Matt Vickers
MP for Stockton West · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Clause 30 allows a court to adjourn proceedings on a slavery and trafficking prevention order at sentencing. If the defendant does not attend the adjourned hearing, the court may adjourn again, issue a warrant for their arrest or, subject to safeguards, proceed in their absence.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Clear information can help with both, but a longer statement is not necessarily a better one, and paying someone to produce a polished document is no substitute for checking what is happening on the ground. Clause 44 and schedule 5 make reporting topics compulsory.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We made the same argument during the passage of the Crime and Policing Bill, to which we tabled amendments that would have put real penalties on registered sex offenders who failed to notify. An obligation with no teeth is no obligation at all. However, collecting information is only half the job.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the fact that those regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure, but before we give the Minister this regulation-making power, the Committee should understand the gap it is meant to close. What can officers not currently find out through the orders, and how would that information help them to prevent exploitation?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In July, the Government announced £25 million to extend the guardian service to the remaining 179 local authorities in England that do not have it yet. We welcome that, but a child in one of those areas needs a guardian now. Can the Minister tell us when the service will be available in every one of them?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Who has asked how the workers are recruited, or whether a subcontractor is using labour supplied on terms that should ring alarm bells? Those questions need asking before a problem becomes a scandal, and the Government should lead by example here.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Clauses 28 and 29 make compulsory the core notification requirements for slavery and trafficking prevention and risk orders. The clauses also allow for the specification in regulations of further information that a court can require in a particular order. The principle behind the clauses is simple: if the police are to enforce an order, they need to know who the person is and where to find them. An order is not worth the paper it is written on if the person it covers can simply disappear, so the Opposition welcome making the requirements compulsory, rather than optional. A “requirement” to notify must be exactly that—a requirement, not a polite request. Anyone who gives false details or deliberately keeps the police in the dark should expect consequences.”
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“Who will be responsible for telling victims that an order has been delayed and what has and has not been put in place? Will the Government monitor how often such proceedings are adjourned and how many times in a single case, so that a sensible power does not become another source of delay?”
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“The safeguards in the clause matter. Before issuing a warrant, the court must be satisfied that the defendant had “adequate notice” of the hearing before proceeding in their absence. It must also be satisfied that the defendant was told the hearing could go ahead without them. If that is not done properly, the court cannot take the next step. Getting the paperwork right is what allows the court to act firmly. We must not forget the victim. If the hearing has been put off, the victim needs to know that restrictions are not in place. Otherwise, they may rely on protection that does not yet exist. We support clause 30, but I would be grateful if the Minister answered the following questions. When proceedings are adjourned and the offender is not in custody, how will any immediate risk be managed until the order is made?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When someone has been convicted of exploiting another human being, the public will rightly expect any continuing risk to be dealt with promptly. Given the Crown court backlog of a record more than 80,000 cases, nobody should be adding avoidable hearings to that list. It is also worth noting that the clause places no limit on how long proceedings can be adjourned or how many times. That is why so much depends on preparation. The possibility of a prevention order should not suddenly occur to someone at the end of a sentencing hearing. An adjournment may sometimes be necessary, but it must not become the fall-back for an application that nobody got ready. We welcome the power to proceed when the defendant fails to attend; a convicted offender should not be able to hold up a protective order simply by staying at home.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Clause 30 allows a court to adjourn proceedings on a slavery and trafficking prevention order at sentencing. If the defendant does not attend the adjourned hearing, the court may adjourn again, issue a warrant for their arrest or, subject to safeguards, proceed in their absence. A court deciding whether to make one of these orders needs the evidence to get it right, and the Opposition support giving it the time to do so. Proposed restrictions may need checking, or information from another force may still be outstanding. Rushing that work could produce an order that misses the very conduct it is meant to stop. We should be clear about what an adjournment means in practice: another hearing has to be listed, officers may have to return to court, and if the offender is not in custody the risk they pose has to be managed while the case waits.”
