Richard Foord
MP for Honiton and Sidmouth · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“Forty Conservative MPs did not vote with their Government against an Opposition motion to ban fracking. Some Conservative MPs abstained because they were not in the House, but others abstained as a matter of principle, and I commend them.”
“There is a real danger that investment in fracking will be a catastrophic mistake, as the fuels, facilities and resources become stranded assets. There is a real risk that they will lose their value prematurely as the tide of renewable technology advances around them.”
“Before the fracking moratorium came into effect, drilling licences over shale gas reserves were issued across 127 constituencies in England and Wales, and there is a risk that communities will suffer from not just the seismic activity, but the polluted groundwater and the damage to natural habitats that flows from it.”
“It can lead to water scarcity and risks polluting our air, our soil, our health and our biodiversity. Green space and nature are an intrinsic part of life in the UK, and we should be protecting our wildlife with everything we have.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) for securing this vital debate with the backing of the Backbench Business Committee.”
“What the public do support is action to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. Eight in 10 people say that they are concerned about climate change—they want a transition to clean energy. In mid and east Devon, protecting our natural environment is a priority for thousands of people who have corresponded with me on the subject.”
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“The insurance industry is largely located in London. The British Government have talked about a maritime services ban, and about a timeline that might bring such insurance to an end in this calendar year. Does the right hon. Gentleman see any reason why a maritime services ban cannot come into effect until the end of this year?”
“My specific concern is about the maritime services ban for the transport of Russian liquefied natural gas. It was announced by the Foreign Secretary last November, but it is not due to come into effect until the end of this calendar year. It is looking like it will take more than a whole year. Can the Minister explain why it needs to take so long?”
“He is right, but without investment and improvement the West of England line will not have that connectivity. In the absence of that investment, the line cannot be the basis on which new housing is justified. The message from people I represent is plain: “Infrastructure first, please.””
“New housing developments surely cannot be justified in this way when the rail infrastructure is substandard. That is raising significant concerns for residents of communities I represent such as Feniton, Honiton, Axminster and Cullompton. Thankfully, a vision for the line has been laid out by the Salisbury to Exeter rail user group, with six points agreed by key stakeholders including South Western Railway, Network Rail, Great Western Railway and Devon county council. The plan includes new rolling stock and power sources, signalling and the delivery of double track, and, at the very least, passing loops at Whimple and Tisbury. However, the funding is missing. The Rail Minister stated on the “Green Signals” podcast that “connectivity drives growth, jobs and homes”.”
“Over 1,100 houses are to be built across east Devon in each of the next five years, as demanded by the housing targets imposed on local authorities by the Government in Westminster. In the 2030s, a new town called Marlcombe is projected to be built; it would have 10,000 houses over the long term. Last November, the Housing Secretary announced that proposed developments within 15 minutes of railway stations could be given a default yes in the interests of promoting house building in so-called travel to work areas. Changes to the national planning policy framework are currently subject to consultation, but they lack restrictive criteria for those railway stations that are not deemed to be well-connected and could open up development in any village or town that has a railway station, apparently without restriction.”
“For example, the section between Salisbury and Yeovil Junction operates at an 88% capacity, well in excess of the 80% threshold needed for resilience. In May last year, the Minister stated that there were no plans to enhance the West of England line. Yet it is apparent to anyone who travels on it that there is a dire need for improvement. Between August and November last year, the service ground to a painfully slow pace during dry weather because of a so-called soil moisture deficit. During that period, the entire line was served by just one train every two hours, and when journeys were cancelled, passengers were left waiting for upwards of four hours for trains. The situation is particularly concerning in the light of proposed new housing developments in Devon. Exeter is the fastest-growing city in England by population.”
“The West of England rail line runs from Exeter to London Waterloo via Feniton, Honiton and Axminster. Network Rail describes the line from Exeter to Basingstoke as “one of the worst-performing single-track sections nationally”. It is one of the most under-invested lines in England. In this place, it is a cliché to talk about a Cinderella service, but trains serving residents on the West of England line do provide a Cinderella service—in fact, people stood waiting for a South Western Railway carriage to travel from Feniton, Honiton or Axminster may wonder if they are waiting for a pumpkin. According to the Salisbury to Exeter rail user group, the line has examples of everything that the Secretary of State for Transport says is wrong with rail in this country.”
