Stuart Anderson
MP for South Shropshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I do not think the minimum wage should have gone up by 3.9% or 3.4%—whatever was announced today. I believe it should have been frozen for many years, or for several years. I definitely think we should have left it; I do not believe it should rise, because businesses cannot take it at the moment. We have to make firm decisions.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not take any more interventions— I have already taken two. Look at what the industry, from ADS across, is saying about these cuts. Last week, the House found out that two or three Boxer projects were cut. We found out that DragonFire might not be on the Type 45s next year, as planned.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The price of heating oil is more than double what it was six months ago. I understand that that is because of international headwinds, and I believe that prices will probably go up significantly again because of what will happen over the next few weeks.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith), who started by talking about not having a mayor, and then how getting a mayor will open routes to funding.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend raises a valid point. There is definitely a link; it is getting harder to employ people because businesses are not making a profit. In my high street survey, to which 4,500 residents contributed, businesses said that it is harder to make a profit on the high street.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think my constituency has the second highest number of shotgun licences in the country. It is a serious sport that is undertaken widely. There is just a continual drip, drip, drip of these policies. I will finish on defence. The Chancellor resigned when he believed that defence was not funded well enough.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
The complete record
548 lines on record for Stuart Anderson, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, without an account. Most recent 500 lines shown. Search to find more. Page 1 of 10.
This is not an official version of UK Parliament proceedings. It reproduces the published record and links to it; the official version is the one UK Parliament publishes.
“I agree with the right hon. Member that it would be great to grow the economy to achieve the 3.5% spend, but the Chancellor has today set out multibillion pound in-year cuts this year—we see that in particular in the resource departmental expenditure limit budget at about 0.5% next year—so as it stands there will be far less for training and operations. That is before we even look at whether, in three-plus years’ time, the Chancellor has achieved that growth or not.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the approach to move forward on defence, but since I have been elected I have even called my own Government out for not providing enough defence funding. Does the hon. Gentleman realise that today’s announcement on defence means that we are making in-year cuts for the next two years on defence because we cannot afford what we currently have in place?”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It will have a massive impact, and there is a whole ecosystem around racecourses. Let me turn to heating oil. As 53% of my constituents are not on mains gas, over half over my constituents will not benefit from those announcements in the Budget.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith), who started by talking about not having a mayor, and then how getting a mayor will open routes to funding. In South Shropshire, we do not have a mayor, and we are not looking to get one; most of what was said today excludes areas like mine that do not have local mayors. That is a big issue. I would categorise this Budget as one that fails rural communities and does not protect our nation, and I will back that up by outlining why. I will start with the gambling tax. Ludlow racecourse is in my constituency, which Members will obviously all agree is the best in the country; along with the point-to-points, like Bitterley and Eyton races, Ludlow is really going to suffer from the gambling tax.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The price of heating oil is more than double what it was six months ago. I understand that that is because of international headwinds, and I believe that prices will probably go up significantly again because of what will happen over the next few weeks. However, 53% of my constituents do not feel that the support they are getting is comparable to what residents on gas are getting. Let us look at pubs. The 166 pubs and four great breweries in South Shropshire tell me that the various rate rises they have seen over the past few years are having a massive impact on them. The minimum wage makes it very hard for them to employ young people, whether to give them their first step on the jobs ladder or because they want to earn extra money while at university. It is getting very hard.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend raises a valid point. There is definitely a link; it is getting harder to employ people because businesses are not making a profit. In my high street survey, to which 4,500 residents contributed, businesses said that it is harder to make a profit on the high street. We have seen the rise of the internet alongside increases in taxes and the cost of employing people. Businesses are not investing—they are not taking the risk. Look at how hard the Government have made it for high streets. The Lib Dem council in South Shropshire decided to bring in what look to be catastrophic parking charges for Ludlow and Bridgnorth, and across the whole area. I stand firmly against those charges, because they are just another tax on my constituents.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think my constituency has the second highest number of shotgun licences in the country. It is a serious sport that is undertaken widely. There is just a continual drip, drip, drip of these policies. I will finish on defence. The Chancellor resigned when he believed that defence was not funded well enough. In this year, there is a £3.5 billion cut, with a £1 billion cut in each of the next two years—that is in the RDEL figures on page 145 of the Red Book. That means that defence is now getting less funding than when the Chancellor resigned. The target to get to 3% by 2030— [ Interruption. ] It is! It is on page 145. Look at the in-year cuts. Look at the defence industry’s response to the Budget.