Tim Farron
MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member is making an excellent speech, as always. Given that there is some underlying positivity, is she concerned that although there is ongoing support for people with their energy bills, there is nothing for the tens of thousands of people in Cumbria, and the hundreds of thousands across the country, who are off grid and who re…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In Foreign Office questions earlier today, the Minister for International Development, the hon. Member for Midlothian (Kirsty McNeill), answered a question from the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson). I have informed both Members that I would be mentioning them.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady is being incredibly generous with her time, as ever. She will recall that the Defence Secretary told families last weekend to be ready for potential shocks that might come our way. Does she agree that, given what she was just saying, the UK as a whole needs to be far more ready to become food secure?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What can we do to ensure that the Minister and her officials are aware of these facts and come before the House to explain the extent of these conversations with the Eritrean regime, given that it would be an act of extreme wickedness to return any asylum seeker from Eritrea to Eritrea?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I had the joy of spending time with the Kendal and South Lakes prostate cancer support group just a few weeks ago. Like the hon. Gentleman and me, its members are massively in favour of increased screening and making sure there is default screening for men over 50. Does the hon.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last year, there were 392,000 sewage spills across our country, 4,000 of which happened in the precious waters of Cumbria’s lakes and dales, and meanwhile companies rewarded their shareholders for that failure with increased dividends of £845 million. Isn’t it time instead to put failing water companies into administration?”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“The hon. Member is making an excellent speech, as always. Given that there is some underlying positivity, is she concerned that although there is ongoing support for people with their energy bills, there is nothing for the tens of thousands of people in Cumbria, and the hundreds of thousands across the country, who are off grid and who rely on heating oil? Does she think that the Chancellor had room for a formal cap on energy bills for people who are off grid, whose bills have gone up threefold in the last year?”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady is being incredibly generous with her time, as ever. She will recall that the Defence Secretary told families last weekend to be ready for potential shocks that might come our way. Does she agree that, given what she was just saying, the UK as a whole needs to be far more ready to become food secure? Only 60% of the food that we eat here is produced across our four nations. Is it not the job of all four Governments in this country—the three devolved ones and the UK Government—to ensure that we have farm payment schemes that encourage the production of food, so that we can become food secure?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What can we do to ensure that the Minister and her officials are aware of these facts and come before the House to explain the extent of these conversations with the Eritrean regime, given that it would be an act of extreme wickedness to return any asylum seeker from Eritrea to Eritrea?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In Foreign Office questions earlier today, the Minister for International Development, the hon. Member for Midlothian (Kirsty McNeill), answered a question from the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson). I have informed both Members that I would be mentioning them. They spoke about the matter of returning Eritrean asylum seekers to Eritrea, and of conversations between the Foreign Office and the Eritrean Government. At no point during their exchange was it remarked upon that Eritrea is widely regarded as the North Korea of Africa, and that under its murderous dictator, Isaias Afwerki, it has become the fifth most dangerous place on planet Earth to be a Christian or a member of any other minority faith.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I had the joy of spending time with the Kendal and South Lakes prostate cancer support group just a few weeks ago. Like the hon. Gentleman and me, its members are massively in favour of increased screening and making sure there is default screening for men over 50. Does the hon. Gentleman also think the Government need to be aware that if we test more people earlier and identify cancers earlier, more people can be treated? Does he believe the Government have done enough work, both north of the border and in the UK Parliament, to ensure that we have sufficient capacity for surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy so that we can treat the people who are diagnosed?”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last year, there were 392,000 sewage spills across our country, 4,000 of which happened in the precious waters of Cumbria’s lakes and dales, and meanwhile companies rewarded their shareholders for that failure with increased dividends of £845 million. Isn’t it time instead to put failing water companies into administration? In the forthcoming water Bill—it would be good if the Minister could tell us when we might expect it—will the Minister bring forward a plan to create a new watchdog, with teeth, and transform our water companies into being mutually owned, so that money stops leaking out of the system and instead funds a clean-up of our waterways and water industry?”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Liberal Democrats tabled this motion today because I want farmers to know that this House cares about them; that we think that those who get up early each day to feed our country and to protect our planet do the most awesome job in the world; and that they are valued and respected, and that we want a system that reflects that in practice. This debate follows the debacle of the sustainable farming incentive window in September. That catastrophically short window was a long time coming.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Those new schemes have mostly placed hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into the hands of huge non-farmer organisations, while family farmers saw their incomes plummet, such that hill farmers in Cumbria now “enjoy” an average income of less than half the minimum wage—and that is if you assume that they work for 40 hours a week, when it is nearer 90. I do not know if the Conservatives’ attack on our countryside, taking money away from family farms and putting it into the hands of a few large landowners, was deliberate or incompetent, but the results are the same either way—those who we rely on to feed us being treated like dirt.