“The Conservative Government passed the Financial Services and Markets Act in 2023, which gave the FCA powers to set up banking hubs and give access to cash. Does the Minister think that that was a missed opportunity at the time to prevent banks from closing high street branches in the thousands, as they have since continued to do?”
“I am grateful to the Chair of the EFRA Committee for laying out the top lines from this excellent report, and I also commend the Committee for its work on the inquiry into animal and plant health. My right hon. Friend spoke about the Cabinet Office Minister not appearing before his Committee, but the Minister did appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee in September, as part of our inquiry into the UK-EU reset, although that is of course not the place for detail on SPS arrangements. Any alignment with the EU on SPS policy needs to be phased in. Could my right hon. Friend expand on why the shift needs to be a transition, rather than an immediate removal of friction, given that the National Farmers Union has said it is critical that we avoid a cliff edge?”
“First, I should say that, although I enormously respect the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), I disagree with him about the independence of the Intelligence and Security Committee. It is very much a Committee of Parliament, and it is independent as such. The ISC is awaiting receipt of papers from the Government, and it has requested that those relating to the vetting and appointment of Lord Mandelson are prioritised for release to it. Can the Minister confirm that they will be prioritised, and can he give an early indication of the number of documents expected to be passed to the Committee, so it can determine its resource requirements for undertaking this task?”
“Allied Pharmacies has taken over a couple of failing Jhoots Pharmacy branches in my area since Pharmacy First was introduced, which is very welcome. The chief executive said this week that the outlook for elderly people and those without a car in rural areas was stark. Between 2015 and 2025, community pharmacies have seen a real-terms funding cut of about 30%—that is £1 billion less in real terms—and rural Devon and Cornwall have seen a reduction of 90,000 hours of pharmacy time in two years. In that context, will the Minister ensure that full compensation is given to dispensing doctors in rural areas for the cost of medicines?”
“One of those commercial operators is O2. My constituent, Martin Ferdinando, contacted O2 over 40 times. He was offered a handset, a new 5G SIM, an escalation to the ombudsman and, in the end, a £125 goodwill payment. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that our constituents do not want such “goodwill” payments and that what they want is a functioning mobile system, which would be developed if we had a proper shared rural network?”
“The hon. Gentleman is talking about the frustrations in Cornwall, which my constituents really can relate to. This issue is peninsula-wide, across Devon and Cornwall. Only 52% of mid and east Devon is covered by 5G, compared with 62% nationally. Does he recognise that this is about our remote south-west peninsula?”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about rural crime. My concern is that as the boundaries of police forces become greater, the resources tend to go to the urban areas. We see that in east Devon, where Cranbrook has sucked in resources from villages and towns that have previously had a police presence. Does he recognise that the effect of police being pulled into urban areas is being seen in other parts of the country?”
“Measuring police effectiveness by looking solely at numbers is absolutely flawed. Does the shadow Minister accept in retrospect that the way in which Theresa May allowed police numbers to plummet while claiming that crime was falling was completely flawed? We lost a lot of experience in those years.”
“I am glad that the Government have acknowledged that adult social care costs more when it is delivered in a rural area, but they have shown themselves to be blind to the needs of rural communities by removing the remoteness uplift from other areas of local government, including road maintenance. Councils in rural areas do not enjoy the same economies of scale as urban areas. The countryside requires more bases from which services can be delivered. It has fewer contractors and less competition. I urge the Government to think again about the remoteness uplift.”
“To take another example, one resident of Sidmouth wrote to me recently to say: “I for one have paid out for damages to my vehicles in five and a half years the sum of £5,100.” They continued: “Here we are living in the UK, an advanced country, with the lanes, A roads and B roads in an appalling state of repair”. That is the context of the local government settlement as it relates to Devon. The local government settlement has removed the remoteness uplift from the area cost adjustment. The settlement does this in all the relative needs formulas, with the one exception of adult social care.”
“When people in Devon hear numbers like that, they wonder whether officials and contractors are going to the cash machine, drawing out the money, mixing it with paste, using it to make papier-mâché and filling the potholes that way. The reality is that the money is not finding its way to Devon. Devon has the largest road network in the country, at 13,000 km. Last March, the repair backlog for the roads in Devon alone would have required an extra £384 million. The reality is that Devon was able to spend little more than £60 million on road maintenance last year.”
