Sir John Whittingdale
MP for Maldon · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Although the measure to increase the threshold for business relief is of some small help, it is nothing like sufficient to help those businesses that are struggling to survive.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Perhaps one of the reasons we have not yet been able to explain how we will meet the target is that the essential measures to fund it—in other words, addressing the welfare budget—have again been ducked by this Government.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am extremely grateful to my constituency neighbour for making an excellent point—and for giving me another minute. He is absolutely right that President Zelensky once again has spoken words for the Government to listen to, if only they would. It is absolutely right that we should increase our support for and expenditure on defence.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Chancellor claims that he wants to cut regulation, but we have heard today from the OBR that the Employment Rights Act 2025 will result in unemployment standing at over 5% next year. That situation destroys incentives to work, drives away investment and causes entrepreneurs to leave the country.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Before I turn to the Budget, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Sue Holt, whose death Mr Speaker announced to the House this morning. I am a member and former leader of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly delegation, and I worked with Sue over quite a long period.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the reasons it is so important that we support Ukraine is that Ukraine is our frontline, and the threat to Ukraine is not just a threat to that country; it is a threat to all of us. That is why it is essential that we increase our defence expenditure now.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“One point about the Bill that the Secretary of State did not refer to is that a lot of it seeks to improve the working of data protection law in this country and make data more accessible while safeguarding important privacy rights. However, the fact that we are able to make changes to improve our data protection laws is a consequence of Britain no longer being a member of the European Union—otherwise, we were trapped by the GDPR requirements. This is an example of where we can draft legislation to benefit people in this country and not have to accept top-down imposed legislation from Brussels—another reason why I was an enthusiastic supporter of the previous Bill.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although the hon. Gentleman and I had a robust but nevertheless amicable exchange on Report, it was in fact his colleague, the hon. Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), who took that Bill through Committee. It was not until Report that the Conservative Government decided to add measures to the Bill—measures that I fully supported, of course, but which nevertheless made the task a little more difficult, as they resulted in a lack of agreement across the Chamber, which had previously pertained throughout the passage of the Bill. It is a pleasure to debate these matters again, and, indeed, to see not just the hon. Gentleman but some of the officials who laboured to take that Bill through Committee with me, and are now tasked with doing it all over again.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Scarborough and Whitby mentioned, using an exception that the Government are bringing in. It was proposed under the last Government, but I can tell the House that the last Government rejected it precisely because we felt it would drive a coach and horses through copyright law and do real damage to the creative industries.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is worth saying that that was not originally in the Bill at all, and I congratulate Baroness Kidron, who managed to persuade the Clerks in the other place to allow her to move the amendments to insert it into the Bill, and it is now part of the Bill. I think those amendments are very important, and I very much welcome them. The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) referred to the fact that the previous Government had not acted in this area, and he is right. The Conservatives did not act because we felt, and continue to feel, that the law on copyright is clear and does not need changing. This Government have proposed to change the law to bring in the text and data mining exception. That will create the opportunity for AI to take, scrape and ingest creative content, of the kind the hon.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, those are relatively minor areas, and in large part the Bill is one that previously enjoyed cross-party consensus when it went through this Chamber in the last Parliament and that I suspect will continue to enjoy cross-party consensus as it moves into Committee in this Parliament. The Secretary of State is no longer with us, but I hasten to add that I am not volunteering to serve on the Public Bill Committee. Having previously endured many hours doing so, I do not particularly want to repeat that experience. Perhaps in part because the Bill enjoys a lot of support across the House, there is inevitably a particular element about which there is real concern, and that is the area of copyright protection and artificial intelligence.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are relatively minor and relatively technical areas, but there are things such as the definition of “vexatious and excessive”, which was an issue that occupied a lot of discussion. The Government have now removed that and reverted to the previous definition, which we felt was unnecessarily burdensome. There is also the whole area of subject access requests that would occupy a huge amount of firms’ time in trying to respond to them. We felt there needed to be at least some safeguard to prevent those becoming, as we defined it, vexatious, so I regret the fact that the Government have not proceeded with that element.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If my hon. Friend is referring to data protection, it is a careful balance. People are rightly concerned that their data is protected and that they should have privacy rights, and there are campaigning organisations out there that have examined the Bill and expressed concern. We were careful to ensure that the standards of data protection required were maintained, and I am sure this Government take the same view. At the same time—this is where there are small differences between the previous Bill and this Government’s Bill—we were keen to ensure that data protection did not impose unnecessary burdens, particularly on small businesses. There were one or two areas where we were able to slightly relax the definitions and to reduce the burden on business, but this Government have taken a different view.