Andrew George
MP for St Ives · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“My constituents are not demanding a multibillion-pound, high-speed answer to the five-and-a-half-hour journey time from Penzance to London, for example; they want just a fraction of that amount, to improve the comfort, reliability and punctuality of the service. My hon.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“And yet over that same period the housing problems of local people have got worse, as we have already heard from my constituency neighbours, the hon. Members for Truro and Falmouth, and for Camborne and Redruth.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Indeed. There are many ways in which Ministers need to look at our whole housing planning system. It operates almost as if local needs were an inconvenient afterthought.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is bad enough that such tax subsidies are granted at all, but not all those subsidies—which local authorities are obliged to grant—are compensated for by the Treasury. That contributes to a growing black hole in local government finances and leads to cuts in essential local services.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Sir Jeremy. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) not only on securing the debate but on the powerful and thoughtful way in which he commenced it, as usual. I also congratulate the other 15 hon. Members who contributed.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our housing system is a shameful display of just how wide the growing inequality is in this country. We need to understand better why the planning and housing policies of successive Governments have failed. As the hon.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
The complete record
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“I am grateful for the Minister’s helpful remarks. She says that the DIVA test is currently being tested, which is wonderful, but does she accept that, given it was possible to produce a vaccine within a relatively short time in the pandemic—I appreciate that civil servants seem to have a rather stretchy temporal language—a few years is not good enough? Can she be more specific, given that this is costing the country millions of pounds every year?”
House of Commons13 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the Secretary of State to his position and declare an interest as a volunteer member of the Cornwall Community Land Trust. The Secretary of State will be well aware that a perfect storm has hit the construction industry as far as the delivery of social housing is concerned: tender forecasts are not encouraging, Homes England’s scoring matrix is proving to be inflexible, and the cost-value ratio used by registered providers is not helping and is providing a disincentive to deliver in the most deprived communities. There are thousands of homes that community-led CLTs and others could be delivering now. Will the Secretary of State meet me and fellow members of the community-led housing sector? Otherwise, we will be waiting another five years to get shovel-ready affordable homes off the ground.”
House of Commons13 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady is making a powerful point. She will note that in excess of 90 MPs are taking part, or seeking to take part, in this debate. Given that she is sitting next to the Minister, I hope she will lean on, or nudge, her to recognise that we should not necessarily wait for the provisions of the—no doubt welcome—White Paper when it comes. There is a need to act now, not only to address early intervention and early diagnosis, but to get to children during the earliest years and give them the help they need.”
House of Commons15 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In respect of sanctions, the Minister will be aware that I asked the then Foreign Secretary last week whether he would make sure that the UK has no involvement in the proposed Elbit contract, either commercial or governmental, that there is absolutely no use of the Akrotiri air base in Cyprus to the advantage of the Israeli military, and that there is absolutely no trade with the illegal settlements in the west bank. Can the Minister confirm that the position remains the same following the change of guard, and that he will make sure it is followed through?”
House of Commons10 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Gentleman and, indeed, all six Members from Cornwall—and the Isles of Scilly—are very keen to make sure that the message gets to this new group of Ministers that Cornwall deserves a special settlement on devolution.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In some coastal areas such as Cornwall it is really important not simply to apply the same bland uniformity that we might be able to get away with for other locations. Places such as Cornwall need a unique settlement. We were making good progress on that with the Minister’s predecessors, who were certainly understanding, and the conversations were going well. I hope that the Minister will be listening to the voice of Cornwall on the devolution settlement. The only region for Cornwall clearly has to be Cornwall, and there are very strong arguments for it. I do not have the opportunity to make them this evening, but I know the hon.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is not sufficient capacity in the islands to provide it there, so all the 16 or 17-year-olds—under the mandatory rules that apply for post-16 education—need to go to the mainland, but there are insufficient funds available to be able to do that. I am talking to Baroness Smith at the moment to try to make sure that the Isles of Scilly get the full support, so that students get the backing not only for transport costs, but for accommodation and support. There are a lot of costs in relation to the Isles of Scilly that are simply not met, and I hope the Minister is seized of that. The final point, which the hon. Gentleman, who represents Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, emphasised—and I know he will be serving on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill Committee—is that it is absolutely important to get devolution right.