Matt Rodda
MP for Reading Central · Labour · United Kingdom
“Other local authorities are doing the same, but I would like to see a broader movement across the country with more councils taking up these sensible policy options, investing in council housing and providing more council homes to residents who unfortunately are unable to buy a home of their own.”
“It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I welcome this Bill, particularly the very important measures to support victims of domestic violence and the sensible measures to reform the right to buy.”
“That means that for many people, it is extremely difficult to become an owner-occupier, and social, affordable and council housing is extremely important in our community. I have seen terraced houses split up and subdivided into HMOs or two flats for residents, who are under extreme pressure.”
“One of the great pleasures I have had recently as an MP was visiting the opening of new council houses in Coley in Reading and seeing wonderful modern homes that are being built by Reading borough council next to existing council properties—it is using land more efficiently, finding more space for houses and improving local facilities, su…”
“I also look forward to further action to crack down on irresponsible landlords and support tenants. I know that the Minister is working very hard on a number of measures in that regard, including on management companies.”
“I welcome the Minister’s statement and thank her for her work in this important area. Will she say a little more about rewilding in lowland Britain, tree planting and changes to agricultural practices, all of which reduce emissions of carbon and, indeed, capture carbon? Could she perhaps mention the work in towns as well?”
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“Council-owned bus companies such as Reading Buses provide award-winning services. That has allowed it to grow its business and offer a very high quality of service to many local residents. For example, our No. 17 bus route has a bus every seven minutes and we also have night buses. When will the Minister agree to allow more local councils to run their own bus companies, and when will he agree to more franchising?”
“I look forward to the Minister answering my questions about her work with the industry, confirming Government policy on the state pension and committing to publish suitably informative material about the research carried out by the Department.”
“I would like the Government—I hope the Minister will address this in her speech—to look at not only reforming the childcare system in broad terms but addressing the specific issue faced by those who have a family member with a terminal illness diagnosis. They should look at the need for childcare at that difficult time and at the unintended consequences of some aspects of Government policy. There is a need for wider reform because, sadly, families, children’s education and our economy are paying the price for our current childcare system. To conclude, I hope the Government will respond and continue to work with the pensions industry.”
“That is why it is really important that we take steps to reduce energy bills in a sustainable and long-term way. As the official Opposition, we are calling for energy bills to be cut for good, which should obviously start with a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants, continuing with our long-term mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030. Campaigners have highlighted other financial and family impacts of having a terminal illness diagnosis, and one difficult challenge faced by some families is that other forms of support may not be available to them. For example, access to paid childcare may diminish as a result of not being able to work, although a family may still need it.”
“Member refer to some of the additional medical needs, the need for greater home heating and sometimes the need for expensive equipment, such as oxygen tanks, in a person’s home. It is very important that we understand that, take it into account and see the wider needs of somebody facing an awful diagnosis and suffering a terrible challenge. There is a lot of independent research on the consequences of living in damp, under-heated properties, which we should also bear in mind when we consider this issue. For example, the World Health Organisation estimates that about 30% of excess winter deaths are directly attributable to living in cold, damp environments, and we have to take that point into account, as well as the additional cost of heating for medical reasons and of paying for additional energy to support machinery.”
“I am sure that the Department will have explored the issue in detail, and I ask her to consider publishing some of the research carried out by the Department on this matter, so that we can understand it better and have a fuller debate in future. I want to take this opportunity to raise some other points that have been made by campaigners. I am worried by some of the research that outlines the scale of the problem that energy bills can cause those facing the awful diagnosis of terminal illness, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Angus for mentioning that point. For example, research by Marie Curie explains that after a terminal illness diagnosis, energy bills may rise by as much as 75%. I think I heard the hon.”
“Given that a great deal of many constituents’ income in retirement does not come from money that is saved through occupational pensions, it is very important that the money that people have saved is available to them at their time of need. On the state pension, I want to put on the record my thanks to Marie Curie and other campaign groups for raising this issue. It is very important that we listen to the voices of those campaigners, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Angus for securing the debate so that we can discuss them. I understand that the Government’s current position is not to allow early access to the state pension. I would be very grateful if the Minister confirmed that that and set out the evidence on which the decision is based.”