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not think the minimum wage should have gone up by 3.9% or 3.4%—whatever was announced today. I believe it should have been frozen for many years, or for several years. I definitely think we should have left it; I do not believe it should rise, because businesses cannot take it at the moment. We have to make firm decisions. Fewer young people will have work because of these rate rises. I will turn to farming. The Chancellor spoke for an hour and a half, and there was not one thing about agriculture. Some 25% of my constituents work in agriculture, and the failed SFI26 window was a serious issue. Rural communities really do feel left behind. We have seen an attack on our rural communities, from the shotgun consultation to trail hunting—all those issues are vital to my constituency. This is huge.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The strategic defence review set out almost 18 months ago that we face the most serious times since the cold war—though I believe it is since the second world war. Out of the NATO countries, only Iceland is rearming more slowly than us and it does not have a military. I travel a lot within NATO countries, and I have been called out to speak on behalf of the UK by other countries’ Defence Ministers. I fed that back to the now Chancellor and he said, “I know; it is embarrassing.” On the international stage, we are nowhere near where we should be. Our approach to defence is seriously failing. This Budget fails rural communities and it fails defence.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not take any more interventions— I have already taken two. Look at what the industry, from ADS across, is saying about these cuts. Last week, the House found out that two or three Boxer projects were cut. We found out that DragonFire might not be on the Type 45s next year, as planned. We found out that there are training cuts that happen to have an impact on operational capability. We found out that there is a cut to single living accommodation. Does anybody seriously think that we are funding defence? We are nowhere near doing so. When we were in government, I had many conversations saying, “This does not work,” and I publicly put it on record with the rest of the Defence Committee. We were facing serious issues, and we were not funding defence enough. I am very happy to say that.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I regularly meet South Shropshire farmers, who work night and day to put food on the table, and hear about the challenges that they face. Does the hon. Member agree that everything should be done to unlock all the red tape that the farmers have to deal with to produce food? Food production should be considered part of national security and resilience, because we need to ensure that we are self-sufficient.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In rural South Shropshire we face flooding and power cuts every year, so I welcome this campaign. However, I do not believe it has landed as the Government intended, because the strategic defence review set out a whole-of-society approach and a national conversation about the threats we face to our resilience. We have talked about the Finnish model. The Finns clearly know the threats through proximity. I believe that to get the public on side, we have to clearly set out the threats to critical national infrastructure that could close the internet down for several weeks or lead to power outages and so on. Does the Minister agree that taking that approach will help the country to prepare better?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank all my constituents who have contacted me about this vital point. Community diagnostic centres offer great resources to speed up screening. Does my hon. Friend agree that more emphasis should be put on those centres, particularly in rural areas like South Shropshire?”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. I held a similar one earlier this year on 4 February, in which I raised issues regarding Royal Mail, particularly with respect to the WV15 and WV16 postcodes in my constituency, where people are waiting for two, three and sometimes four weeks to receive mail. Does she agree that that situation is completely unacceptable and must change, because my constituents, like many other people, feel that they really do not matter to Royal Mail?”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I start by echoing the Secretary of State’s comments about Paul Wilks, and on behalf of the shadow defence team, I pass on my condolences to the families and colleagues of the Canadian service personnel who tragically lost their lives yesterday. Improving skills in defence requires training. Training builds readiness, which increases both lethality and survivability. Yet it has been reported through multiple outlets that the Army has cancelled important training to save money. Is that correct?”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It an honour to follow the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who speaks eloquently about this topic. I have spoken at length in almost every debate we have had about this matter, having served during the troubles myself, and I contemplated whether I should stand up and speak again today. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), I do not want to say what has already been said over and over and waste time, but the right hon. Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn) spoke eloquently about the stories that never leave us. We have all heard the stories that never leave us.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not believe that we are intentionally going after our veterans, but there will be unintended consequences and we will open the door to our veterans being in the dock for years to come.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If you ask two or three people about the same incident an hour after, they will all have a different reason for it. We have to stand for our veterans and draw a line under this. The Bill is not doing that. The generals, some of whom I served with on operational tours, said that the Bill is a threat to national security, and I believe it is. It impacts on morale phenomenally. I am yet to find a group of veterans—people might disagree—who support it, and I have a very good network of people; my whole life has been spent in defence and security. I have not found anybody who supports what we are doing, and I believe that there will be unintended consequences.