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“Where will monitoring be available when these powers come into force, and when will it be available everywhere? When will the Committee see a draft of the code of practice on monitoring data?”
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“Deliberate tampering cannot be allowed to defeat an order, and it must be treated as the enforcement matter it is. Equally, officers need to be able to tell a flat battery from a deliberate attempt to go off the radar, so that they spend their time on the real risks. Clause 33 requires a code of practice on monitoring data. That code must protect the data properly, but it must also let the right officers get hold of information quickly, and make sure that it is preserved where it may be needed as evidence. We support clauses 31 to 33, but we have questions for the Minister. When an alert is raised under one of these orders, who receives it? How is it passed to the police, and how quickly will officers respond, including at night and on weekends?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Met itself described cases in which officers were told about a breach many hours after it had happened. The problem is therefore at both ends: alerts that are slow to reach the police, and police too stretched to respond when they do. The Minister must tell us how alerts under these new orders will avoid both. Monitoring can also be imposed only where suitable arrangements are available in the area, so a court may decide that monitoring is necessary but still be unable to order it. Will monitoring be available consistently across the country from the day these powers come into force, or will protection depend on where a victim happens to live? The person being monitored must allow the equipment to be fitted and maintained, and must not interfere with it.”
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“Picture someone walking into an area the court has barred them from because a potential victim lives there. The device records it and an alert is raised. Then what? Who receives that alert first, how quickly is it passed to the police, and how quickly do officers arrive? Someone who is at risk at 11 o’clock on a Saturday night cannot wait until Monday morning for someone to check a screen. That is not a theoretical concern. Only this week, Sky News reported that the Metropolitan police will no longer respond to curfew or tag battery breaches lasting under an hour, unless the wearer is judged to pose a particular risk. The commissioner says his officers are dealing with more than 100 tag breaches a day, driven in part by the Government’s early release scheme. One sergeant put it simply: “there are not enough cops”.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Clauses 31 to 33 provide for electronic monitoring in slavery and trafficking prevention orders and risk orders, including interim orders, and require the issuance of a code of practice on how the monitoring data is handled. A court order must mean something. If somebody is told to stay away from a potential victim or a particular place, the authorities need to know when that order is broken, and they need to act. Electronic monitoring can help with that, and the Opposition support these powers. However, we should not view tagging through rose-tinted glasses. A tag tells the authority where someone is. It cannot stop the person picking up a phone and getting someone else to do their dirty work, and a tag is only as good as the response when it goes off.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I set out our concerns about police and court capacity when we debated clauses 26 and 27, and they bite the hardest here. Reviewing existing orders and returning to court every year is exactly the kind of work that does not happen unless someone is given the job of doing it. We support clause 34, but I would be grateful if the Minister could answer the following questions. Who will review existing orders, and who will ensure that a renewal reaches the court before the order or the monitoring runs out? How quickly will an urgent variation be heard when fresh evidence shows that the risk has grown, and what happens if the defendant does not attend? How will victims be told when an order is varied, renewed or allowed to lapse, so that they know what protection they actually have?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A court can extend a monitoring requirement by no more than 12 months at a time, so every order with a tag will need to come back to court at least once a year to keep it in place. Expiry dates should never come as a surprise. An ongoing risk must not go unmonitored because a renewal application was left sitting in someone’s in-tray. There is a practical catch, too: a tag can be added on variation only if the defendant is present in court, so the person who stays away from the hearing may be the very person who cannot be tagged. I will be grateful if the Minister could say how that will be handled. The clause rightly keeps the requirement for the court to assess risk and necessity. Good evidence makes for a stronger order, and a stronger order is one that officers can enforce with confidence.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The police know things have changed and that the original conditions no longer fit the risk, but unless someone picks up the file and takes it back to court, the order stays exactly as it was. Someone has to be responsible for spotting that gap and closing it. The clause also deals with orders made before the Bill. As we discussed under clauses 28 and 29, some such orders contain no notification requirements at all. Under clause 34, when an older order is varied, the court can add those requirements only if it is satisfied that they are necessary, but when an older order is renewed, they must be included. That is welcome, but it means the protection depends on someone bringing the older order back to court. Electronic monitoring brings deadlines of its own.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The clause brings the new notification and electronic monitoring requirements into the process for varying and renewing slavery and trafficking prevention orders and risk orders. An order has to keep protecting people long after the day it is made. Those subject to the orders could move, change how they operate or find a way around a restriction and the police must be able to respond. The Opposition support the clause. There should be no reward for wriggling around an order. If the evidence shows the restrictions need strengthening, the authorities should be back in front of the court quickly, not waiting for someone to come to further harm. A power to apply for a variation, however, does not tell an officer when to use it. Take someone whose activities have shifted to a different town.”