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very happy to address that. I am not on the Front Bench, but I will tell the hon. Member my view, which is very clear: I have profound reservations about the opt-out, which reverses the whole principle of copyright law. The owners of rights will have to go and say that they do not want to have their rights taken away from them, otherwise there is a right for others to use their content. I would prefer to see an opt-in or, in actual fact, a licensing method whereby rights holders could agree, if they wished to do so, that their content could be used.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In any case, I am opposed to opt-out in principle, but it is at present practically impossible to introduce. I hear the Secretary of State talking about the technology companies working to bring a workable solution forward, but I hope that the Minister will again make clear that the Government will not proceed unless there is a viable, workable technological solution that allows rights holders to make clear that they do not wish to have their works used by artificial intelligence training models, and have that enforced.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have no wish to replace my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak), who is doing an excellent job. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman and I have been involved in discussions on copyright for many years, and I share his view. Indeed, I welcomed the debate that we had in this place just a couple of weeks ago on the creative industries, where a lot of these arguments were rehearsed, and the Minister helpfully agreed that there is no workable opt-out technology available. The existing opt-out, which the European Union has suggested, simply does not work. On top of that, it is unenforceable. The Minister and the Secretary of State have suggested that they would not proceed unless a workable opt-out could be developed. It would be a first if it were.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is a subject that was not intended to be included in the Bill—I welcome the fact that it is—but it is obviously one that we will debate again many times.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Two weeks ago, the Minister gave some welcome assurances, and he has done so again this afternoon. We need to continue the debate. As he said, if the Government proceed, legislation will be required in due course, which we will obviously want to examine carefully. A view has been expressed on behalf of the creative industries and publishers that while the Minister and other members of the Government have been open to discussions, the Secretary of State has not met them, so I was pleased to hear him earlier give the assurance that he would meet them, because this is of such vital importance to them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant said, there is a lack of any economic impact assessment on the proposals in the consultation paper. I hope that the Government will produce such an economic impact assessment.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of Baroness Kidron’s amendments, which is now in the Bill, emphasises the importance of transparency, and I know the Minister agrees with that, but it also requires companies to make clear, in meeting the transparency requirements, exactly what kind of activity the web crawlers are involved in. Newspaper publishers depend upon search, and it is important that the search engines can find and flag up their content, because without that they will not get the audiences they need. That is a different exercise from training for ingestion and AI-created content. If the Bill is about requiring transparency, the amendments passed in the Lords seek to achieve that, and I hope they will be preserved, because it is important that we have that transparency, not just as a general principle but in detail in that way.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The amendments that Baroness Kidron tabled put in clear terms what we believe the law is already. A number of cases are going through, and the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby referred to one in America. That important judgment said that AI training did not constitute fair use. That was an American court, but previously we had been told that America was ahead in encouraging and promoting the use of this technology. It is reassuring that even in America, they recognise the importance of protecting creative works. A news publisher brought forward that case. It is important that we recognise that creative industries in their broadest definition are affected by this issue, and the newspaper publishers are particularly anxious about the consequences.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Perhaps outside Committee as well. I will rely on my colleagues who serve on the Committee to carry out the work at that point as well. I thank the Minister for his willingness to engage and assure him that we will continue to do so.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman is right that we do not agree on this particular issue. Of course, were we to rejoin the EU, we would then be bound by its legislation on this very issue, which includes the opt-out.”
House of Commons12 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T7. In Maldon, the number of patients per GP is already 50% above the number for England, and that will only increase with the amount of proposed house building. GPs are struggling to cope with ever increasing costs, and I have one practice still undertaking so-called collective action. Will the Government review the whole system of GP funding before it breaks down completely?”
House of Commons11 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Prime Minister, and the Minister just now, have stressed the strategic importance of the military base at Diego Garcia. Can the Minister make it clear that there will be no restrictions in the lease as to what the base can be used for or what might be stored there, and that the UK will have the right to extend that lease when it expires?”
House of Commons5 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State is proposing to abolish Maldon district council, which covers my constituency, and absorb it within a local authority that will be based miles away, where Maldon’s councillors will be massively outnumbered by councillors from areas with no connection to the district at all. How does that enhance local decision making?”