“Occupational pensions play a very important role in allowing constituents to save for their retirement, and it is only right that people who have saved all their lives and contributed to the system should be able to access the money that they have saved. I understand that people with less than a year to live are already able to withdraw their entire pension in some cases, and a substantial amount in other cases, and even those who are younger may be able to take advantage of that facility through the pension freedoms that are normally available at the age of 55. I ask the Minister to reassure Members about her work with the pensions industry to develop this further, so that we can have a further discussion and perhaps gain further understanding of the possible ways to support people.”
“One of the challenges raised at the time was whether the Government were able to deliver on their promises, given the series of failures over the last decade. I hope that the Minister will ensure that DWP runs smoothly and that the errors we have seen in some aspects of the pensions and benefits system will be addressed, so that the people in that greatest need are protected. I ask the Minister to reassure Members that the Department will be able to provide individual pension savers and people in need with the level of service they would expect. On the substance of the debate—early access to pensions—I want to cover two aspects in my speech: the issue of occupational pensions, and then the issue of access to the state pension, which the hon. Member for Angus mentioned.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) and colleagues from across the House who have contributed to this important debate. I hope the Government will take this issue seriously and find ways to improve the lives of people with a terminal illness. I am pleased that legislation was passed last year to support people with a terminal illness in having fast-track access to benefits. I hope that we can develop a consensus on other matters, including the related issue we are discussing today, but I would sound a note of caution following on from the debate last September on the Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Act 2022, where the House worked together to allow people in the last years of life to receive increased benefits.”
“We are talking about disgusting pollution, and there should be urgent action to tackle it. That is just one example in one community. I thought the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) spoke beautifully about her coastal community. Inland, we also have wonderful and beautiful waterways that are full of wildlife, with large birds such as swans, smaller ones such as ducks, large fish such as pike, and a range of other fish and animals. All of this is being affected, as is people’s enjoyment, by these terrible sewage incidents. They simply should not be happening. This is happening around the country—a range of constituencies have been referenced to this afternoon—and it simply should not be continuing. I do think there is a need for urgent action now. There needs to be a proper plan, with automatic fines.”
“Ultimately, this dreadful slick would have continued through the rest of the Thames valley and into the sea. That is an appalling abuse that residents and people working nearby should not have to put up with. It is simply not acceptable that this type of pollution takes places in the 21st century. I was near to Foundry brook a few weeks ago—it may have been at the time of the incident or slightly before—when I was getting ready to run the Reading half marathon. I could see and smell the water, and it really was unpleasant—that is the polite way to put it. It was deeply unpleasant. There was an awful smell and a strange tinge to the water. It did not look natural or right, despite the setting with beautiful willow trees, pollarded like something out of “The Wind in the Willows”, next to the waterway.”
“Ultimately, this sewage spill would have fed into the Thames at Reading and then gone onward to London. The spill happened in a beautiful rural setting of rolling countryside just outside Reading. It then passed the western edge of the town, went past the nature reserve, went through areas where people live nearby, with the backs of their gardens going down to the river, and went next to workplaces and right next to Green Park, which is a major science park in our area with thousands of employees who like to walk past the waterways. The spill carried on into the Kennet, went past County lock and into Reading town centre, through the area of the Oracle shopping centre and on past more terraced housing and more flats to Kennetmouth, where the Kennet joins the Thames.”
“It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. Before I start, I thank the Angling Trust, Surfers Against Sewage—I pay tribute to its work in coastal areas and inland—and many other groups that campaign on this important issue. I take this opportunity to talk about an unpleasant incident that happened in my constituency and neighbouring parts of Berkshire, which unfortunately illustrates the scale of the problem, the nature of what we are dealing with and, indeed, the need for urgent action—far more than has so far been committed to by the Government. Earlier this month, there was a spill that lasted for 17 hours into a local brook called Foundry brook, sometimes known as Foudry brook, which feeds into the River Kennet, one of the main tributaries of the Thames.”