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“Secondly, will the guidance on what counts as a good reason be published in draft before Report, and how will it apply at the reasonable grounds stage where the threshold is deliberately low? Thirdly, what systems will caseworkers have to see earlier accounts held elsewhere in the Home Office and to identify striking similarities across different claims? Clear credibility rules should mean quicker and better decisions. What happens to support once a negative decision has been made is the subject of clause 37 in the next group, and I will come to it there.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The rules will work only if caseworkers have the information to apply them. The clause asks them to compare an account with what the person said in an asylum claim or in court proceedings, and with accounts given by other people. That is not much use if the caseworker cannot see the earlier account or has no means of spotting that the same story has appeared in a dozen other claims. We support clauses 35 and 36 and schedule 4, but I would be grateful if the Minister could answer the following questions. First, which authorities does she expect to be nominated to make decisions in children’s cases? Has legislative consent been sought from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and who will check the quality of decisions across the United Kingdom?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Labour opposed the Act at the time, so I welcome the fact that the Government now recognise the value of that principle and are building on it. There is common ground across the Committee on this issue. The clause is carefully drawn. It is about damage to credibility. It does not say that every claim must fail or that every inconsistency proves a lie, and it allows for good reasons. Someone threatened by a gang may be terrified to speak. Someone describing horrific events that they have witnessed may not get it all out at once. However, the Bill does not define a good reason; it leaves it to guidance. That guidance must help caseworkers tell a genuine explanation from a convenient excuse, and it needs to be ready before the clause comes into force, not cobbled together afterwards.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Those things include a delay in making a claim or providing information, material inconsistencies and omissions, inconsistencies with what the person has said in an asylum claim or in court, and striking similarities with other people’s accounts. That is common sense. If someone tells one story in an immigration application and a very different one the moment removal becomes a real prospect, the decision maker should test that difference hard. If an account bears an uncanny resemblance to someone else’s, officials must be free to ask whether they are looking at genuine evidence or a script supplied to frustrate removal. The principle behind the clause is one that we legislated for in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022: that late disclosure without good reason should count against credibility.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Opposition believe that these clauses can help on both counts and we support them. Clause 35 sets out who makes the decisions. For adults, it is the Secretary of State. For children, it can be the Secretary of State or another public authority nominated for that purpose. Schedule 4 makes the consequential changes needed for that to work. A name in legislation has to mean real accountability. A child’s treatment should not depend on whose desk the file happens to land on. Clause 36 deals with credibility. When deciding whether to believe someone’s account, decision makers must treat certain things as damaging to credibility unless there are good reasons for them.”