“It is half a mile from the main road—an A road—and one of the two access routes to the village has been under water since November. I heard from one resident that the state of the road is so poor that she was charged £1,000 for car repairs as a result of negotiating the pitted, crumbling access road. She makes the point that east Devon residents pay some of the highest rates of council tax in the country. In a league of the highest rates in the country for a band D property, east Devon is rated 305 out of 350, where residents in the 350th local authority are paying the most. The Government announced last month that they will be making available £7.3 billion for road maintenance over the next four years.”
“The final settlement for local government finance does not bring good news for Devon. Research by the Rural Services Network has shown that urban councils will have significantly more Government-funded spending power per head than rural councils. By 2028-29, urban councils will have seen a 20% increase in Government-funded spending power, compared with an increase of just 2% for rural councils, yet on average, wages in the rural economy are lower than the national average wage. The settlement will place a significantly greater expectation on council tax payers in rural areas to cough up. Let us consider what effects that might have on residents of mid and east Devon by noting what things are already like for people living in one village in east Devon. Dalwood is a village with a population of about 460.”
“My hon. Friend mentions the River Lim Action group that works on the boundary between his West Dorset constituency and mine. The group has identified that the sewage treatment works at Uplyme cannot cope with the amount of sewage that occurs during high rainfall. Does he agree that South West Water needs to put in more storage for sewage during periods of heavy rain?”
“I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point about the need to amplify threat perception, but I do not think that that is required with the conduct of elections. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report in 2020 said that it was informed that “the mechanics of the UK’s voting are deemed largely sound: the use of a highly dispersed paper-based voting and counting system makes any significant interference difficult”. Does the hon. Gentleman share my view that interference in the conduct of an election is less of a threat when elections in the UK involve pencils and ballot papers in village and town halls?”
“The Intelligence and Security Committee wrote to the Prime Minister last Thursday. The letter, which has been published, included the following request: “The Committee would be grateful to, now, be told the date on which we will receive those papers such that we are able to plan the resourcing requirements”. I do not doubt what the Minister said about the Government’s commitment to being as transparent as possible, but in his statement he repeated the phrase “as soon as possible”. Will he go beyond ASAP, so that the Intelligence and Security Committee can make resourcing plans before receiving the papers?”
“What my hon. Friend has identified in his Newton Abbot constituency is a situation that exists all over the country. In July 2025, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wrote a report called “National standards for sustainable drainage systems”, which talked about a national shortage of skilled professionals to maintain SuDS over their lifetime, as well as to design and inspect them. Does my hon. Friend share my view that we need more professionals skilled in this area working at local authority level?”
“I am really grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. He talks about maintenance, but design is also crucial. Margaret Leppard, from Seaton, set up the Seaton Flood Working Group. She points out that developers sometimes use outdated datasets when designing drainage systems. She says that rainfall data from the 2026 dataset needs to be used rather than the 2013 dataset, which Baker Estates in Seaton has been using. Would he share that view?”
“I was contacted by a constituent who is a former civil servant. They waited on the so-called helpline for over two hours on six occasions and were cut off continually. It is a contradiction in terms to call it a helpline. Does the hon. Member agree that that is completely unacceptable behaviour from Capita?”
“On the shortcomings of what the Prime Minister proposed from the Dispatch Box earlier, the Cabinet Secretary told the Foreign Affairs Committee back in November: “The only information which was not already in the public domain at the time is a reference to official records which have since been disclosed”. We have obviously learned this week that was not the case, so the Cabinet Secretary is plainly not the right person to lead this Government investigation. Does my hon. Friend agree?”
“It is my understanding that, in addition to employer networks, the CITB is also seeking to redirect funding to the new entrant support team. I declare an interest: my father worked as a new entrant training officer. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the new entrant support team is good value, and is perhaps a good place for this investment to be directed towards?”
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for Exeter (Steve Race) for calling the debate. I appreciate that CITB is at arm’s length from Government, but of course, 946,000 young people were registered as NEET last summer. Does the Minister share my view that money is better spent on organisations such as CITB than it is on welfare payments to young people?”
“In response to the unilateral US action in Venezuela, the Government merely said that they were waiting to establish all the facts. Meanwhile President Trump said that he does not need international law, and that he is constrained only by his own morality or conscience. In advance of any US unilateral action against Iran, will the Minister reassure the House that this time the Government will speak up for the use of force when it is in compliance with international law?”