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That also has an impact on freight and on build costs on the islands, meaning that although we desperately need affordable homes, it is very difficult to get them off the ground within the viability thresholds of Homes England. It is a very significant challenge. There is no parity in relation to older people’s bus passes, because there is not a bus and those subsidies therefore do not exist. People who live in the off-islands have to pay significant amounts—£20 or £30—for a ferry just to get from an off-island to St Mary’s to do some shopping. There is no such thing as subsidised transport, and the £3 fares, as for the buses, would be really nice between the islands if we could possibly get it. The Isles of Scilly do not have parity with the mainland on that. The Isles of Scilly also do not have parity on post-16 education.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My next point is perhaps rather unique to the Isles of Scilly. Some of the big pressures that Scillonians face relate to transport, given that they are 30 miles off the mainland. Not a lot of people appreciate that from east to west, my constituency is about 70 miles when one takes into account all that wet stuff between Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly. It is a very expensive area to cover, either by air or by ferry. What we are seeking for the Isles of Scilly is something approaching parity with the Scottish islands. People on the Isles of Scilly pay four, five or sometimes six times the amount that people in Scottish islands would normally expect to pay to get on a ferry or to fly to and from the islands.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the case of Cornwall, most of those people have their primary addresses outside Cornwall, and one might argue that they did not need a penny piece of that money, but they still claimed it. By the end of the last decade half a billion pounds of taxpayers’ money had gone towards subsidising the wealthy having holiday homes in Cornwall. I have made this point to Treasury Ministers and Housing Ministers before, and I am somewhat surprised that Ministers have not yet been prepared to look at this policy and to consider at least reviewing it. Surely it is far better to spend half a billion pounds on first homes for the thousands of families in desperate need, rather than simply shovelling that money into the pockets of wealthy second home owners. I hope that the Minister will be prepared to look at that.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What we have found in Cornwall in recent years, especially since the small business rate relief was introduced in 2012, is that there has been an almost industrial level of shifting of second homes—from council tax to business rates—that are purported to be or actually have become holiday lets for business rating purposes. Owners apply for small business rate relief, and then pay nothing. We are talking about wealthy people, who can afford more than one home, simply flipping their property, with the benefit of their tax lawyers and others, depending on what is to their advantage in terms of tax. Frankly, one must take into account the obscenity of the fact that all those who had done that and were entitled to small business rate relief also benefited from covid aid—so they received four levels of payment amounting to £20,000 apiece.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am using my speech as a buffer during which she can absorb that magnificence, but I want to add a few points, which I hope she will take on board, in addition to those that the hon. Gentleman made. I particularly want to embellish a little further his points about housing. It is not an accident that coastal areas often contain a lot of highly desirable housing markets, where a lot of people with wealth are very keen to invest their money—that is very much an investment, although sometimes they also buy houses for personal recreational use.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Most people in our area actually see London as remote; indeed, remoteness is a concept that depends on which end of the telescope we are looking through. The big difficulty for people living in coastal areas is the remoteness of where the decisions are taken, and for them the remoteness is the other way around: people in the centre are often not listening to, or not hearing, the words and the needs of people in rural areas and, in particular, people in coastal areas such as the hon. Gentleman’s, mine and those of all the other Members who have spoken this evening. I welcome the Minister, who needs time to absorb the magnificence of the hon. Gentleman’s speech.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Meur ras, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I congratulate my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon), not only on securing the debate but on the way in which he covered the issues and made such a strong case for the very special needs of remote and coastal areas. We hope that the new group of Ministers will attend to those needs, although the previous Ministers were doing good work in this regard, and I am not in any way dismissing or disapproving of that work. As the hon. Gentleman said, only 8% of the population of England, Wales and Cornwall is coastal. In my constituency, which covers west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, 95% of the population live in coastal communities—and, being in the far south-west of the country, we are in that sense remote.”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am so sorry to interrupt the Minister’s peroration, but she covered without detail the funding formula for local authorities and whether it will properly address the poverty and deprivation in rural areas. Cornwall is the poorest region in the country and achieved European objective 1 status—one of the highest levels of regional development aid—but it is not seen in Government eyes as the poorest region, certainly as far as the criteria is concerned. Will the Minister ensure that the criteria the Government use properly assesses the levels of deprivation in rural areas?”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What legislative changes are proposed to ensure that an adult discharged from hospital following a mental health admission has a GP assigned to them? Can the Minister ensure that measures are proposed to reverse the disappointing lack of professional curiosity within the service? Finally, can the Minister ensure that there is legal representation at all inquests? The NHS has professionals, barristers and lawyers supporting it, and individuals and families do not.”