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“There were 23,411 referrals into the national referral mechanism last year, which is the highest number since it began, and 25,373 in the year to June. Behind those numbers are genuine victims who deserve our protection, but there are also people who have worked out that a modern slavery claim can be used to frustrate removal. The British public want two things from our modern slavery system, and they are not in conflict: they want genuine victims protected, and they want the system to stand firm against those who try to game it to avoid removal. Every bogus claim wastes taxpayers’ money, ties up officials who should be helping real victims, and delays the removal of people with no right to be here, and every bad decision risks leaving someone who has been exploited in the hands of the very people who exploited them.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We support clause 37, but I would be grateful if the Minister answered three questions. First, what checks will take place before a negative conclusive grounds decision is issued, and how will a genuine mistake be put right without that process becoming an endless source of delay? Secondly, once a negative decision is made, who takes ownership of the case, and how will cases that are already in the system when the clause comes into force be treated? Thirdly, will the Government publish regular figures showing how long it takes, after a negative conclusive grounds decision, for the next enforcement step to happen? Counting decisions alone will tell us nothing about whether the system is actually working.”
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“The Government announced earlier this month that the backlog of conclusive grounds decisions had been cleared, yet more than 6,000 cases were still waiting at the end of September, and that number has been rising. The Home Office’s own statistics show that the number of cases awaiting a final decision fell in every quarter until April this year, but has since risen by 23% between March and June and by a further 6% in September alone. I would be grateful if the Minister explained what the Government mean by “cleared”, and what they are doing to stop the queue from growing again. The person, their representative and the organisations supporting them also need to know what has been decided and what happens next. A recovery period that ends overnight must not leave anyone unsure of whether they are still entitled to support.”
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“Ministers should be lining up the next steps while a case is still being considered, so that a negative decision is followed swiftly by action, not by a trip to the back of another queue. Speed must not come at the expense of getting it right. A rushed decision that falls apart under scrutiny helps nobody and ends up in court. In the year to June, more than four in five conclusive grounds decisions that were reconsidered came out positive. Whatever the reason for that, it tells us that first decisions do not always hold up. If a negative decision will now end support immediately, the quality of that decision matters more than ever.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our immigration system will not command respect if an unsuccessful claim simply buys another stretch of waiting at taxpayers’ expense. Where the legal process is complete and someone has no right to be here, they should leave. We should be honest about what the clause does and does not do. Ending a recovery period lifts the legal bar on removal and ends the support that goes with it. However, it does not remove a single person; that depends entirely on what happens next, which is a point that applies just as much to the groups of clauses either side of this one. Too often, a decision is made in one part of the Home Office, while another part carries on as if nothing has happened.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Clause 37 raises a simple question: once the competent authority has considered a claim and reached a negative conclusive grounds decision, why should the recovery period carry on just because the calendar has not yet reached 30 days? Under clause 37, the recovery period ends when a negative conclusive grounds decision is made, even if that is before the 30 days are up. If no decision has been made by then, the period continues until a decision is made. Corresponding changes are made for further recovery periods. The Opposition support this principle. The recovery period exists so that a claim can be properly considered. Once it has been considered and found wanting, the protection should not roll on automatically.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, the Committee must understand exactly who is caught, which protections fall where and how such decisions will be taken. The Government have had to table—”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A modern slavery claim must never become a “get out of jail free” card for someone who threatens our national security or is deliberately abusing our immigration system. Clause 38 deals with disqualification from protection on grounds of national security, public order and bad faith, and the Opposition support its purpose. It builds on the public order disqualification that the last Conservative Government introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022—a measure that Labour voted against. When we legislated again in 2023, the then Prime Minister said that our modern slavery measures would drive “a coach and horses” through protections. Labour has kept those measures and is now are adding to them—we welcome that.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has been an incredibly hard few months for Cleveland. Local people are not interested in point scoring, but they do want answers. Cleveland has the highest recorded crime rate in the country, yet the latest Home Office data reveals that it has 17 fewer police officers than it had a year ago. Can the Minister explain why?”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For decisions to remove or require to leave anyone covered by proposed new section 37A of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, it would disapply section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 and prevent a court or tribunal from treating that decision as unlawful because it is incompatible with the convention right. It would apply only where the refugee convention already permits return. The measure is targeted squarely at the dangerous individuals identified by clause 22. The Minister may say that the new clause would not change our obligations under the convention and that cases could still go to Strasbourg. That is true and is precisely why we believe this country should leave the ECHR.