Kevin Bonavia
MP for Stevenage · Labour · United Kingdom
“I have so often been frustrated when constituents come to me with their problems with a district council, a borough council or the county council, and the councils pass the buck between them, so I am a strong advocate of people having a single unitary council.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) on securing this important debate. We live at a time when our country is being targeted—not just threatened or tested, but actively targeted. We have already heard from many hon. Members that the reality is that hostile states are seeking to harm us every single day.”
“Russia’s grey-zone war is there, and it will not just be Russia in the years ahead—we know that there are others—so how do we take this approach? Before the second world war, many people thought, “Never again.”
“That is fantastic news for the future of NATO. I pay tribute to our Prime Minister for speaking up for NATO. This country has a NATO-first policy, and rightly so. We put our nuclear deterrent and our own taxpayers’ money to the service of NATO.”
“Airbus helps to produce between a quarter and a third of all satellites in space, but the company cannot manufacture the satellites in my town alone; it collaborates with companies in sites across the country, including in Portsmouth—I see my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) is in her place.”
“It is not just about the hardware or about the people we need to recruit to our armed forces. As many hon. Members have said, it is about a whole-of-society approach. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) talked about national resilience, and this really has to be a national cause.”
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“Members of the public watching this matter will have been baffled by all the speculation about who said what and when, so I thank the Prime Minister for his calm and clear answers today. No Prime Minister wants to be or should be in a situation like this, where governmental processes mean that critical information is not brought to the attention of Ministers, so I welcome the Fulford review. Will the Prime Minister look at the wider relationship between Ministers and civil servants, so that trust can be restored?”
“Our fantastic English Football League club, Stevenage FC, is pushing for promotion to the championship, and its community foundation has delivered nearly £10.7 million of social value to my constituents in the last year alone. Communities outside of host cities have not always felt the benefits of hosting major international tournaments. Can my right hon. Friend explain how the legacy of Euro 2028 will be felt beyond host cities, particularly EFL clubs and communities in constituencies like mine?”
“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s experience and advocacy of police officers throughout the country. In my constituency, local officers from the federation have been supporting police officers. This debate is not about them, but how can we support them by giving them more choice?”
“One of the key missions in the manifesto on which I stood was to remove barriers to opportunity for our young people. Millions of our young people did everything we asked of them—they studied, they trained and they invested in their futures. They kept their part of the bargain, and they deserve a Labour Government who support them, rather than a Government who quietly undermine their ambitions, as happened for so many years.”
“They see their loan balances rising even as they make repayments year after year, and they tell us time and again that the situation feels hopeless. They shape real decisions about work, housing and family life. They affect the very people powering our economy, raising the next generation and driving the growth that this Government are creating. Some Opposition Members have the audacity to look at this misshapen, neglected tree and ask why it offers so little shade to the graduates standing beneath it. This Labour Government have taken on the task of fixing 14 years of mistakes and failures with the commitment and energy that is required. As Full Fact’s manifesto tracker has confirmed, two thirds of our pledges are either already delivered or on track—far more than can be said for the previous Government.”
“This Opposition debate brings to mind the old proverb that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the second-best time is today. During this debate, we have heard from Opposition Members who were part of the Government who planted that tree and proceeded to do absolutely nothing while it grew wildly out of control, until today apparently. I will come on to their motion. Whether those Opposition Members are Conservatives, Liberal Democrats—whose leader was a Minister in the coalition Government—or Reform, which is starting to look the part of a 2019 Tory tribute act, it is down to them, because they planted that tree. That irony is not lost on me, and graduates in Stevenage and across this country understand that context all too well. Graduates face interest rates that begin accumulating from their first day of study.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. [Hon. Members: “Right honourable.”] Yes, right honourable —I remember her time as Chief Whip. Like her, I did not have the burdens that people who went to university after me had to face, so I am very conscious of my responsibility to those generations and the generations to come. I am glad that the right hon. Lady has raised the issue of young people, because this Government recognise the extra pressures that young people face. That is why we are taking measures to help those who are feeling the pressures of the cost of living, whether on transport, childcare, or so many other things. We are helping our younger people and looking at how we support our students into the future—we are bringing back the maintenance grants that I benefited from all those years ago.”