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have many friends who I know have post-traumatic stress and have not dealt with it—they have just left those issues there. I went through EMDR—eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing— and cognitive behavioural therapy. That took me through things that I had no recollection of, but that the therapist was able to pull out of my brain. I had not remembered those things for many years. We are going to ask people to go through that process with their memories. I am 50 now—I know that hon. Members are thinking, “You look a bit younger, Stu”—and I was at the very end of Op Banner. I was a teenager. We are asking one and two generations before me to recount things they might have suffered through post-traumatic stress—things that they do not want to remember or possibly cannot remember.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We knew young soldiers who would come back to the pub—I will not say what age I was first going to the pub—and people would say, “They’ve been over the water.” They did not talk about it; they did not want to talk about it. It was not that they were smashing the place up—some people did, but some reacted differently. They had seen things that their mind had not processed. I have come through the other side of complex post-traumatic stress. I had therapy. I had witnessed and seen things in my life that my brain could not process. If you see something, you put it into a library in your brain. If you have a traumatic incident, you cannot process it and put it in the library, so it is sort of sat in the foyer. You cannot choose when you pull that up or when you do not. I went through therapy to reprocess all those things in my mind.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I had an amazing time at the reunion. I was with my colleagues, and people were telling me stories. Five of us all had exceptionally different memories of a story. People were telling me stories about when I got shot; I knew that they had joined the military five years after, but they were recounting it like they were there with me. It is not that they were making things up; they had heard it that many times that they believed they were there. You are reliving all of these points. Let us have a look at what it was like to serve in Northern Ireland—this is the point that I want people to grasp in relation to amendment 47. I grew up in Hereford, and my dad was one of the first SAS soldiers to serve in Northern Ireland. We all knew people who had served in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member raises some valid points. A lot of people here have first-hand experience, and the RUC and the military did exceptional work during the troubles—beyond what it is possible even to explain here. When I look at new clause 21 and amendment 47, I think about how we deal with memory and history. I will explain that in a bit more detail. The Secretary of State said that new clause 21 is illogical. I disagree. I believe that the bar should be exceptionally high. I went to the Green Jackets reunion this summer. I had not been for 16 years, because—I have spoken of my history and my past—I had to have a break from my past. That is to say nothing against my friends, but I needed to move out of that environment until it was safe for me—given the violence, alcohol and other issues I have had—to go back into it.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a complex issue, but we are asking local residents to feed into the police and me any operations on the high street that they believe are illegal. We need to do everything we can to ensure that genuine local businesses can thrive and to get rid of shops that do not belong there, that present a blight on the high street and, in many cases, are fronts for organised crime that need to be closed down.”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On pop-up shops, which many Members have already mentioned, we have the Turkish barbers, who have the skill of Sweeney Todd and serve about two people a day, can be closed for months on end and then open, and the vape shops, which have neon signs and displays that are not in keeping with any South Shropshire town. From Ludlow over to Bridgnorth, we see them changing the shape of the high street. Residents do not like it, it is not appropriate and we need to call it out. I am working with a rural crime officer; we have recently met with the chamber of commerce and local businesses in Ludlow. I am also working with a dedicated police officer in Bridgnorth specifically to look at this problem.”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing this important debate. South Shropshire residents really value their high street—the 4,500 people who filled in my survey explaining what was important to them on the high street are testament to that. Unanimously, businesses said that taxes were too high and it was so hard to make a profit. Established businesses that have been operating for many years are struggling to make a profit under the current conditions. Residents also spoke about parking, accessibility and how they get to the high street—a big issue—but also about the state of the high street, from cleanliness to pop-up shops.”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A high-profile child sex offender was released into a village near a school in my constituency. I was told about this by local residents. Over three months ago, I wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister expressing huge concern. He refused to meet me and said that this was down to the Probation Service. Why is the safety of South Shropshire’s children not worth a meeting to discuss this issue? This is a huge issue for my constituents.”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for securing a very good debate. On food security, in south Shropshire, just outside Onibury, there is a campaign to stop over 130 acres of solar panels going on good agricultural land. The plans would make it harder to be resilient and to provide food security as a country. Does he agree that no solar panels should go across good agricultural land?”