House of Commons5 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But the Minister will be aware that in the last few weeks the CBI, the Institute of Directors and the London chamber of commerce have all said that business confidence is plummeting. Given the tsunami of national insurance contribution increases, business rates increases and employment cost rises, is it not hardly surprising that confidence is being destroyed? Are the Government, rather than promoting growth, not actually destroying it?”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T9. Despite the very brief answer given by Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) to the question asked by the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds), is he aware that there is widespread concern among small and medium-sized tech firms and trade associations about the replacement of the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority by a former Amazon executive? Will the Government make clear their commitment to the operational independence of the CMA and the Digital Markets Unit, and to obtaining stronger competition in digital markets?”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister accept that avian influenza represents an existential threat to businesses such as Kelly Turkeys in my constituency? Paul Kelly has called this the covid of the poultry industry. Does the Minister accept that it is likely, as with covid, that the only way forward will be vaccination?”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On one hand, the Government say they are consulting on that, but on the other hand, when the Secretary of State made his statement in the House just a couple of weeks ago, he said that the Government were accepting all of Matt Clifford’s recommendations. One of those recommendations is to introduce a text and data mining exception, so I hope the Minister can say something about that.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister says that there is legal uncertainty, but the fact that intellectual property rights owners are defending their rights by going to court does not mean that the law is wrong. They are using the law, but that does not necessarily mean that the law is not perfectly clear. We welcome elements of the Government’s proposals, and transparency is vital. If rights owners are to be able to protect their property, they first need to know where their property is being used. Transparency is the first essential requirement for that to happen, so I very much welcome the Government’s proposal to ensure transparency where AI large language models use content from across the internet to generate their own content. The consultation highlights the alarm about a text and data mining exception.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I chair the all-party parliamentary group on intellectual property, and we recently had a meeting with the chairs of all the APPGs representing music, publishing, the visual arts and the media, who came together to listen to representatives of those creative industries express their deep concern about the Government’s suggestion that they might introduce an exception to the copyright protection, which would benefit AI. There are good things about AI. It is not a threat to be beaten off; it can be of real value to the creative industries. Companies such as Universal Music are using AI, and it is a new technology that consumers and those industries will benefit from. At the same time, protection is needed to ensure that intellectual property rights are not abused.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That shows where the markets are developing. They are developing in south America, too. It is important that we continue to support creative industries such as the music industry through, for instance, the music export growth scheme, which was set up by the last Government and which I know this Government are continuing. I welcome that and hope that it will be maintained. I also want to say a word about copyright, as almost every other speaker in this debate has done.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The British Council does many worthy things, but I have a soft spot for one thing in particular that it administers—I hope that both Ministers on the Front Bench share this—and that is the cultural protection fund. That is another initiative from this country in which we use our world-beating expertise from places such as the British Museum to help to ensure that some of the world’s greatest heritage is preserved, particularly when it is at risk from conflict. We need to recognise that there is an increasingly competitive environment across the creative industries. British music is still extraordinarily successful, but 2023 was the first year when there was no British artist among the top 10 best-selling artists across the world. Four of the best-selling artists in the world in 2023 were Korean.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The creative industries also bring enormous benefits to this country internationally. I, too, welcome the Government’s creation of the Soft Power Council. Having served as Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I now sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and we continue to collaborate between Committees in looking at the importance of soft power. About two weeks ago, we heard from the British Council, which was mentioned earlier in the debate. The British Council does an extremely important job, and it is ridiculous that it has to go to the Government every year and ask to have the loan rolled over, and that it is staring at insolvency until an agreement is reached. I hope that is something that the Government will now address.