“What the Opposition have tabled today is a motion that suggests that they can fix their own broken plan 2 loan system by “controlling the number of places on university courses where the benefits are significantly outweighed by the cost to graduates and taxpayers.” How on earth are they going to find out what those courses are? The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), plucked some of them from the air—“Oh, we’re not sure about some of these creative arts courses.” How is she going to evaluate that? Are we going to have a commission? Is the party of the free market going to control the market? How is it going to do that?”
“I respectfully disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. He took me to task on transport; I come from a constituency where we desperately need more bus services. That is why we now have the Bus Services Act 2025, which I believe he would probably have voted against. We are making a difference for young people, and indeed all people who need to use those services. The greatest responsibility we owe to the generations that will come after us is providing them with opportunities and lifting them up, not holding them back. We need to look at the tough issues and find answers to them.”
“I am afraid that I will not give way, because I want to explore this a bit further. The Opposition really have not thought this motion through at all. Are they going to have a commission saying, “We have worked out that this degree is going to produce this value”? How is that going to affect the economy at a time when we perhaps need more creative degrees? How is this all going to work? There will be more bureaucracy and more costs, and the price is going to be paid by our young people who cannot choose their own futures. That is what would happen if this really misguided motion were implemented. This plan is not even half-baked—it is as oven-ready as Boris Johnson’s pathetic Brexit deal, which this Government are trying to fix. We cannot change the moment when the tree was planted by Opposition parties, but we can tend that tree now.”
“We have to keep pushing at it, and I will support that all the way. Trying to get equality for women is not a zero-sum game; it is good for us all. It is good for men too. We all benefit from equality for women. I am proud to have taken part in this debate, and will fight for equality with every breath, inside and outside this place.”
“Our deputy council leader, Jeannette Thomas, is leading the housing revolution in Stevenage. We have a mayor of Asian background, Councillor Nazmin Chowdhury, who with grace and understanding exemplifies the best of women in Stevenage. Finally, our youth mayor, Charlotte Gregory, has been shadowing me in this place this week. She also helped to put together my notes for this speech, not all of which I can use, unfortunately. I thank Charlotte for being an exemplar of the future of women in our town and our country. May there be many more like her to come. I will not talk about the great things the Government are doing—I will let the Minister set some of that out—but I fully support our mission to halve violence against women and girls in the coming years. It is a lot of hard work.”
“We are very proud of our Barbara, who helped to found the Labour Women’s Network. I stand next to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare), who has been a stalwart there herself, because Barbara helped to lead the way. Much of the composition of the House is down to her hard work. Not only that, but she has improved the appearance of many of us in this House; I myself have been Folletted by Barbara, so I give her special thanks for that. Baroness Sharon Taylor in the other place was the leader of Stevenage council for 16 years, and is now doing great things as a Minister in this Government, improving housing for so many people. Housing is what gives women a much better quality of life. Those women are trailblazers, but in my town we have other great women.”
“I am proud to represent a constituency that has produced so many great women who have not just inspired those around them but made the weather that has brought greater equality for women across the country. Every year, I visit the grave of Lady Constance Lytton in Knebworth Park. She was a suffragette who came from a privileged background but took another name so that her privilege would not give her advantages. She was imprisoned and force-fed. She carved “V” with a hairpin on her chest: V for “Votes for women”. Women got those votes, but she soon lost her life, and every year we pay tribute to her and all the women who gave up so much to get to where we are today. We have so much further to go. We have other great women in Stevenage who are still with us today, including Barbara Follett, one of my predecessors.”