“The price of food is rising by 30%, yet the Government are continuing to fail pensioners at this very difficult time: nearly 200,000 women in their 80s have been underpaid for years because of errors at the DWP; hundreds of thousands of pensioners are missing out on pension credit, as we have heard; and when pensioners do get their pension credit application in, it can take up to three months for officials in the Department to process a claim. When will the Government finally tackle this appalling pattern of failure?”
“I pay tribute to my constituent Ruth Perry, the former headteacher of Caversham Primary School. She was a much-loved member of our local community. Will the Secretary of State consider the very serious local concerns when she looks into this matter, and will she agree to meet me, local headteachers and Ruth’s family to discuss this important issue?”
“Thank you for allowing me to take part in today’s debate, Mr Mundell, and I again thank the hon. Member for Don Valley for securing it. It has been a wonderful opportunity to thank many hard-working and motivated people whose faith is at the heart of what they do.”
“There are many other groups, such as the charities that make up the Disasters Emergency Committee, including Oxfam, Islamic Relief and a number of others, that do incredible work. That is motivated by people’s faith and belief in supporting other human beings at a time of great need. Those charities deserve huge support and appreciation for their incredibly valuable work. There are many other groups that I have not been able to mention. I appreciate this opportunity to say some words of thanks and encouragement to the faith communities —particularly Christians, as they are the subject of the debate—that play such an important role across many fields. I also thank Support U, a charity that supports LGBT people in our area; I have had the privilege of working with that absolutely fantastic organisation.”
“It has no property of its own and is looking for one, so if anybody has a spare property in Reading to give them, we would be delighted to accept that. I appreciate that time is limited, but two other forms of help are worth mentioning as practical demonstrations of peoples’ faith in my area and across the country. The first is wider help for the vulnerable—I mention Street Pastors in particular—and the second is the long-standing work of church and faith communities in supporting international development. I particularly want to thank CAFOD—the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. I am not a Catholic, but I am hugely supportive of its work, and it has reached out to me since I became an MP in 2017.”
“In our town, as in many parts of the country, there is a terrific problem with homelessness. I have been privileged to visit New Beginnings, which is a wonderful community organisation that takes in people who are street homeless, and offers them a warm meal and a place to stay. It has converted a former pub, turning it into a place of refuge for people who are in deep trouble, and it offers them practical help. That was set up by a number of practising Christians, and there is a strong church element to it. Sadaka is a similar organisation that has Muslim heritage. Equally, a number of practising Muslims wanted to show their support to the wider community. In a truly amazing demonstration of that support, they offer food regularly on a Saturday morning.”
“Other food bank support in our area includes the Trussell Trust and ReadiFood, which is heavily involved with local churches, and I thank them, as many families and pensioners are suffering enormously in the cost of living crisis. Other notable community organisations that have a religious link include CommuniCare, which carries out very useful advice work for many residents. It has been a privilege to visit its office on a number of occasions. There are literally queues of people waiting outside in the morning to be helped by that charity. Once again, I thank local church members for supporting it. Indeed, I thank other faith communities and people of no faith for their work in community organisations. I also pay tribute to a practical demonstration of people’s faith that is truly humbling.”
“Certainly in Reading, and in Woodley, which is the other town I represent, there is an enormous contribution from our local faith community. That includes churches and many other faiths. I am grateful for this opportunity to thank them for their outstanding community work at this time. I will give the example of the Whitley Community Development Association, which has benefited enormously. That group, which is led by residents in a very disadvantaged part of our community, regularly receives donations of food and other support from local churches and other faith communities. They have had support from a gurdwara as far away as Slough, which is certainly far away from a Reading perspective, although perhaps not for people outside Berkshire. I thank all those churches and other faith communities for getting involved.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and thank you for getting me in at the last moment. I also thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for bringing forward this debate. Today’s debate is timely, given the approach of Easter. We are also now in the holy month of Ramadan, and Passover and Vaisakhi will soon be upon us as well. I declare an interest as somebody who was brought up in the Church of England, although I was told off by a local vicar last year for not attending regularly. He has a good memory, because I think the last time I went was some years ago. I pay tribute to the role of churches in my community, and it is timely to reflect on the wider values of faith communities in British history.”