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I did not quite get to the Roxy, but I did go regularly to the Marquee club in Wardour Street, with its sweaty atmosphere, where I heard people such as Buzzcocks and the Clash, and great bands such as Iron Maiden, who started off life in those small venues. It is a shame that the Marquee club is no longer with us and that so many venues still struggle, but I must say that had it not been for the culture recovery fund, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport oversaw as Minister in the Department during the covid pandemic, there would be virtually no small venues, or indeed large venues, left in this country. The culture recovery fund kept venues from the Hot Box in Chelmsford all the way up to the Royal Albert Hall going. They were looking over the precipice until the Government stepped in.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have seen all three, and they were all highly enjoyable. The subsidised sector has also benefited over the years from a Conservative invention, the national lottery. It has produced an enormous amount of money, which the taxpayer probably could not have afforded to invest, and many enterprises have benefited from that. I echo what has been said about the importance of education and the need to ensure that arts are at the core of our curriculum, and also about the importance of grassroots music venues. I went to a Music Venue Trust reception last week, as a number of Members did. I was really interested to hear the remarks of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler).”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The creative industries are something that the UK is extraordinarily good at. It is still the case that the best-selling music artists of all time, the Beatles, are British, as is the best-selling author of all time, Agatha Christie. And now, today, when we go to a Hollywood movie, the chances are that it will have been made in Pinewood, even though that is not immediately obvious from what we see on the screen. Advertisements also originate in this country, as does publishing, as the Minister and many other Members have highlighted. As the Minister said, there is an ecosystem whereby our most successful commercial creative enterprises rely on the subsidised sector, and vice versa. Let us take David Tennant as an example. He started life in “Hamlet” with the Royal Shakespeare Company, went on to “Doctor Who” and ended up in “Rivals”.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and indeed to echo what has been said by many Members on both sides of the House. I think this debate will produce pretty much unanimity on the importance of our creative industries. It is a particular pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage)—my successor but three, I believe, as Chairman of the Select Committee—and I am going to concentrate on one or two of the things she said. It is happily now recognised how important the creative industries are to the UK’s economy. There has been a growing awareness of this over a long period, ever since a separate Department was founded in the form of the Department of National Heritage, which became the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Each creative industry is different. As the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society told us last week, writers may want their works to be used for some purposes but not for others, but it appears that this will be a binary system in which they either opt in or opt out. This is also incredibly difficult to enforce. If somebody takes a picture of a painting on their phone and puts it on social media, how can the rights owner prevent it from being used by a large language model that goes out and absorbs all this content? As has already been said, there is no workable system in existence that allows for opting out. The EU has tried to introduce one and, as I am sure the Minister is fully aware, the robots.txt standard is supposed to identify—”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am extremely grateful to the Minister, and it is of some reassurance that the Government’s mind is still open. I hope they will listen to the voices across the Chamber expressing concern. There is an objection in principle to option 3, which is the idea that rights holders have to opt out. It reverses what has long been the case—that people can rely on the protection of their rights unless they choose to give them up. They should not have to ask for their rights to be protected, and that is what an opt-out system entails. There would no longer be automatic protection under an opt-out system, and it would put a huge burden on many small rights holders. There is a suggestion that photographers might have to seek an opt-out for every picture they have ever taken. Now, I hope that is not the case, but a lot of uncertainty has been created.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister is entirely right—it is useless. The problem, therefore, is that there is no workable solution at the moment. The Minister and the Government have said that they will not introduce this option until there is a workable system in existence. That is reassuring, but how will the Minister decide whether a proposed system is indeed workable? If it is workable, how will it be enforced? Will individual rights holders have to go to court if they believe they have opted out but find that their works are still being used? There is a whole host of questions. I recognise the Minister’s commitment and wish to find a way to protect rights, but there are an awful lot of questions at the moment, and there do not appear to be any answers. I hope he can address some of those questions.”
House of Commons27 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This morning the Prime Minister spoke about the Government’s wish to develop a clear and trusted copyright regime, which is, I believe, what many in the creative industries thought we already had. When the Secretary of State comes to consider Matt Clifford’s recommendation for reform of the text and data mining regime, will the consultation include consideration of potentially strengthening intellectual property protection rather than weakening it?”
House of Commons13 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister agree that transparency is crucial if creators are to understand where their works are being used by AI developers? Can he therefore assure me that the Government will legislate on transparency whatever the outcome of the consultation on copyright reform?”