“All of us in this House—women and men—will have been inspired by individual women, both in and outside our own lives. I have certainly been inspired by many of the contributions made by women Members today, and I have been proud to be part of the minority who are listening and also contributing. I am proud to say that I have become who I am today because of many women in my own life. There are three I want to single out and pay tribute to: my mum, who brought me up, despite many personal challenges in our family; Sister Bernadette of the St Joseph convent school in Malta, who gave me the self-discipline that I hope I still have today; and Patricia Hennessy, who was an inspiring primary school teacher who helped me and so many others to believe in ourselves. I am sure that is why I am here today.”
“We have just heard the Conservative definitions of a child and an adult, but according to the law in this country, there is no single definition. The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10, the driving age in this country is 17, and the voting age has gone down over the decades. Surely we should be thinking about what it means to be able to vote. By bringing the voting age down to 16, we are bringing that to people who have the capacity to vote and who actually will vote. There is also evidence out there that 16-year-olds voting in Scotland are more likely to carry on voting. Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that that will be of benefit to our country—to the United Kingdom as a whole?”
“The shadow Secretary of State has asked, on a number of occasions, whether we agree with his so-called legal definition. The legal definition is always for the purposes of the law for which it is intended, so the Children Act definition is for the purposes of that Act, and what we are debating today is for the purposes of voting.”
“Does the shadow Minister not accept that the crime of impersonation is vanishingly small in this country, so what problem is he actually trying to fix? [Interruption.]”
“The people of Gibraltar have had 10 years of uncertainty since the Brexit vote, so I congratulate His Majesty’s Government, and indeed the Government of Gibraltar, on working so hard to get the treaty over the line. When I visited Gibraltar last year as a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I was really impressed by our military personnel there. I was glad to hear what the Minister said about making sure none of that will be affected. As I passed through, I also saw the fairly new airport and how empty it was. I was therefore glad to hear the Minister talk about the possibility of more flights coming through. Can he say more about how travel will be improved for the people of Gibraltar, and indeed for people across Europe—including our country—coming to visit Gibraltar?”
“Member for Edinburgh West made the point that there has been progress, but I ask this Government to go even further. There are kids out there who need that support and we must do all that we can, in this place and elsewhere, to provide it.”
“The Minister’s predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), was at the debate, took that on board and it has now happened—we now have that in the relationships, health and sex education strategy. However, it has to be implemented, so I will ask the Minister: how is that going? How are we monitoring it, are schools taking it up and are we giving the schools what they need? On that second petition about collecting data, how can we know the problem we face if we do not know the extent of that problem? How many children are out there and, for whatever reason, they or their families are not reported through the system? How can we make it easier for that to happen? Surely it cannot be beyond the wit of man or woman to change that approach. We can do it—where there is a will, we can do it. The hon.”
“There has been progress, and around the country there are many fantastic organisations. We have heard about Winston’s Wish, which took part in and supported the petition debate that I led. In my constituency, there is a charity called Stand-by-me, which has been fantastic. I met representatives at a summer fair in Knebworth, where I also met a mum and her young daughter Evie. They showed me what could be done. Evie had support from the charity and also became a young ambassador, which is about kids getting support from other kids who have been through it. That is great; however, we have already heard that that support is patchy around our country. I am really glad that there has been progress. Of the two petitions I mentioned, the Government have listened to the first, which was about having bereavement on the national curriculum.”
“Member for Edinburgh West and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke), who touched on some of the experiences she has heard about too. It reminded me that this can touch us in many other ways. In my case, my dad got throat cancer when I was in my teens. He passed away when I was 20 years old. I was mostly away at university at the time, but I had a younger brother who was 15 when my father passed, and I did not really appreciate at the time just how hard it was on him. My mum was overcome with it all and he did not have the life that I subsequently was lucky enough to have. He had it hard: he was out of school and had some tough years, and he is no longer with us. Looking back, it would have made a real difference if the support that some people have, some of which has improved over the years, had been there.”