“In 2023, the Intelligence and Security Committee reported: “The UK’s academic institutions provide a rich feeding ground for China to achieve both political influence and economic advantage”. Was interference in UK universities raised with President Xi?”
“The Epstein files suggest that Lord Mandelson was prepared to lobby in the United States in 2009 for a policy position in contradiction to that of Her Majesty’s Government, in which he was then serving as Business Secretary. Will this revelation encourage the Government to find out whether Lord Mandelson lobbied against his Government while serving last year as British ambassador to the United States? Can the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister find out whether this lobbying against British Government policy is revealed in US policy towards the UK?”
“The institute also says that withdrawing would mean Ukrainian troops moving into less defensible terrain to the west, where any new defensive line would run through open fields and would abandon obstacles such as the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers. Russia would win through diplomacy what it has not been able to win militarily, and Ukraine would be left with a weaker defensive line. To conclude, non-recognition denies Russia the legitimacy it seeks, and blocks the laundering of conquest through sham votes, coerced passports and captured institutions. For 80 years, our security has rested on the simple principle that borders cannot be changed by force, which dates back all the way to the Westphalia treaty in the 17th century. If we allow that principle to erode now, we do not preserve peace; we invite further war.”
“It is for the Ukrainian people to determine what their war aims are and, through these peace talks, what, if anything, they are prepared to concede. However, they know the risk in conceding the strategically important fortress belt in the Donetsk oblast, because that roughly 50 km chain of fortified cities has formed the backbone of Ukraine’s eastern defences since 2014. Kremlin officials have demanded that Ukraine cede control of that portion of Donetsk as a condition for any ceasefire agreement. That is cynical; as the Institute for the Study of War notes, Ukraine has spent more than a decade reinforcing that line, and I think we can all forecast that conceding it would make life much easier for a further Russian invasion in the future.”
“A clear example is Russia’s maternity capital scheme—a state payment to citizens after the birth of a second or third child—which has now been extended into the occupied territories of Ukraine. By making that support conditional on parents and children holding Russian citizenship, the authorities pressure families to accept Russian passports for their newborns. I would like to say something about the occupied territories in Donetsk, and particularly the fortress belt. Russia is not simply trying to hold territory on a de facto basis; it is trying to turn occupation into a reality even for those parts of Donetsk and Luhansk that it does not occupy and, through peace talks, to achieve on a de jure basis what it has not achieved by military means.”
“In 2023 Putin signed a decree defining residents of occupied areas of eastern Ukraine who refused Russian passports as stateless, exposing them to the threat of deportation. That is coercion dressed up as “choice”; it creates a paper trail designed to support a false narrative that Ukrainians are willingly accepting Russian rules. That façade also exists in education and social services. In education, Russian occupation authorities claim that students in occupied Ukraine have the choice to continue learning Ukrainian and that most simply do not. The resulting decline in Ukrainian study is then presented as evidence of popular support for Russian control. In social services, the occupied territories are also being weaponised.”
“Those elections were rigged and held in an atmosphere of repression, with armed militia forcibly bringing people to the polling stations, so it is little wonder that those assemblies then voted to join the Soviet Union. However, the fact is that Putin will never truly secure legitimate ownership of Ukrainian territory without the consent of the Ukrainian people, and that is consent they will never give. Max Weber said that “the basis of every system of authority…is a belief, a belief by virtue of which persons exercising authority are lent prestige”. Legitimacy is earned not through power or coercion, but through belief. Putin does not have that belief from the Ukrainian people and never will. That has not stopped the Kremlin trying to manufacture the illusion.”
“It is an honour to serve under you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), who is chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine and who has advocated daily for Ukraine ever since the full-scale invasion. The hon. Gentleman talked about Stalin, and that is a good place to start, because Russia’s attempt to dress up its occupation of Ukrainian territory as legitimate statehood is not new; it is very much from Stalin’s playbook. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the red army followed from the east just over two weeks later, and the Soviet authorities staged elections to so-called people’s assemblies in western Ukraine and Belarus.”
“I commend the hon. Member on securing this debate. On the point about beavers, this week we have had massive flooding in the west country, in Dorset and in Devon. I am hearing from farmers in my patch who agreed to have beavers released into rivers on their farmland that there are complications. Does he agree that cannot be a one-off action, but rather needs sustained engagement from the Government as well as financial support such as the sustainable farming incentive?”
