentencing and victims can be spared the distress we have seen recently?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) for securing this important debate. The ECHR has delivered extraordinary victories for British people. When Jeanette Smith and Graeme Grady were discharged from the armed forces simply for being gay, the English courts rejected their challenge, but the Strasbourg Court unanimously upheld their rights. Today the armed forces welcome all people regardless of sexual orientation. The ECHR has protected children wrongfully taken into care; workers have won the right to express their faith and mental health patients have gained proper legal safeguards. Those are not abstract legal victories—they are real, and have changed people’s lives for the better. Yet many voices, including that of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, paint the ECHR as our enemy and as a barrier to border control. They could not be more wrong. The truth is that we need the ECHR to manage our borders. A common rights framework means that our European partners will work with us to tackle organised people smuggling and to protect our national security. We had the UK-France deal this summer, Bulgaria is intercepting smuggling boats at the EU border, and Germany is reforming its criminal laws to confront these shared challenges. Even Rwanda said that it will not work with us unless we observe human rights. Let us not forget that it was the failed Brexit project that destroyed the Dublin regulation, leaving us without any EU returns agreement. We then saw the number of dangerous crossings soar. The ECHR did not stop the UK from removing 34,000 people with no right to be here in 2024, which was the highest number since 2017. Under 1% of foreign national offenders successfully appeal deportation on human rights grounds; since 1980, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge said, the Strasbourg Court found against the UK on deportation cases just a handful of times, only four of which concerned family life. The Reform and Tory policy of ECHR withdrawal is simply Brexit 2.0 and isolationism. It will not secure our borders. It will not solve anything.

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  I will conclude by saying that, on this 75th anniversary, 300 organisations—from Liberty to Mind, Shelter to Amnesty—rightly defend the convention. It is up to this Government to demonstrate to the public that we can have both border control and compassion. Let us celebrate 75 years of freedom, and 75 more.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China: Assessment of Threat Level · Hansard source

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  When it comes to the UK’s relations with China, it is not a simple binary choice between national security and growth—national security must always be our non-negotiable red line—but subject to that, does the Foreign Secretary agree that when there are specific sectors where economic engagement with China promotes growth, we should be open to that?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. and learned Member give way?

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  As far as I can remember, the Attorney General told the House of Lords yesterday that 3 September was when he was informed that there were evidential difficulties with the case. The key point is that he had no power to intervene, because of the memorandum between the Attorney General’s Office and the CPS. The Attorney General does not get involved in evidential sufficiency.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation · Hansard source

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  I do not know what is going to happen; I cannot predict the future. The point I am making is that the measures that are being taken are moving us faster in the right direction than even we had intended at the outset of the Parliament. Labour also promised to clear the asylum backlog created by the last Government’s effective pausing of asylum decision making. This Labour Government have recruited more decision makers and sped up processing. In the first six months of this year, the Government processed about 60,000 asylum claims—around 70% more than the same period last year. On removing those with no right to stay, enforced returns have been increased by 25%, compared with the Conservatives’ final years in office. There is of course still much more to do to win back public confidence in our asylum system. Mr Barnes supports the use of larger sites such as Napier barracks in Folkestone and former RAF Wethersfield. I visited Napier recently; while it has historically had poor conditions, they have improved in recent years. Napier costs the state around £106 per night, which is less than hotels, albeit not drastically so, and we should not forget that the set-up costs for large sites are huge—in the case of Wethersfield they were around £49 million. The real alternative to hotels could be social housing. We must push for a better way than paying billions of pounds to private companies that make millions in profit, when that money could be spent on buying up assets and replenishing our national housing stock for the future. The BBC reports that the Home Office is looking into pilot schemes on that front. Any option that redirects even some of this accommodation expenditure into publicly owned housing assets, while supporting the asylum accommodation even temporarily, deserves serious attention.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation · Hansard source

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  We did have a returns agreement with Europe before we withdrew from the European Union—the Dublin regulation. It was this Government that negotiated a new agreement with France in the UK-France deal. That deal, which is compliant with all the international obligations we have, is the potential way forward to solving the problem.