House of Commons3 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He is now receiving that in hospital, but the family are devastated at the price that she had to pay—and they are paying—to achieve it. There is a long tragic history of innocent people being killed by young people with schizophrenia, sometimes undiagnosed and sometimes diagnosed, but usually on the radar of mental health services. Sally Poynton had made repeated attempts to get her son diagnosed, but the service never got on top of the issues. I have already furnished the Minister with my questions, because the attempts to get reports out of the NHS have simply failed—reports have been heavily redacted. What legislative changes can be brought in to correct the failings of the service in this case?”
House of Commons3 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) on bringing forward this debate and on the passion with which he is advancing the case. The attendance in the Chamber today demonstrates the strength of feeling on the issue. My contribution will draw attention to an area of Government where the duty of candour already exists, at least supposedly—the Department of Health and Social Care. I hope that the Government will learn lessons from the way in which that is conducted within the Department. I relate the case of one of my constituents, Joe Poynton, whose daughter Sally was murdered by his undiagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic grandson Jacob in June 2021. For three years prior to her death, Sally battled unsuccessfully to get diagnosis and treatment for Jacob.”
House of Commons3 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is right about the need for the state to be open and honest in all these cases. As I mentioned earlier, the duty of candour already exists in the NHS. Nevertheless, in inquests where the duty of candour should be to the fore, the state comes along with barristers, lawyers and their supporters, and the victims of actions in the past are not represented at all. If the same resource that went into protecting the reputations of NHS staff went into supporting patients, these issues would not happen.”
House of Commons3 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Meur ras—I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. He will be aware that in previous Parliaments I led campaigns to secure the recognition of the Cornish language and the Cornish people. Does he agree that this is not an issue of isolationism? It is not about cutting ourselves off, but about cutting ourselves into the celebration of diversity and having the identity of a place properly recognised and respected so that it can grow rather than be supressed. Surely devolution is about enabling places rather than controlling them, which is what I fear this Bill will do.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member makes a very strong case for Cornwall. He should urge his colleagues in government to welcome amendments to the Bill that strengthen Cornwall’s ability to achieve its unique and very special status, which we believe needs to be enshrined in this legislation as well as the historic record.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We often get distracted by the semantics and jurisprudence of terms such as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”, but it is clear that, with the exception of a few, this House appears united—just as the country is as a whole—in its opposition to the actions of the far-right Netanyahu Government. The Foreign Secretary says that he wants to give diplomacy a chance—he constantly repeats that intention—but can he demonstrate to us that he is not being completely ignored throughout this? If he cannot, will he at least assure us that he will not allow the Elbit contract to go through, that RAF Akrotiri will not be used to the advantage of the Israeli military, and that there is no trade with illegal settlements?”
House of Commons1 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Further to that very encouraging response from the Secretary of State, does he acknowledge that Cornwall is the poorest region in the United Kingdom? It has great opportunities, as the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) pointed out, but it has been hampered since losing the highest level of EU structural aid. If we are going to take the opportunities and overcome the challenges that Cornwall faces, would the Secretary of State be prepared to meet the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth, me and other Cornish Members to establish a bespoke strategy for Cornwall to drive the private and public investment needed?”
House of Commons17 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am pleased that the Minister has announced that the overall size and shape of the network will remain the same, and he has also indicated that remuneration must be part of the consultation. As he will know—I have corresponded with him on this matter—the towns of Porthleven and Newlyn in my constituency have been without post offices for a number of years, because no one is prepared to take them on at the remuneration levels that are available. Is the Minister prepared to consider whether he sees those post offices more as Government offices, and to expand their role in terms of information, connectivity, and feedback across a number of Government Departments, to build up the services available in post offices? If he is meeting people, will he meet me to discuss how we can resolve the situation in my constituency?”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I simply ask the Minister the same question that I asked when he first came to the House on this matter. In relation to the cost consequences of this deal, he knows that the lion’s share of the interest lies with the military base on Diego Garcia. Therefore, what contribution is the United States making to the very significant costs of compensating the Mauritian people?”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with the Minister that MMC clearly meets the threshold for proscription, but when did its actions first come to the attention of the Government? Why have they left it so long to bring forward this order? Why did they leave it until it was politically convenient?”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister agree that instead of handing £500 million of taxpayers’ money to those who are entitled to small business rate relief, which is what has happened in Cornwall over the past 10 years, it would be far better to invest that money in desperately needed first homes for local families in desperate housing need, rather than give it to second home owners? Would he be prepared to meet me, so that we can establish a better method of achieving housing justice through tax policy?”