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is two and a half years since the Conservatives left office, yet, as Halloween approaches, that Government still loom as a spectre over our rural communities, haunting us all, because this Labour Government refuse to exorcise that ghost, clinging instead to the ghastly Conservative policies that did so much to damage our farmers in Westmorland and beyond. I am in no risk at all of overstating when I say that the last Conservative Government did more harm to British farmers and British farming than any other in UK history: trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that threw our farmers under the bus; a botched Brexit deal that ended overnight British farmers’ access to their biggest external market; and the reckless, rushed removal of the basic payment scheme while new schemes were falteringly introduced at a snail’s pace.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If there was a thin silver lining to Brexit—and that is an “if”—it was the opportunity to design our own bespoke system to reward and support farmers, to care for our environment and to feed our country, but every farmer, certainly in England, knows that at the heart of this debate is the utter, inexcusable failure of both Conservative and Labour Governments to deliver an effective post-Brexit farm payment scheme. That failure has undermined farm profitability and the UK’s food security.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House regrets the Government’s chaotic opening of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2026 application window on 22 September 2026; notes that the scheme’s budget was exhausted within hours, leaving many farmers unable to apply after months of preparation; further regrets the previous Government’s decision to design the SFI on a first come, first served basis and its post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, which fundamentally undermined British farmers, their £358 million underspend in agricultural budget, and decisions to effectively cut farmers’ incomes in their approach to phasing out direct payments; further notes that the Government’s decision to accelerate the direct payments phase-out whilst stop-starting new schemes like SFI has left farmers with no universal payment offer for the first time since 1945; also regrets the Government’s changes to Agricultural Property Relief and cuts to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and farming budgets; also notes that the lack of an effective payment scheme for farms has undermined their profitability and the UK’s ability to produce food, recover nature and adapt to climate change; notes that farmers are deeply concerned about surging input costs, the impact of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on fertiliser costs, the impact of consecutive bad harvests and the looming crisis in the pig sector; and calls on the Government to guarantee long-term funding for all eligible SFI26 applicants, reverse the family farm tax, and commit to an additional £1 billion a year to properly fund environmental land management schemes.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government have learnt nothing from the damage the Conservatives did, so will the Minister return with a scheme this autumn that ensures that farmers who had viable SFI applications are funded and not left out in the cold?”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government pledged to learn lessons from the 2025 disaster, so along came 22 September this year, when sustainable farming incentive funds ran out and the drawbridge got pulled up after less than six hours. I have spoken to hill farmers, protecting some of the world’s most epic landscapes but struggling with dodgy wi-fi in their valley so they got nothing. I have spoken to dairy farmers who just popped out to tend their cattle and got back to their computer to discover that they had got nothing. I have spoken to land agents, heartbroken and ashamed that the majority of small farms that they bid on behalf of had got nothing. There are farmers who had all their basic payment taken away and had literally nothing else to look forward to apart from the SFI, yet the system closed in less than a day and they got nothing.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I remain outraged at that closure in 2025, but the former Farming Minister’s point about the Tory’s first come, first served process is well made. A first come, first served process means that Government funding is allocated randomly at best, not achieving best value for the taxpayer. Even worse, it means that funding disproportionately goes to those farms that are big enough to be able to afford land agents, to be able to have a large farm staff, or to be able to spend much time away from farming to fill out forms. Meanwhile, farmers working 90 hours a week up Langdale, up Longsleddale or in the Eden valley, producing our food, caring for our countryside, with low incomes, get systematically shut out by accident or by design; the impact remains horrific either way.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is money that should have gone to support our farmers and to keep the promises made to them during Brexit—promises that have been broken. Then, in March 2025, with absolutely no notice, this Labour Government closed the SFI programme for the year, leaving hundreds of farmers outside with absolutely nothing. The Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), is not in his place. I must say that, before his removal, he was becoming an increasingly important advocate for farmers within Government. He apologised for the closure of the SFI, explaining that the scheme was a good one, but that because the application process inherited from the Conservatives was first come, first served, funds were being allocated neither wisely nor fairly, as my hon. Friends have already highlighted.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is an issue I will come to, but what my hon. Friend says is absolutely the case. If we have a first come, first served system, then there is no assessment of the quality of bids. I am sure that pretty much all the applications were of a high quality, but differential merit was not taken into account. Farmers were excluded simply because they were milking or otherwise doing their job before the window closed. The SFI was—I think the record will prove this—essentially set up to replace the basic payment scheme. It was implemented disastrously because it was designed disastrously. The Conservative Government failed even to spend the SFI budget when they were in power, underspending the allocation by £358 million.