“Devon’s assessed and supported year in employment programme for newly qualified social workers, and the county council social care academy, continue to recruit and support newly qualified social workers, with roles actively advertised throughout 2025 and tailored development pathways to encourage permanent careers in the county, rather than the short-term contracts that we have seen before. I will now talk about residential care.”
“Reports in 2023 show that about 50% of children’s social work posts were filled by agency staff, compared with the national average of about 18%. In Devon, a permanent children’s social worker costs roughly £23 per hour, while agency staff cost about £44 per hour. Closing that gap and reducing the reliance on agency staff is clearly urgent. Devon has taken measurable steps in the past year to build stability in children’s services and to reduce reliance on agency staff. According to Devon county council’s latest People First strategy, the number of agency team managers has been cut by about 40% from 20 to 12 as of last April, improving leadership within frontline teams.”
“He explicitly noted the “improving picture” and the “increasing evidence of improvement to social work practice”, linked to stronger prioritisation and support from corporate and political leadership. He also pointed to Ofsted’s recent monitoring work, which recognised that “the range and impact of support provided to care leavers in Devon has improved since the last inspection.” I appreciate that the Minister said that from a place of caring deeply for children’s services, not just as a political leader, but as someone who has been a leader in this sector for well over a decade. Workforce instability in children’s services in Devon, especially the high use of agency staff, has held the service back.”
“For me, I want to make it plain that I would not criticise the people working in children’s services, because I feel that individual social workers are a bit like goalkeepers: all too often, rather than praising their work for the children they save, we condemn and lambast the individuals who have cases where things go wrong. Yes, there is failure, and yes, there are real errors of judgment at the local authority level, but my sense is that the fault and the blame—indeed, the sin that my hon. Friend points to—lie with the perpetrators. Devon’s position is serious, but it is not static. In formal correspondence with Devon county council in December 2025, the Minister for Children and Families set out the Government’s position on the progress being made in improving children’s services in Devon.”
“It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western. As of March 2025, nearly nine in 10 London councils were rated good or outstanding for children’s services. By contrast, in the south-west of England, the figure is barely half that. Children’s services in Devon have faced serious challenges over recent years and in May 2025, Ofsted’s full inspection of Devon county council’s children’s services judged the service to be inadequate overall. That means that too many children experiencing neglect or abuse did not receive timely or effective help, too many plans drifted, and too many care leavers did not get consistent support. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) and I agree with almost all of what he said.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. His situation is similar to ours: in Devon, it is reckoned that those profiteering companies make a complete packet. Local Government Association analysis suggests that 20 of the largest independent children’s social care providers in England took in about £1.6 billion in fees in 2021-22. Roughly 19% of that—about £310 million—was recorded as profit. Plainly, there is too much money leaving this sector and not doing the right thing for children. Devon’s children’s services are improving, but Devon’s children deserve services that are not just improving but consistently good, and moving towards outstanding.”
“The hon. Gentleman plainly knows a great deal about this subject and is educating a few of us on it. He talks about the US example; could he also reflect on the European Union regulatory regime around ESG, given that the EU is about to start investing considerably more in defence?”
“Q5. The Met Office reports that climate change is driving wetter winters, but the United States withdrew from the Paris climate agreement yesterday, on the same day that much of the west country disappeared under floodwater. My part of Devon is submerged, and needs better flood defences. Would the Deputy Prime Minister like to invite his US counterpart on a fishing trip to the south-west?”
“On the point about distributing funding across the country, does the Minister recognise that, under the current high needs block system, a pupil in Westminster receives £2,800, whereas a pupil in Devon receives less than half that amount? When designing the new system, would she ensure that it is less of a postcode lottery, and that rural areas like mine will not be certain to receive less funding?”
“On that point, farmers have been encouraged to diversify their businesses, and Stubbhayne farm in Southleigh has lost countless bookings because people who wanted to stay there found they could not use the internet in the farm’s bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That problem has now been resolved, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that such issues really affect businesses in rural areas?”
“In addition to the absence of Reform MPs, the absence of Conservative MPs is also striking. It was during the Truss-Kwarteng mini-Budget that borrowing was pushed up by £60 billion because of the energy price guarantee that was a consequence of Government dependence on Russian gas. Does my hon. Friend agree that what we need in this country is energy independence, so that we have energy security and can be the custodians of our own destiny?”