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The public will understand why such a person should lose the rights that depend on lawful stay, such as the right to work and access to public funds, but they will ask a far simpler question: why are they still here? Clause 22 changes how we describe someone’s stay. It does not cancel their leave, make a deportation order or remove the human rights barriers to sending them home. In particular, article 3 of the European convention on human rights can still prevent removal, however grave the danger they pose, so the clause on its own does not give Ministers a clear route to removal. New clause 61 addresses that gap.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. We support clause 22, and I rise in support of new clause 61, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire. Both address the same question: what happens when someone claiming our protection is a danger to this country? Clause 22 says that a person who falls within article 33(2) of the refugee convention is “not to be taken to be lawfully staying in the United Kingdom”. That covers two categories: someone whom there are reasonable grounds to regard as a danger to our national security and someone convicted of a particularly serious crime who is a danger to the community. Those are, by definition, the most serious cases our asylum system deals with.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If you believe that we are deporting everyone we should be deporting, and if you do not believe that the European convention on human rights has got in the way of us removing people, you start from a very different place from me. People I represent are very concerned about our immigration system. They are very concerned that the laws we are making in this place are not acting to control that immigration system. I think we start from very different perspectives.”
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“The opportunity with this Bill is to make much further progress and remove the people who should be removed.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member makes a fair point. We have had lots of things to say about the past. It is that experience that has led us to the point where we believe that some of the human rights framework that is in place gets in the way of deportations. Clause 22 actually concedes that point. It says that these people should not be able to exercise some of those rights, but it does not remove them. New clause 61 is the step that actually solves that problem. This system is not working. I would be celebrating if we were a bit further forwards than we are. Actually, 7,042 people arrived from Eritrea in the year to March—how many went back? Two. There were 4,490 who arrived from Afghanistan—how many went back? One. And 4,389 arrived from Eritrea—how many went back? Zero. The system is not functioning. Progress is progress. We would welcome progress.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will correct the record—7,042 arrivals from Eritrea, two were removed; 4,490 from Afghanistan, one was removed; 4,389 from Sudan, zero removed. That is not a satisfactory system. That is not working. This is the opportunity to improve that.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We welcome deportations of people with no right to be here, but when we start going back through the records to see who arrived and who left without us even knowing, we have the Home Office scratching numbers together to work out who has gone. It is a positive that we can improve deportations, but in recent times, we have gone from the point where we said that somebody who arrives in this country illegally cannot claim citizenship—there was legislation in place—to a point where that has been unpicked by this Government. We sat through the debates on the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 on that subject. This is an opportunity to improve things. We are determined to get among it. We are determined to improve it. Whatever the deportations are, they need to be significantly higher for my constituents to be happy.”
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“If Ministers will not support it, they must explain what they will do instead to keep this country safe.”
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“When will the regulations be published, and when will this clause actually take effect? Until Ministers commence clause 22, neither it nor new clause 61 can apply to a single person. We also need to know who will decide that someone falls within article 33(2) of the refugee convention, what evidence will be required and how challenges will be handled. Those decisions must be robust, otherwise we risk years of litigation while the person concerned stays put. We will support clause 22 because it tightens the position of these individuals, but our support should not be mistaken for confidence that it solves the problem. Declaring someone dangerous is not the same as protecting the public from them. New clause 61 confronts the gap between the two, and we will press it to a Division at the appropriate point.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“While the person remains here, what measures will manage the risk, and who is accountable for making sure that they work? Government amendment 133 removes the transitional provision from clause 22. As introduced, the clause applies only to decisions made after it comes into force. The Minister’s explanatory statement says that amendment 135 “would provide for clause 22 to be commenced by regulations,” which means that the transitional provision can be dealt with in those regulations rather than in the Bill. That means that the question of who this clause applies to and whether it reaches existing cases or only future decisions will be settled by Ministers, not by this Committee. I ask the Minister directly: will existing cases be reassessed, or will this apply only to future decisions?”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are talking about people who pose a threat to our national security and are, categorically, a danger to our community. I think that the rights of the people in my community should trump the rights of people who pose a threat to our national security and are a danger to that community— [ Interruption. ] I will try to make a bit of progress, or we might be here for quite a while. New clause 61 would remove the domestic legal barrier that too often leaves Ministers unable to act. It is a concrete step that the Committee could take today. If the Government reject that approach, what is the answer? Where removal is lawful, how quickly will it happen? Where return home is barred, will Ministers seek agreements with safe third countries?”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister talked about Winston Churchill. Does she think that Winston Churchill would have desired legislation that allows people who are categorically a threat to our national security, or a danger to the community, to stay in this country?”