“I would like to add my personal thanks to the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) not just for securing today’s debate but for being such a powerful champion of this cause. I came to it myself through leading a petitions debate. The hon. Member took part in it, which I really appreciated at the time. I introduced that debate as a member of the Petitions Committee, but it opened up my own experience. As Members may know, part of preparing to open a petitions debate is meeting the petitioners. For this debate, in December 2024, the petitioners were Mark Lemon, who is leading a petition to collect data, which has been touched on, and John Adams, who is leading a petition to make bereavement part of the national curriculum. I spoke to them and they both had their own stories, just like the hon.”
“Today, despite working and making regular loan repayments, that balance has grown to £76,040—an almost 40% rise over the last 10 years. For a young parent trying to build a stable foundation for their child, the situation feels like running up a down escalator: always working hard, but never getting closer to the top. Will the Minister think not just about incremental changes to the system, but fundamental, broad reform? That could include a graduate tax and, as the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) said, thinking about a balance between the taxpayer and the graduate repayments. I know the Minister will think about those carefully and I look forward to hearing his response.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing the debate. Young people who work hard, gain qualifications and enter the workforce deserve a system that supports their ability to build secure and fulfilling lives. One constituent recently told me about the impact of the system on his family’s future. He is a young, working professional raising a daughter with his wife, and they are doing everything they can to provide security and opportunity for her. This year alone he has paid £852 towards his loan, but during the same period more than £2,300 of interest was added—nearly three times what he managed to pay down. He began university nearly a decade ago and the balance at the start of his repayment was £54,683.”
“The hon. Member made the point about working-class people thinking about whether to go to university and be loaded with debt. Why should they have that worry when people who have far more family income do not have to make that choice?”
“That highlights how Germany is choosing this country to deliver world-leading geo-satellite capability, demonstrating trust in our specialist strengths in space technology.”
“In dangerous times, we need to come together more than ever. Germany and Britain have been doing that, but we need to commit that to words, so we can carry out the deeds we have talked about today. The Kensington treaty is the most comprehensive of its kind between our two countries since the second world war, and I am proud that the Prime Minister and Chancellor Merz came to my Stevenage constituency later in the day on which they signed the treaty to visit Airbus Defence and Space UK headquarters. They did so for a good reason. At the heart of the treaty—one of its many priorities—is defence co-operation, and they could see that in Stevenage, where they saw the SATCOM military satellite communications system that is being built for the German armed forces.”
“That bilateral relationship continues to deepen, not only through NATO—I know, Mr Twigg, that you are very much at the forefront of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on behalf of our country, and that you will be working with your German counterparts in that regard—but also through other means: trade, research collaboration, climate policy and people to people connections. Millions travel, study or work between our two countries every year. My personal relationship with Germany began 30-something years ago with a school exchange, and I still see that exchange partner, now my friend, every year in London or Hamburg. Hamburg is a city that has a strong history of Anglo-German relationships, whether through trade, the Navy or, more latterly, the Beatles. We are now in a much more uncertain time, as other hon. Members have already suggested.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) on securing this important and timely debate. It is really good to have the Minister here covering another part of the world for a change, which I am sure he will appreciate. Britain and Germany share one of Europe’s most significant bilateral relationships. It is grounded in common democratic values, strong economic ties and a shared commitment to European—and indeed global—security.”
“For constituents such as mine in Stevenage and others across this country, these partnerships bring investment, skilled jobs and long-term industrial certainty, while contributing meaningfully to European security and global stability. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) stole the words I was going to use, which I thought of when I was thinking about “Vorsprung durch Technik” and those adverts we saw as kids. Really, it is Vorsprung durch Freundschaft und Partnerschaft.”
“There are substantial opportunities in both space and air defence where British and German co-operation can meet shared capability needs and strengthen both our countries’ resilience. We need that more than ever, as other hon. Members have alluded to, given the threats that we face from Russia, China and beyond. More broadly, the ratification of the Kensington treaty gives us a clear framework to go further—from supply chain resilience to joint research and development, from green technology to defence innovation and from cyber-security to energy co-operation. Although I have not talked about it today, it also brings people together, and that is the most important bilateral relationship that any two countries can have.”