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we are serious about tackling climate change and protecting our environment, we must start there, by motivating and including all of our farmers to be on the frontline for that fight, not locking them out, or demoralising and excluding them. In an increasingly volatile and uncertain world, Britain is less than 60% self-sufficient in food. That is terrifying. And yet we have thousands of farmers out there ready to meet the call, if only we did call. The Liberal Democrats present this motion to the House because British farmers are the best in the world, and the best farmers in the world deserve the best support.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Imagine the anxiety and the shame, the isolation—in every sense of the word—and the overwhelming desolation that there is nowhere to turn. Thanks to the Farmer Network, RABI and young farmers’ clubs there are places to turn. But in this House today, we can choose to say to our farmers that we will stand with them too, that we are grateful to them for feeding us and keeping Britain beautiful, and that we will match those words with actions. Maybe there are Members who think, “Well, I haven’t got any farms in my constituency, so this isn’t relevant to me,” but I will tell them this: 100% of our constituents eat food, and so farming matters to them and to all of us—yet this place too rarely acts like it believes that. Today, we give Members the opportunity to affirm that they do. Seventy per cent of England’s land mass is agricultural.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For a millennium at least, our land has been curated, tended, moulded, protected and nurtured into producing the food that fuels each one of us. How short sighted is it to put all of that at risk? To be personal, the loss of a basic payment, and the failure to include thousands of family farms in replacement schemes as funds instead gravitate to the big estates and the huge non-farmer organisations, has left many families back home in Cumbria bereft. I mean not just financially bereft, but deep heartbroken despair. Just think what it might feel like for if someone’s family had farmed their valley for generations, maybe centuries, and yet now it looks like the farm will be lost on their watch because of all this.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We would therefore maximise the number of farms inside environmental schemes, protecting nature, improving water quality, sequestering carbon, protecting urban areas from flooding, and providing access and enjoyment to the millions who visit the lakes, the dales and the rest of Britain’s beautiful countryside. We would revoke the Labour-Conservative consensus by finally making the production of food a public good, funding it as we should and starting the journey back to food security. To be parochial for just a rare moment, the English Lake District was awarded world heritage site status in 2017. When UNESCO made that award, in its assessment of the beauty of those towering landscapes it gave as much credit to the farmers who shaped them as it did to the glaciers that carved them.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“An SFI delivered well could have brought every single farmer who had received the basic payment in the past into the environmental big tent. Instead, this combination of cruelty and incompetence leaves thousands outside in the cold, and we cannot now blame them if they choose to intensify and undo the good environmental work of generations that preceded them. Liberal Democrats would reverse the banking tax cuts from the last Parliament and use a portion of that revenue to boost the environmental land management scheme budget by £1 billion. We would allocate an SFI sum to every farm, which would be theirs to claim.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are failing our farmers and we are failing our people as we sleepwalk into no longer being able to guarantee that we can feed our country. Effectively locking small farmers out of the farm payment scheme is socially unjust. It damages our food security, and it also damages our environment. Many farmers I have spoken to in Westmorland and beyond who have been excluded from the SFI and other schemes are so utterly demoralised and angry that they will now just turn their back on environmental schemes altogether. These are people who have been champions of nature-friendly farming, and whose parents and grandparents have spent decades promoting environmental responsibility on their farms. They do not want to turn their back on sustainable farming, but they have got to pay the rent and feed their kids somehow.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There would be no competition as to who could press “send” the quickest. The failings of our farm payment system go far beyond the SFI disaster. At its foundation, this Tory-designed, Labour-delivered scheme is woefully flawed for one fundamental reason: they have given us a farm payment scheme, the bedrock of our agricultural policy, that—would you believe it?—actively disincentivises the production of food. What utter and complete madness. When Britain’s food security is more at risk than at any time since the last war, we now have a farm payment scheme in England that fails to support farmers to produce food. At a time when every other country in the UK and every country in the European Union does provide that support, England is the odd one out.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There was indeed an SFI window earlier in the year, but the bulk of applicants were aiming for SFI window 2 in 2026, and of course a huge number of them were cut out simply because of the way in which the system was set up. Liberal Democrats are determined to put this right. With our biggest parliamentary presence in this place in more than a century, we humbly seek to be in government after the next election. Should we be so, we will be determined to lead the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and we would reform the SFI so that every farmer was allocated a sum via the SFI consistent with the capacity of their farm. That money would be theirs to claim within a long window, so long as they submitted a compliant claim that demonstrated delivery of public goods.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is at least as au fait with Liberal Democrat manifesto policies as I am, so he will know that we oppose the family business inheritance tax changes as well. He will also know, having been here a reasonable amount of time, that there is a word limit on these motions; that is why those changes are not mentioned.