“I have talked a lot about local history in our area. To sum up, I point out the importance of community. I have been talking about one aspect of that. We are all are discussing different aspects of our local communities and the importance of them in our lives and our work. I thank you, Mr Vickers, for the opportunity to speak today. I could talk about many other things in my community, but I am sure other Members would prefer that I did not. This has been a wonderful opportunity to talk about one aspect of life in Reading and Woodley, and I thank others for their contributions, which have been many and varied. I look forward to enjoying a happy Easter, and I wish a very happy Easter to all Members present.”
“Thankfully, there is a very sympathetic developer, Beechcroft Developments, which wants to use the old building as a piece of sheltered accommodation, together with flats for people who can look after themselves and are somewhat older. I support its efforts and those of Reading council to preserve the building, reuse it and turn it into something useful, with community access to the amazing parkland near the site. My final local example on a similar theme is in Woodley, the other town in my constituency. Woodley was famous as the airfield where Douglas Bader was injured before world war two. It also featured in the war as an important site for manufacturing aircraft and for training of personnel. There is some scope for reusing some of the airfield buildings on the site and I thank the local volunteers taking part in that project.”
“Proposals are being looked at the moment, and I thank residents and others who completed my survey. We also have the exciting opportunity of the former BBC listening post. The hon. Member for Congleton might well be familiar with its work, because she is so abreast of foreign policy. Caversham Park was the site of BBC Monitoring. News of many recent historical events that happened in remote parts of the world was first broken from there, including—I know she is interested in Iranian society and history—the Islamic revolution in 1979. The very first reports of it were translated by Persian-speaking staff at the BBC. The Caversham Park site has been empty for some time. Similar to the gaol, there is enormous potential for it to be redeveloped.”
“Other Departments, such as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, are fully behind such an approach to heritage buildings, so I hope that, given the wider thrust of Government policy, it will be more than possible for the MOJ to look at this and to reconsider how the project is being discussed. I will briefly mention one or two other community issues; they are also on heritage, given that I already spoke about social work in our community in the previous debate. I want to point out the potential as community buildings of some other, currently derelict sites in the Reading area, Cemetery Arch in particular. It is an amazing early Victorian building in the eastern part of our town that has the scope to be redeveloped and turned into something for the whole community.”
“I urge the MOJ to think again and to work with Reading Borough Council, me, the right hon. Member for Reading West, and local arts and community groups to redevelop this wonderful site. The MOJ has spent a long time thinking about it, and the building was mothballed back in 2013, so in many ways it is high time for another look—indeed, it is somewhat overdue. In a meeting with the MOJ, the right hon. Member for Reading West made the point that if we consider the upkeep of the gaol during that time, a lot of money has sadly been lost to the public purse, because of how the MOJ mothballed it and has not been willing to engage in a more thoughtful discussion about its reuse. As I am sure the Minister is only too aware, it is also Government policy to reuse historical buildings, and in a creative way.”
“I urge the MOJ to have another look and to reconsider how it manages procurement. We have had a number of meetings, most recently towards the end of last week when the deputy leader of Reading Borough Council talked to the MOJ about this important issue, but it is still refusing to budge. We would like the MOJ to think about it deeply. We understand that under the Government procurement rules, a Department has to receive best value for selling off buildings and land. However, is it not possible to think about the wider context? We are not expecting any special favours; the MOJ just needs to look at it in the round and to see the possibility for this amazing building. We are hopeful that we will be able to offer a suitable sum to pay for the level of capital receipt needed for the site.”
“The site has had a history of somewhat disappointing commercial bids constructed around the idea of gutting the old building or changing it dramatically, so we would sadly lose the history. At the moment, people can walk into Oscar Wilde’s cell and spend a moment there thinking about how he was treated, and about his amazing writing and his ability to turn what happened to him into incredibly powerful prose and poetry. If the gaol were changed dramatically, we would sadly lose that. That would be an utter tragedy not only for Reading but for people from across the world, who visit his house in Dublin and the cemetery in which he is buried in Paris. Sadly, a great piece of artistic heritage would be lost, and that would be a shame. It would be deeply disappointing for us and the country as a whole.”