House of Commons8 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) pointed out, was well represented in the petition—we were already faced with a massive amount of development taking place with no corollary in terms of infrastructure. The new housing targets that have been imposed in Maldon represent an increase of 100% on what was already required, while in Chelmsford they represent an increase of 60%—and yet there is no sign of the infrastructure investment. Those targets are being imposed on our local communities despite the Labour party saying that it would take into account the feelings of local communities. In all these areas, people listened to what they were told in the election and have found that the new Government have done precisely the reverse of what was promised.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The consequence is that families who have farmed in my area for generations, going back to their great grandparents, now say that they will have to sell up because they will not be able to afford the inheritance tax bill. I have also had letters from small businesses that understood that working people would not see a tax rise, but they—the people who employ those working people—now find that their entire profit has been wiped out by the increase in national insurance contributions, with the result that they will now have to either scrap pay rises this year or, in some cases, lay off staff. In my constituency in Essex—which, as my right hon.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They had listened to claims by Labour spokesmen during the election that if they voted Conservative, a Conservative Government might abolish the winter fuel allowance. The implication of that was that a Labour Government would be safe and would protect the winter fuel allowance. Yet a few weeks later, it was announced that it would go. That was followed a few weeks later by the farmers. The farmers in my constituency had been to the National Farmers’ Union conference and had listened to the leader of the Labour party tell them, from the platform, that a Labour Government would have no intention of getting rid of agricultural property relief. Yet that was precisely what was announced in the Budget.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That has produced this extraordinary result, whereby the present Government have a majority of 100 seats in Parliament, having achieved fewer votes than the Labour party achieved under its last leader, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). But that is the system that we have. The reason why this petition has attracted such support, and so quickly, is not just that people dislike what this Government are doing, but that they feel, as the petitioner sets out, that it is a direct breach of the promises made to the electorate at the time of the last general election. Even within a few weeks of the election, I was receiving angry emails from pensioners who had been misled.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I share the sentiments behind the petition in full, but, as has already been pointed out, clearly under our system the ability to have another general election does not exist, unless there is a remarkable change in the view of either the Prime Minister or of Parliament. Our system is designed to deliver a “strong and stable” Government, and most of the time it does that. I remain a supporter of the system of government, even though I understand the anger felt by the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage). It is the case that our system was built essentially for when there were two main parties, with perhaps a third minority. We now have not just a third, but a fourth, and even a fifth minority in some areas.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I, too, thank the Chair of the Petitions Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), for introducing the debate, and, through him, Mr Michael Westwood, who has given us an opportunity to debate these matters. I am proud to speak on behalf of the constituents of Maldon, 8,057 of whom had signed the petition by the time this debate started—that figure has probably increased even further since. We are the second highest constituency, beaten only by the electors of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), who I am sure would be here as well were he not serving on the Front Bench.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to learn from that, just as the Conservative party did in 1974 and 1997, when we reflected on the reasons why we lost and worked hard to regain trust. However, in the meantime, we also have a job to do over the next five years in holding this Government to account. I echo the remarks of the Father of the House: even if this debate does not bring about a general election, I hope that Labour Members will listen to the voices expressed in terms of the 3 million signatures on the petition.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), is the only other person here who can remember when a Labour Government were brought down in a confidence vote in 1979. With a majority of 170, that is unlikely to happen to this Government. Prime Ministers who have called elections earlier than five years have found that it was not always a wise decision—as was certainly the case in 2017 and, arguably, in 2024—so the truth is we are likely to have this Government in power for the next five years, but I believe it is unlikely to be longer. We will use that time to regain trust. The new leader of the Conservative party is right that we have to work to do. We did not get everything right and, indeed, made some bad mistakes.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I entirely sympathise with my right hon. Friend’s point. The winter fuel decision was a very direct breach of an undertaking given, but even with VAT on schools, which he correctly says was in the Labour party manifesto, it was said that the money it raised—if it does raise any money, which a number of us doubt—would be invested in employing teachers and go to schools. However, in the last few days, we have heard that there is no guarantee of that at all and the money will just go to the Treasury. The assurances given about how this will benefit state pupils have, again, proved worthless. There will not be an election unless something extraordinary happens; under our system, only the Prime Minister or Parliament can call an election early. I suspect the Father of the House, my right hon.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want to give the hon. Gentleman a little more time. He is very keen to quote from the Labour manifesto. Will he comment on the third paragraph of the page introducing that manifesto, which states: “It contains a tax lock for working people—a pledge not to raise rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT.”?”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the latest research, which shows that 75% of commercial farms will exceed the £1 million threshold and therefore will become liable for inheritance tax? Just to give him one example, a family in West Hanningfield in my constituency who have farmed for five generations say that they face a potential inheritance tax bill of £1.5 million. They say that it will put an end to all that has gone before and end the aspirations of their family. I plead with the Government to look at this again.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the Minister’s confirmation of the Government’s support for Ukraine’s eventual membership of NATO. As a step along that road, will he look at the UK taking a lead in further integrating Ukraine into the joint expeditionary force?”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister will be aware of reports that up to £160 million is held in assets in the UK under the Syrian sanctions regime. Will she look at ways in which that money can be used in due course for the benefit of the people of Syria?”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