House of Commons1 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my fellow member of the Select Committee and stand-in Chair for giving way, and I congratulate her on how she is introducing the issues today. Does she agree that the length of time set for the Casey review to report does not give us a sense of confidence that the Government have injected sufficient urgency to address the serious problems of ensuring that we have a robust social care system that can stand up to the pressures that lie ahead?”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust is also facing a £50 million cost improvement programme this year, and many other trusts on the frontline are also facing similar pressures. The Government must look at the capacity of the nursing home sector, as there are often many unused beds. We talk about the difficulty of discharging patients from a hospital, but there is also the risk of the independent sector cherry-picking the profitable bits of the NHS. We need, above all, to back up our NHS. As the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton), the temporary Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, pointed out, social care is vital. If one in four social care workers are leaving the sector every year, we know that we have a serious crisis. The Casey review cannot come soon enough.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I was last in this place, I was part of a campaign on that, which sought to achieve, for example, a ratio of never more than seven on acute wards—seven acutely ill patients to every registered nurse on acute wards. We should be aiming to try to support staff on the frontline, rather than leaving them under the pressures they currently face where they are seriously understaffed. There are incredible pressures within the service itself. I know that, at the weekend, the A&E department of the Royal Cornwall hospital had more than 100 patients waiting to be treated, with ambulances often waiting outside. Our ambulance service is currently proposing to cut co-responders from some of our rural areas—where fire service staff support the ambulance service—which is a matter of great concern.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand). Of course, in this debate we have to reflect on the fact that the Government inherited the NHS in the very worst state in its 77-year history, which the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) reminded us of. The Government must pick up the NHS and try to restore it to the state that we would all like to see. I approve of the three shifts the Government are proposing—no one could argue against prevention rather than ill health. Obviously we want to see advances in prevention, technology and delivery of services into the community, with better integration and improvements in the workforce plan. With that, however, I would like to see the Government advance the case for safe staffing.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I urge the Government to look again at wider questions of housing injustice, and at the way that houses are being misdelivered in areas like mine, and to try to work with local communities and the council to ensure that we meet need, rather than developers’ greed.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Setting high housing targets creates high hope value on all the land adjoining all our communities. It is like applying the rural exceptions policy, but around all our areas. We need to address the issues more effectively. The Government need to recognise that many shovel-ready projects are currently unviable, so when money is being considered for future housing projects, they need to look carefully at how they can get things moving very quickly. In Cornwall, over the past decade, £500 million of taxpayers’ money has gone into the pockets of second and holiday homeowners, because tax incentives and loopholes support that.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That does not mean that the answer is building fewer homes; it simply means that the target-setting process is not in itself the solution to the housing problems that such places face. These targets are often based on the delusion that the private market will collude with the Government in driving down the price of its finished product, which is clearly not the case. The Government need to allow that in some places, areas can set targets to meet need. That would mean that planning applicants had to demonstrate how they would meet need, rather than simply building homes that people cannot afford. That is a method that the Government need to consider. Far too much of what goes into the planning system is about land value speculators taking far too much out of the development process.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on the way in which she introduced the debate, and I strongly support everything she said. Indeed, I support the sentiment and ambition of the Government’s announcement of £39 billion in investment. However, the Government must listen to local areas and, if they are intent on delivering their housing targets, must allow those areas to vary the way in which the targets are met. I will cite the example of my area of Cornwall. It is one of the fastest-growing places in the United Kingdom, almost trebling its housing stock over the past 60 years, but the housing problems of local people have got significantly worse over that period.”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course we should uphold the right of every state to live in peace, but in what way is the UK military involved in this? We have just heard that IDF soldiers have been trained on UK soil. Is this the same IDF that has been engaged in atrocities, including the murder of UK aid workers in Gaza?”