House of Commons24 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“South Shropshire farmers wanted to see an action plan that prioritised food production. The road map does not do that, and it will not happen unless the Government decide to do all food procurement through supply chains that prioritise South Shropshire farmers and other farmers around the country. Will the Secretary of State commit to prioritising British farmers in the Government procurement process?”
House of Commons24 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for taking my intervention. I, too, served with 20th Armoured Brigade and was deployed in operations from Germany over to the Balkans. She talks about mismanagement. She is in a position where, unless more funding comes forward, the Government are about to make some of the biggest cuts to the armed forces during the most hostile situation since the second world war. How does she square that circle?”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is easy to take lessons from Ukraine, and just think that that is what warfare will be, and while we should take those lessons, we need adapt and prepare, moving forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) mentioned the 18 defence primes. On the scalability of technology, I believe a disruptive model is coming, or is needed, in the defence industry. Two weeks ago, I was delighted to be at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with NATO, discussing nanotechnology—even though I left school as a lad with no GCSEs, and joined the armed forces as a rifleman. Time has moved on.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“CDEL buys the ships, tanks, planes and big items, but they have to be run, and we have to pay our troops, so we have to look at the resources around that. Resource is about 62% of defence spending at the moment, but it is nowhere near enough—the balance is off. We are looking at big projects. It is great to be looking at issues such as how we fund new submarines and the Type 83, but will the global combat air programme be crewed or uncrewed? That is another debate; I have some good views on that that I would love to share another time. At the moment, the debate is about what war we are preparing to fight. The hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) has mentioned that the DIP did not fund enough preparation for wars that we may be fighting in the future. It is always hard to predict the future of warfare.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me go back to when I was on the Defence Committee, from 2020 to the middle of 2022. My name is on many reports that absolutely destroyed the Government of the time. That gave me many difficult conversations with the Whips, but calling out the Government was the right thing to do, because we were not able to procure equipment. We were not ready and able to prepare for the world as it was at the time. The Chief of the Defence Staff has recently said that we will have to cut operational services and training capability. Those are big issues, but he has also touched on something that most people do not mention: the resource spending. We have resource departmental expenditure limit spending and capital departmental expenditure limit spending.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In 1999, after I got married—I celebrated my 27th wedding anniversary on Friday—I said to my wife, “See you in six months,” and deployed straight to Kosovo. When we arrived in theatre, there were no Army barracks. We found derelict, flea-ridden accommodation—blokes were covered in flea bites—and we moved into houses that had been abandoned, as people were still being ethnically cleansed. We did not have the kit, but we were about the most lethal bunch of soldiers you could see. We adapted. The readiness came from what Field Marshal Slim described in the Burma conflict as spiritual morale. You can take equipment away from soldiers and break everything, but if they have the spiritual morale to fight, they can get through everything. We are burning out that morale in the military over time, bit by bit.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We talk about numbers, but are we funding the readiness of our armed forces? Are they as lethal as they can be? Do they have the ability to survive any conflict? We are not looking at the expeditionary side of warfare that we have seen in the middle east in recent years; we are looking at how we fit on the world stage, and how we prepare for a global conflict, while hoping that it never happens. We have to look at those three areas, but there is always a debate. Are we are ready enough? Should we spend more money on lethality, or should we look at survivability? The most important of those areas is readiness, but I am not saying that the other areas are not important. We have to be ready. If we are not, we cannot go to war.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is no denying that the whole world has changed since 2014, or even since 2022, and we are in the most volatile situation. The debate is about whether we should measure from the end of the cold war or the end of the second world war. I firmly believe that we should measure from the end of the second world war. I believe that we will see a global conflict in the coming years, but we are not prepared to defend our nation. I believe that, at this stage, we cannot meet our article 3 NATO commitment to defend the nation for the period of time expected. Everybody talks about article 5, but there are three things that every Defence Minister and politician must look at when we speak about defence: readiness, lethality and survivability. Everything we must do is there.