“It would be wonderful to see that sort of provision permanently in our town. It could be a venue for local young people, community groups and charities. We have had a lot of interest from the local LGBT community, which wants to use part of the building as a hub for its activities, and other historical and community groups would like to take part in the same way. The tragedy is that although Reading Borough Council has put in a bid for the wonderful building—we have also had an offer of help from Banksy, who put a mural on the wall of the gaol about 18 months ago, to enormous excitement, and there is the possibility of other support from philanthropists—unfortunately we do not have the go-ahead from the MOJ to start negotiating. It is instead working with a preferred bidder, which is sadly a commercial developer.”
“An amazing arts organisation called Artangel used each individual cell to house installation art. It also put on performances in the prison chapel, and it had a number of other activities. It was incredibly powerful. I walked along one of the metal landings, which are reminiscent of “Porridge”, behind a very famous BBC arts presenter—I will not name him—and it was quite wonderful to hear what he said. As I said, we suffer from a lack of institutions to support our amazing local art scheme. He was on his phone to his friends back in London, and he said something along the lines of, “I’m in Reading, in the gaol, and it’s actually really rather interesting.” Like many towns and cities around the country, we suffer from a lack of support from the national arts establishment.”
“Rather like Leicester, Worcester and a number of other medieval towns and cities—I am sure this applies to Scotland and Wales too—we have a monarch buried in our town centre. The gaol was designed by the architect who designed Pentonville and St Pancras station. It is a masterpiece of Victorian gothic architecture. Anyone who walks past it or goes in will see scenes that remind them of “Porridge”, if, like me, they are a fan of it—younger Members may have dabbled in UK Gold and seen it fleetingly. Reading gaol has all the echoes of a Victorian building; people can walk through it and feel that presence. It is rather grim in some ways, but it is historic and very important. The gaol was opened briefly in 2014, and was used for art installations.”
“We have some centres, but they are dispersed around the town and the area. Similarly sized cities and towns in the south-east of England, such as Brighton, Oxford and Southampton, have large arts organisations based in purpose-built theatres, and much bigger centres than the ones we have in Reading, although we are the second largest urban area in the south-east of England after the Greater Brighton area. I turn to the history of this important site. Reading gaol was the county jail for Berkshire. It was built on the site of Reading abbey, a major medieval building that was one of the largest abbeys in England in medieval times. It was founded by King Henry I and was a centre of pilgrimage throughout the middle ages. Indeed, Henry I is believed to be buried there.”
“I want to update the House briefly on where I am with the campaign, but also to point out some of its important features and urge the Government to support the local bid for an arts-based solution for the building—it is currently mothballed—rather than the commercial redevelopment favoured by the Ministry of Justice, which would like the Victorian building to be turned into a hotel or possibly into luxury flats. As anybody who has been through our area recently will have seen if they travelled on the train, or as colleagues from Wales who travel on the motorway may have seen, Berkshire is dominated by a large amount of urban development. Many flats are being built, but we do not have a major hub for our wonderful arts community to perform in and put on stage productions.”
“Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), Reading Borough Council and many local groups in our community. It is the campaign to save Reading gaol and to turn the famous Victorian gaol into an arts and heritage hub, so that we may celebrate the heritage of Oscar Wilde and the other important national and local heritage that is part of the gaol and the surrounding site, for the good of the community, to celebrate diversity and to support the LGBT community and the arts across Berkshire and the wider UK.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. May I start by commending the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for her work in championing the rights of people who face persecution—both Christians and others around the world—and by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who is campaigning on a number of important fronts? Not only do I wholeheartedly support that, but many of my own residents face the same enormous difficulties with the high cost of housing in London and the south-east, and people face enormous overcrowding in Reading town centre. I want to take this opportunity to champion a very important local campaign in Reading and Berkshire. I have been pursuing this for some time and have had enormous support from the right hon.”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Does he agree that the pressures that are, as he rightly said, felt by many families are also felt by our hard-working small businesses, which face extreme pressures on their costs, suppliers and energy costs? Does he agree that the Government seem to have forgotten about them?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I will address my remarks purely to the amendments. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow East for his work on the subject. He made a deeply personal and heartfelt point about his own experience. However, there has been a wide range of discussion and debate on the matter, and I believe that this afternoon we ought to focus on the Bill itself. I am aware that time is pressing, and given the matters being discussed in the main Chamber, I will leave my remarks at that for now.”