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In March 2025, the last time the drawbridge was pulled up with no notice, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said that we must not do first come, first served again. We have just done that, so what guarantees can the Minister give us that next time around it will not be first come, first served? All the same, can he ensure that the window will come very, very soon?”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In south Cumbria, only 29% of cancer patients get radiotherapy. That is the lowest proportion in the country, and only 27% of them get that treatment within the 62-day target. That is all because my constituents have to travel to the excellent but far-too-distant Rosemere cancer unit at Preston, which involves daily gruelling round trips of up to four hours for weeks on end, effectively excluding many from treatment. This awful, unequal access costs lives. Will the Minister set out a plan for delivering new satellite radiotherapy units in areas such as mine, and will he meet me and our local hospital’s trust to help us to deliver our long overdue radiotherapy satellite unit at Kendal?”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The only way that children can be tested for metachromatic leukodystrophy and given lifesaving treatment is if their older sibling is diagnosed, at which point it is too late to save the older sibling’s life. That was the case for my constituent Nicola, whose daughter was diagnosed when she was already symptomatic. She died at the age of 13. Nicola’s younger son was able to be diagnosed and treated only because of his late sister’s illness. This cruel tragedy could have been avoided if the Government added MLD to the infant heel prick test. When will the Secretary of State do that? Will she meet MLD families and me so that she can hear from them at first hand about the desperate need for this change?”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is not just putting health devolution at risk; it is putting the health and the lives of my constituents at risk, and I hope the Minister will put that right.”
House of Commons14 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When Cumbria has a suicide rate twice the national average, that is unacceptable. In addition, the local council is proposing to close Applethwaite Green care home in Windermere because of a 31% cut that the Government have made to the council’s funding this year. Why have the Government done that? Because they do not get rurality and they do not fund services in rural communities. I want to finish by mentioning a Policy Exchange report, the foreword of which was written by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and the title of which reads: “The Rural Penalty: How NHS funding formulas are disadvantaging rural and coastal areas and putting health devolution at risk”.”
House of Commons14 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have some of the worst cancer waiting times in the country, and it is no surprise, because in south Cumbria we have no direct or close access to radiotherapy treatment. The OECD average, and the target, for the proportion of people with cancer who receive radiotherapy is 53%. In the UK, that figure is a mere 36%, and Lancashire and south Cumbria is the worst area in the worst country in the OECD, at only 29%. In north Cumbria, people use the Penrith urgent treatment centre, which is brilliant, but it is often under enormous pressure because the nearby Keswick urgent treatment centre—in the constituency of the hon. Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours)—is often closed because of understaffing. Mental health provision in the two mental health trusts is under enormous pressure.”
House of Commons14 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They all also struggle with a common underlying challenge: rurality, which this Government, like their Conservative predecessors, fail to understand and, indeed, to tackle. Let me start with the Morecambe Bay trust. It has three hospitals, but it is funded as if it had just one. This year, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care are forcing £32.5 million-worth of cost savings on the trust, causing it to have to close 42 beds, despite the fact that it has been at level 4 of the operational pressures escalation levels framework—the highest level of alert and extreme pressure on services—a total of 14 times over the last 12 months, including three times in June, July and August.”
House of Commons14 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart, and to follow the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman). I have four NHS trusts serving my enormous constituency, which is the second biggest in England: the North Cumbria foundation trust, which is ranked 117th out of 134; the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear foundation mental health trust, which ranks 39th out of 58; the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay foundation trust, which ranks 97th out of 134; and the Lancashire and South Cumbria foundation mental health trust, which ranks 54th out of 58. What do those four trusts have in common? They are run and staffed by outstanding people who are wonderful, compassionate, committed and capable.”
House of Commons14 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Twenty-five per cent of the properties in my constituency were built before 1900. They are very hard to retrofit; they are solid-wall properties. It is therefore important that there should be a bespoke scheme to ensure that homes that are hard to retrofit, particularly in rural communities such as mine, can be made cooler or warmer in these times of more extreme temperatures.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Statutory paternity pay and paternity leave are important things for the Government to be looking at, and I support them in what they are seeking to achieve. In the investigation that the Minister is undertaking, will he look carefully at the status of those who are self-employed? One in four people in the workforce in Westmorland and Lonsdale works for themselves, including the 1,600 people who farm. It is so important that those families too are protected, is it not? How will the brief be extended to ensure that those who work for themselves, or indeed for small employers, are protected too?”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(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.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
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“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.”
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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.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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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.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