House of Commons16 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our farmers and growers can survive only if there is a functioning supply chain, but since the creation of the Groceries Code Adjudicator, they complain bitterly about continuing poor practice and the risk of de-listing. Does the Minister not agree that it is time to beef up this organisation, and to amalgamate it with the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator?”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The UK is an important geographic location from that point of view, but of course the context is one in which it has to establish contracts with companies and nations around the world.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has regenerated the site and generated a reputation as a place with world-leading capability. Its core business is deep space research and activity, as well as commercial and defence-focused communication services. It is currently supporting missions around Mars and observing solar weather, and it provided communications and support to enable last year’s private moon landing. The space sector is important to the UK economy, but we cannot take a “little England” approach to global communications because Earth turns on its axis and exists in a wider universe. In that context, as the hon. Member for Wyre Forest said, the positioning, navigation and timing—the PNT—of our sites in relation to the global sphere in which space science is being advanced is important. Goonhilly is in a critical location for tracking and managing satellites.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In 2014, it was taken over by Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd, a local company that is cutting a significant reputation in the space sector. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wyre Forest for mentioning Newquay as a potential launch site. All those experiments are important. They may come with failures along the way, but as he said, we learn from things that do not go fully to plan to improve our technologies. There will be successes and failures at the cutting edge of the space sector, but we will learn from that process. When I previously represented St Ives, before my nine-year sabbatical from this place, it took four or five years to get Goonhilly Earth Station on to the former BT site in 2014. Since then, it has been doing incredibly well, despite a difficult start on a small base.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on setting out the important case for the role of the space sector in the UK economy. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell), who outlined the importance and significance of the totemic Jodrell Bank. Likewise, I will refer to an important and growing contributor to the space sector in my own constituency at Goonhilly—people have different ways of saying that, with some preferring a phonetic pronunciation—on the Lizard peninsula. In the early 1960s, the Post Office established a telecommunications and satellite base there that became a British Telecommunications base.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I urge the Minister to do all she can with the industry to facilitate contracts with NASA, the ESA and elsewhere internationally.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not wish to take up anyone else’s time, so my final point is that we—and the Government—must back smaller enterprises such as GES in my constituency and many others. After all, they are the source of innovation and growth in the sector. Yes, the larger companies to which the hon. Member for Wyre Forest drew attention are very important; as he says, the space sector underpins 16% of UK GDP. A day without space would cost our economy £1.2 billion in its impact on financial transactions and so much else in how we live our lives in the modern world. This is an essential sector, but the small enterprises are there to expand the innovation frontier of the sector, and they are forging very strong links internationally as well.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course I agree. Clearly, the stronger the links made internationally, the more they will benefit the UK economy. Having seamless relationships with other countries is important. My hon. Friend mentions the Galileo programme, but also relevant is US GPS. All these connections clearly need to be maintained and fostered. Not only is funding an issue, but so are contracts. As well as making the point that the sector operates essentially in the global sphere, I want to highlight the need for co-operation with other countries on contracts. There is an essential role for the UK Government in fostering contracts, not just with the European Space Agency but with NASA. A lot of companies in the UK will be looking to the Government to play that role.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister mentions the importance of international partnerships. In the context of the unpredictable environment in which negotiations take place, particularly with regard to trade with the US, what conversations have taken place between the UK Government and NASA? It is clear that a lot of UK companies, large or small, depend on ensuring that such relationships and future contracts are well founded.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I visited a brilliant project very recently: the Helston Gateway project, which has created a new GP surgery across 20 consultation rooms, and achieved that on the basis of a building cost of just £1,400 a square metre, which is half the cost that people would get if they went to private sector contractors doing it through NHS development programmes and certainly significantly less than in the private finance initiative programmes of the past. I strongly urge Ministers to look at such brilliant initiatives as a brilliant way to provide services. The third issue is stopping private sector organisations cherry-picking the profitable parts of the NHS and therefore undermining acute sector trusts. Finally, I would welcome clarity as to why the acute trust in Cornwall is not having its debt written off, unlike other provider trusts and ICBs.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Also, this year, during the settlement process, people are talking about cost improvements within the ICB spending programme over the future year. In Cornwall, it is a cost improvement—the rest of us might describe it as a cut in services—of £108 million, which is about 7% of the budget overall. That will create tremendous pressure in areas such as ours. The second issue is value for money estimates.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) on the debate. I will try, in my remaining two minutes, to cover four subjects very quickly. The first is about the fair funding question or whether the funding to an area is sufficient. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) rightly referred to the seasonality of the pressures and the rural nature of the geography, but in Cornwall there is also the issue of the peninsularity of the geography. People cannot call on an emergency service to the north, south or west in a place such as Cornwall and therefore we need to make provision for services so that they can cover all eventualities.”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The two sanctioned Ministers have been enabled by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is himself subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, and I wonder what the Government will do to make sure that that is properly pursued. When I was in the west bank only a week after the two Labour Members were shamefully deported, it was very clear that the settlements are taking over. What sanctions will the Government take to ensure that there is no trade with those settlements?”
House of Commons10 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is the Minister not concerned that he has lost the audience among wildlife organisations and trusts that say they are offended by Ministers’ portraying nature as a blocker to development rather than an enhancement to life and the economy, and are now asking for part 3 of the Bill to be scrapped?”
House of Commons9 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