“Once again, I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North for his work on this matter, and I thank colleagues from across the House. I look forward to further answers from the Minister about the importance of consultation and bringing stakeholder groups with us on this important journey.”
“I am also interested in the consultation, in so far as it has reached out to advice organisations such as Which? and many others that have an important role in the wider money and savings debate. I hope that she is discussing with them the importance of this. My second question is about when the Department hopes to use these powers. As has been said, the Bill allows the Government the power to do this and explains how it would happen through a statutory instrument. However, the Bill does not specify when this might happen. The Minister has talked in the past about the mid-2020s. I would be grateful if she clarified how she defines mid-2020s, and whether she will take into account any other factors such as the overall performance of the economy and the nature of any continuing cost of living crisis as we approach that time.”
“Therefore I would like the Minister to explain to the Committee a little more about the nature of the consultation: in particular, what work the Department has done to encourage pension savers, especially young people, to be aware of the potential to save more for a pension in the future; the discussion that she has had with employers, both individual employers and employer organisations; and what she will do to continue to work with them, because when this legislation is implemented, it is a step forward for them—it is a greater contribution. We need to work with them. I would like to know what work the Minister is doing with trade unions. They have a very important part to play in the roll-out of auto-enrolment. I was glad that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North mentioned that and acknowledged the significant work that they do.”
“My questions for the Minister are primarily about the nature of the consultation, because as we have heard, it is hugely important that we work with pension savers themselves, with employers and with other stakeholder organisations to ensure that there is consensus on this issue and that policy is developed in a sensible way.”
“The coalition Government implemented this change in 2012, and there has been growth in the number of people saving for a pension as a result. That is a commendable step forward. However, pensions adequacy remains an issue and it is important for us to continue to go forward. In doing so, we need to work in a gradual, sensible and practical way to try to encourage auto-enrolment, and to work with stakeholders such as businesses, savers themselves and, indeed, society as a whole to try to take this work forward. In that spirit, I have some questions for the Minister. This Bill will clearly offer real advantages to many younger people, who will be saving not only a greater sum, but from an earlier point in their life. That will help to build a much better pension pot for those pension savers.”
“Once again, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I commend the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North for his work on this Bill, and, indeed, other Members from across the House and the wider policy discussion about the importance of auto-enrolment. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West rightly said, pensions adequacy is a very important issue facing the whole of our society; it is a matter of great importance. We should, across the House, be encouraging people to save for their future, so it is important to debate this issue today. I particularly want to say, in the time that I have, that auto-enrolment in itself is a great public policy success of the last few years. It dates back to the work of the Pensions Commission for the last Labour Government.”
“T7. It is good to see you in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thousands of retired Gurkha soldiers who left the Army before 1997 live in considerable poverty, many of them in my constituency. I understand that there are ongoing negotiations between the Ministry and the Government of Nepal, and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State or a Minister could update me on this important issue.”
“Sanctions need to be part of a wider package of action against the Putin regime in Russia; that should include the UK continuing to work with NATO, continued UK Government support for the Ukrainian Government through military and other means, and a package of measures for the future, such as a plan for the longer term and action against war criminals.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue. I thank the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for allowing me to speak briefly. I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent work on this matter. Who would have thought that such a humble thing as a garage door could have been the subject of such appalling abuse of the system? I ask the Minister to look into that. I want to set out my support for this action and point out the considerable support for Ukraine in my constituency of Reading East. Many local people, including those in our significant local Ukrainian community, who I actively support, are concerned about sanctions.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent work in securing the debate and campaigning on this important issue. Does she agree that the Government can learn from some of the successes under the last Labour Government, in particular in London during the roll-out of London Challenge, and many other policies? They should revisit the guidance to which she refers, which clearly seems to be a mistake.”
“Q10. My constituent Olly Stephens was just 13 years old when he was stabbed and brutally murdered in a local park just yards from his home. The two boys who attacked him had shared dozens of pictures of knives online before the attack. Can the Prime Minister explain to me why the Government have removed measures to tackle this sort of dreadful online content from the Online Safety Bill?”