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When Government Members start to talk about “14 years of hollowed-out defence”, they make an illiterate defence argument. They are taking a moment in time and comparing peace with war. We need to look at the situation over the past 100 years and learn from history. At the end of the second world war, Clement Attlee demobilised the military, because that was the right thing to do, as we did not need 5 million soldiers. Similarly, at the fall of the Berlin wall, the majority of the world de-armed and reduced the scale of their defence spending. However, the situation has changed. In 2022, defence spending was 2.22% of GDP, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics, not 2.1% as the hon. Member for North Durham said.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith): we are in a very serious situation, but rhetoric, or party political lines, are overtaking that, and we are missing the fact that we need to rearm to face the current situation. In 2024-25, there were 54 to 55 conflicts around the world—those figures might be adjusted, depending on the source. That is the largest number of conflicts in any one year since the second world war. If we believe that we can stop a major conflict, why can we not stop minor conflicts? There is complete instability, and the whole geopolitical situation has changed. Discussions that we are having now would have seemed impossible—beyond the realms of fantasy—five or even three years ago. We need to put that in perspective and really think about it.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst). He speaks with passion on defence, and he clearly wants to increase our defence presence. I have listened to the debate and I am sounding an alarm. I grew up in a military family; both my parents were in the military. I left school and joined the military, and my brother served in the military. I spent my entire career in security and defence, and since coming to Parliament, everything I have done, outside traditional constituency engagements, is about backing security and defence. I am delighted to be graduating next month from the Royal College of Defence Studies. It has been brilliant to spend a year immersed in the best strategic command course in the world. I reiterate the point made by my right hon.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I served for 18 months on Op Banner during the troubles, and the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 is cutting through. Regardless of the political debate here, serving soldiers believe that they will not be protected by the Government when they go on operations. We can argue the issue, and go back and forth on it, but that is what is landing, and what they believe. A change to what we have in place would be a betrayal to our veterans. It would remove spiritual morale—that British fighting spirit that I have spoken about. It would make us not ready, not lethal and unable to survive. Unless the DIP comes forward with the correct funding for the correct defence products, we will be in a serious situation, and I do not believe that we are ready for what is coming over the horizon.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“All the things that happened on our watch, on Labour’s watch before us, and on Labour’s watch now, are chipping away at the spiritual morale of troops. I have a son who is a serving soldier, and I am watching that happen bit by bit. He is told, “That exercise is cancelled because we cannot afford it,” “You have to do extra time on deployment because we cannot rotate you through,” and “We are not going to order equipment, because the DIP is not ready.” All those things chip away at spiritual morale. There is one issue that we are dealing with that cuts to the heart of every veteran. I sat with a load of veterans watching the football last week—I will be watching football tonight with serving personnel, and spending time with veterans and colleagues—and I have heard at first hand what they are saying.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No. Let us look at how technology and innovation are moving forward. In some ways, we need to think differently. We need an understanding of how we prepare for different warfares. It is not a matter of nanotechnology on the one side and aircraft carriers on the other; there is a bit in the middle. We should look at the scalability of new technology, as artificial intelligence develops and quantum computing comes online. The battle space will be completely different, and we have to move into that space. People often say that the nature of warfare is changing, but it is not. The nature of warfare is brutal, and will always be, but the character of warfare is changing, and we have to be prepared for that. Let me go back to my point about readiness, lethality and survivability.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am struggling to see where the JEF, NATO and another alliance, even with our own sovereign capability, come into play. Those frameworks are already in place to enable us to stand up on the stage. It is about our funding of our capability. To the earlier point about strategy that Members were getting confused about, a grand strategy will be set out by the leader of the country, and the strategic defence review is a strategy of defence within that grand strategy.”