“I hear my hon. Friend, who makes a salient argument. We have seen how some of our European neighbours, Germany and France, perhaps collaborate in a different way, and we will see whether that works out. I hope that the Minister will speak to his friends in the Ministry of Defence and the wider Government to offer to co-operate on more projects, such as the successful Eurofighter Typhoon project. That is a powerful example of our industrial collaboration. Airbus, as the largest shareholder in the Eurofighter consortium—46%—and with its manufacturing in Germany, is only one piece of a much wider UK-German industrial ecosystem that spans aerospace, defence, energy, engineering and pharmaceuticals. I could go on. We must look to the future as well.”
“Labour’s defence industrial strategy will strengthen our security across the whole United Kingdom and deliver an unprecedented growth deal for Scotland that includes £250 million of UK-wide investment and £182 million for skills. For me, this is personal. My grandfather worked in the Glasgow shipyards, part of a proud tradition that has served the whole UK. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a strong Scottish defence sector delivered by a UK Labour Government strengthens all of us?”
“My right hon. Friend has been a steadfast champion of this country’s support for Ukraine, alongside his predecessors—the country is indeed united. Will he pay tribute to those in our defence industry, including in my constituency, who have been manufacturing the Storm Shadow missiles that have been used on the frontline in Ukraine, and to all the other support they will give in future?”
“My hon. Friend will be aware that the defence industry sector is well established in my constituency, where it is building links with its counterparts in Northern Ireland. Does the Minister agree that the defence industrial strategy presents a huge opportunity for businesses in constituencies throughout the country, including Stevenage and most certainly Northern Ireland, where it can help to boost investment, job creation and economic growth?”
“I welcome the Prime Minister’s report back from his visit to China and Japan. Previous Tory Governments refused to make such reports for many years. He says that the issues discussed included human rights, trade and security. I am particularly interested in what he had to say about the border security pact, because my constituents in Stevenage are very concerned about the small boats crisis. We already have international agreements with France and Germany, and this is a new one with China. How can I learn more about how this will work?”
“In my constituency we have one of the best cycling networks in the UK. However, the lighting is absolutely shocking in some places, because over the years Hertfordshire county council has changed it to LED lighting. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a whole-Government approach to this at all levels, and that we should encourage local councils to think about that when they are designing their lighting systems?”
“I wish you a speedy recovery, Mr Speaker. I welcome the economic steps that the Chancellor has taken against Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and I encourage her to go further, but does she agree that the British public can have confidence in our sanctions regime only if those in political leadership across all parties, including the shadow Attorney General, do not have ongoing involvement in advising Russian oligarchs?”
“My right hon. Friend is right that we need to deal with this pressing problem and I support the aims of the Bill. However, as he can imagine, as the only current Member of this House with Maltese heritage, I have had representations from all quarters, both in the UK and in Malta, about the impact on Malta of this. Our two countries have a special health relationship, including the affiliation of the UK foundation programme with the Maltese equivalent. I understand that now may not be the time to have Malta in the priority group, but I note that there is a power in clause 4(6) that allows the Secretary of State to amend that in future. Is that something that my right hon. Friend will think about reviewing in future?”
“Stevenage remains ambitious. We have a council and a council leader in Richard Henry who are leading the push for a £1 billion regeneration project in the town centre, including Stevenage Station Gateway, which will need Government support and will involve a new station, new homes and new education facilities right in the heart of our town. Stevenage is not just a commuter town, although many people do come and go from Stevenage for work; it is also a community with neighbourhoods and amazing individuals who I am very proud to cite time and again in this place. They did not just turn up there by luck; it is because of the foresight of people such as Lewis Silkin, Monica Felton and Eric Claxton, who were the pioneers of Stevenage. We now have the chance to learn from them as we build our new towns for the future.”