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“The clause relates to people who are too dangerous to lawfully stay in the country. It is not giving us a perspective by which to remove those people. Those people are a danger to our community—you are saying that they are a danger to our community and a threat to our national security—yet we are not going far enough to remove them. It undermines the entire clause.”
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“This new clause sets out that we would remove people under the mechanism only where doing so complied with the refugee convention. It is there in black and white: we are complying with our obligations under the convention on refugees.”
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“Disapplying the Human Rights Act is about disapplying our domestic legislation—our domestic barriers. That is entirely compliant with the international refugee convention. This is not about international barriers; it is about our domestic barrier, the Human Rights Act.”
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“The Home Office confirmed that it spent £22,000 on its “don’t rape women” guide for asylum seekers. Can the Minister confirm that clause 23 restricts the sums that are recoverable purely to accommodation and subsistence, rather than to the Home Office’s comms budget?”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is time for the Government to make sure that it is.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The recent changes to seizure powers are welcome, but they go nowhere near far enough. I tabled amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill to give the police greater powers to enter properties to seize these bikes, to destroy illegal bikes rather than sell them on, and to register and control sales. The Government rejected them all. Meanwhile, anyone can buy a machine that is illegal to ride on a public road, or a kit that turns an illegal e-bike into an unregistered motorbike and have it delivered the next day. I ask the Minister: will the Government control the sale of these vehicles and the kits used to modify them? Will they now give the police the power we proposed to seize these bikes wherever they are hidden? My constituents simply want the law to be on the side of the law-abiding majority.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) on securing this important debate. In Stockton West, the plague of balaclava-clad yobs on illegal e-motos is a problem that comes up constantly on doorsteps and in my surgery. Three years ago in Westminster Hall, I named Thornaby as a hotspot and warned that we could not wait for someone else to lose their life. On 31 January this year, two 15-year-olds were riding Sur-Rons in Thornaby when one of them ploughed into a father of seven riding a pushbike. Months later, the father is still in hospital with life-changing injuries, needing round-the-clock care. The boys got driving bans and referral orders, and were ordered to pay just £495 in compensation.”
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“Alongside that came £3 million for the new mental health hub at Brook House, a new respiratory unit, upgrades to the urgent care centre, and a £4.3 million robotic and emergency maternity theatre, where a woman who needs urgent surgery in labour can now get it next door to the delivery suite. That is what investment can achieve, but we cannot keep bolting 21st-century medicine on to a 1960s frame forever.”
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“I have seen for myself their dedication and the challenges they face in a building that makes an already difficult job harder. They deserve decent facilities. Their patients deserve them, too. I have to tell the Minister plainly that the building they work in is running out of time. When my party was in government, I campaigned for a new diagnostic centre in Stockton. Thousands of residents signed my petition and backed that campaign. Around £25 million was secured, with a further £8.4 million from the community diagnostic fund, to bring scans and tests into the heart of our town. For somebody waiting to find out whether they have cancer, that means answers and that treatment can begin.”
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