House of Commons22 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member is right to mention defence being underfunded—I called it out under the last Government and I call it out under this Government. The previous Defence Secretary talked about 30 years of defence underfunding. We talk about the DIP going line by line and getting this right, but if it does not come out with correct funding and it is anywhere near the numbers quoted by the previous Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), that will probably be felt most in the hon. Member’s constituency with its shipbuilding and, as she mentioned, submarine capability.”
House of Commons22 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very conscious of the words that we are saying to veterans. In the Minister’s response to a written parliamentary question on 28 May, she said that UK veterans faced a six-month wait when applying for war pensions in 2024-25. It is now 18 months at a minimum. I know that because I am going through the process, after a minor amputation of my foot. That period has more than tripled on her watch. Was she aware of that? Is that acceptable? It is a bare minimum of 18 months before there is even a response.”
House of Commons22 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On tariffs, I want to explore what the Chancellor said about “significant quantities”, because a significant quantity for a supermarket can be of a completely different scale from a significant quantity for a small South Shropshire farmer. Will the Chancellor guarantee that no South Shropshire farmers will be undercut by the measures on tariffs, and that none of the supermarkets will pass on the cost cuts to British farmers?”
House of Commons21 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The UK does not produce enough stainless steel of the right type or quality to meet demand. Amodil currently has 5,000 tonnes of stainless steel in stock, 2,000 tonnes of which cannot be, and is not, made in the UK. It could take up to 15 years to get some of the skills right. Large-diameter bars of a certain grade are not made in the UK and those bars are vital to key industries, such as aerospace, defence, pharmaceuticals, oil, automative, general engineering and many more. If the tariffs are put on these businesses—Amodil is the largest British business in the field in the UK and there are many others—they will be priced out of the industry. I really hope the Secretary of State can see the importance of this matter.”
House of Commons21 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government want to protect the steel industry as an industry of vital strategic importance—I get that—and they want to protect jobs, but for the almost 1,000 jobs they will save, many thousands more will be lost, and I will say exactly where. The UK cannot meet domestic market demand, and a huge gap will be created. Businesses such as Amodil will be forced to import, and tariffs will drive up costs by 50%. There is not the cash across the industry to absorb those extra costs without mass redundancies. The costs will be passed on, meaning that manufacturers’ costs will go up. What will happen then? The customer will buy the finished product from manufacturers overseas at a lower price, and those products are not subject to tariffs. That does not level the playing field for us.”
House of Commons21 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The people who run Amodil know what they are on about, and they were completely blindsided by the announcement on tariffs. They had not been told, and none of their customers or suppliers, or the people they were involved with, knew anything about it, so they came straight to me. I have written to the Minister multiple times and had one response. He needs to sit down with the largest British business in this industry and have a serious conversation. The big issue that Amodil faces is the tariffs on the stainless steel products it brings in that cannot be made in the UK in the required quantity or type.”
House of Commons21 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not support this Bill, and I believe that the reasoned amendment is the right way forward. I will set out clearly the devastating impact that the Bill is about to have, in real time, in my constituency. We have a great local business called Amodil. It is a British family-run business that started with a couple of people in 1976 in Cleobury Mortimer, South Shropshire. I recently went to Cleobury to meet Paul, Chris, Ben and the team, as well as Rob Cooper from the British Stainless Steel Association. The business was founded by Paul Slingsby, who at 75 still works in it today. It is the UK’s largest privately owned supplier and stockholder of stainless steel long products, with more than 1,200 customers—about 20% of the UK market.”
House of Commons21 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Secretary of State, or one of the Ministers, will sit with me and the team at Amodil, they will be able to see, within a matter of minutes, where the gap is and how to plug it. It is along the blanket grading for all the bars. I request a pause for, say, just six months—or if we can talk with Amodil in a matter of days—so we can sit down and look at this, because there is a massive knock-on impact that will seriously hurt the stainless steel industry, and one of the largest employers in my constituency will be massively hurt too.”
House of Commons21 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