“Stevenage once had 38,000 council homes. That is now down to 8,000. I have knocked on the doors of people living in private rented accommodation, and they feel that insecurity. This Government are working to fix that, but we need to get these new homes and rejuvenate our town centres, as Members have said, and that ain’t easy. The lesson from development corporations relates to what we do once they are up and running and have done their job. In Stevenage, the development corporation was transferred to hedge funds and pension companies in 1980, and it is now much harder to rejuvenate those town centres. One of the biggest concerns I hear on the doorstep is about homes and what is happening in the town centre. We have to not just learn the lessons for new new towns but make sure that we reshape our existing new towns.”
“The Storm Shadow missiles that we send to Ukraine, to help in the defence against the horrific invasion by Putin’s Russia, are made in Stevenage. New towns like Stevenage play their part. This debate is important because, as Members have said, there are lessons to learn about what we can do to rejuvenate new towns. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning came to Stevenage weeks after the general election with Sir Michael Lyons. He was there with a fellow Minister, Baroness Sharon Taylor, who is Stevenage-grown; she has helped to shape Stevenage and is doing a great job of shaping homes across the country. They saw a new development in the town centre, with new affordable homes to deal with today’s housing crisis. Stevenage was built in response to the housing crisis back then. The challenge now is even more immense.”
“He found that the sign at Stevenage station been replaced with one that said “Silkingrad”—he was not assured of a warm welcome. However, he showed determination and said, “We are going to build this town.” So we did, and it was a huge achievement. It showed the benefit of planning and thinking ahead—not just about the homes that people needed, but about the schools, jobs, parks and so on. To this day, people’s first impression of Stevenage is just how green it is. If someone is lucky enough to work in Stevenage—whether they live there or come just for work—they will find how easy it is to get there. We have great companies, developed over generations, such as MBDA and Airbus, in the defence and aerospace sectors. More than a quarter of the satellites in space were made in Stevenage.”
“She did not end up in Cumbernauld; she took a bit of a circuitous route to London, via Malta. She had ambitions for her family—as did my dad John and my brother Gary. I ended up in Stevenage, and the town has really welcomed me, as somebody who wanted to start a new life there. That is the story of new towns. There are the people lucky enough to be born and to grow up there, but there are also those who choose to start a new life there. Their aspiration becomes the community’s aspiration. As I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister is finding out, creating and developing new towns is not easy. One of his predecessors, Lewis Silkin—then the Minister of Town and Country Planning—came to the large village of Stevenage in the 1940s.”
“It is a pleasure to come second—on this occasion—to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince). Stevenage may not have a concrete donkey, but we have Donkey park, as well as a concrete polar bear in Chells, of which we are very proud. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) on securing this important debate on the 70th anniversary of her new town. My new town of Stevenage celebrates its 80th anniversary as the UK’s first new town this year. It shares its birth year with my mum, whose 80th birthday is today. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] After celebrating my new town, I will celebrate with her later. My mum was born and grew up in Glasgow. Like many people who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, she sought a new life.”
“Q11. Many of my constituents in Stevenage were appalled to hear Reform MPs oppose the principle of deploying British troops to maintain peace in Ukraine. Our brilliant armed forces have defended democracy in Europe across the generations, so it is shameful that the leader of Reform opposes that today. That is not leadership; it is surrender. Does the Prime Minister agree that Labour Governments always have and always will defend British interests, not those of Russian dictators or oligarchs?”
“We also know that our ally, Ukraine, depends not just on words: the Ukrainians need the tools to carry on the job, and they must know that they have no truer friend than this country and that we will be with them until the very end.”
“We have heard powerful speeches today. Those of us in the Chamber are united in support of our friends in Ukraine. Members have spoken about their own experiences of support, and about the support given by Members who are not present. But we must remember this: Members of the Ukrainian Parliament—the Rada—are doing far more than we could ever do. They are fighting the war; they are on Putin’s hit lists. We here must show that resolve, because what we say in this Chamber is not heard and watched only on the TVs of our constituents; it is watched by our allies and our adversaries, so what we say here does matter.”