Max Wilkinson
MP for Cheltenham · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“The proposals are not the result that I wanted for my constituency or Gloucestershire. However, I am a reasonable man, and I am willing to take the Secretary of State at his word.”
“This summer brings good news in the Big Space Cancer Appeal, which Health Ministers are right behind. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking the brilliant doctors behind the appeal, Charles Candish and Sam Guglani, and the many donors who are helping to pay for the £17.5 million new cancer centre at Cheltenham hospital?”
“Cheltenham train passengers have a continual frustration with the turnaround time at Gloucester. There is also a new frustration: I wonder whether the Secretary of State or a Minister can tell me why so many trains due to terminate at Cheltenham unexpectedly terminate at Gloucester?”
“Lord Gove used his “Quite right!” Spectator podcast to call me “oleaginous”, a word that I later learned means oily, the “king of smuggery” and an offensive term, but I will spare Members’ blushes by simply saying that it starts with d and rhymes with “mick”. That is from a Member of the House of Lords in this Parliament.”
“Instead, it proposes the wholesale reform of the appeals process, creating the Independent Immigration Appeals Authority, which will not be operational until late next year. Even the Home Office has described the value of this measure as uncertain.”
“Sadly, this measure, coupled with potential decades-long waits for leave to remain, will actively undermine the integration that everyone in this House should be aiming for. Costs to the taxpayer are likely to go up and not down. The reviews of refugee status alone are set to cost up to £725 million extra in the first 10 years.”
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“I thank the Minister for his generous words. Although I accept that I will not be cracking open a beer this evening to celebrate the Bill’s passing—perhaps a bottle of Corona—this has been an important debate and it has demonstrated consensus across the House, save for the local difficulties of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), which we should not go into again. A range of views were expressed about the energy mix. My view is that we need a mix of energy generation that includes all the things discussed today. I am pleased to hear that the matter will be up for future discussion and I look forward to working on it with the Government—particularly on the important point of applying pressure to developers in a way that gets the pragmatic outcome that we all deserve.”
“Sport and physical activity must play a bigger part in the debate on our nation’s collective health and the future of health services. Sport England reports that almost one in three children are classed as inactive. More than a third of adults do not meet the chief medical officer’s recommendations for physical activity. Sedentary lifestyles are associated with one in six deaths, and obesity costs the economy £58 billion per year. Those are truly shocking statistics that we should all be ashamed of. What conversations are Ministers in the Department having with colleagues in other Departments, most notably Health, to ensure an increased focus on physical activity to improve our nation’s physical and mental health?”
“In Cheltenham, in Sandford Park, we have an avenue of trees that were planted in honour of the covid heroes and the many victims that our town lost during the pandemic. Not far from there, there is a playground, and that playground was shut. There is nothing more dystopian for children than seeing the playground that they cherish shut. Children do not often have a voice in these kinds of discussions. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the next time there is a pandemic, we will take a much more reasonable approach to risk, as raised in the module, and that children will have a bigger voice, so that they will not suffer the mental health problems that we know so many have suffered as a result of the pandemic?”
“Cheltenham has had a voice since Victoria was on the throne, and we need to be reassured by the Minister that we will retain that voice as part of any devolution and local government reorganisation. Otherwise, power will simply be taken away from my community and given either to Gloucester or as far away as Bristol, with a new regional mayor. Can the Minister reassure me that localism will be part of his agenda too?”
“They know what we in this Chamber, the Government, the legal system, police forces and social media companies know: the system is badly failing children and families. Social media companies must now be placed on notice. They must protect children and respect families or face the consequences. They must protect children so that the Joolses of the present and the future do not meet a tragic and early end. They must respect the Ellens of the past, present and future so they can be confident that their children can be safe too.”
“Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) for her support for my constituent Ellen; I know it has been valuable to her over the past few weeks and months. I thank Ellen herself and pay tribute to her: she is the person whose petition brings us here today. The heartache and devastation she has endured is unimaginable for the rest of us, but Ellen has turned her grief into something that is positive and could be even more positive for this country and other parents. Having watched her campaign so tirelessly, and provided support where I could for the past few months, I am immensely proud of what she has achieved. We should all be thankful for what Ellen and other members of Bereaved Families for Online Safety are doing.”
“Sadly, in recent weeks and months we have seen social media companies make increasingly vociferous claims that the protection of free speech and freedom of expression online must come above all else. The examples of Elon Musk’s bizarre approach to X and Meta’s decision to ditch moderation in favour of community notes are instructive of what is happening and what could happen next, and there has also been much discussion of the impact of the TikTok algorithm on children’s mental health. Other platforms and examples will come up in the future. We have also seen democracies start to act to curtail the power of social media companies—the example of the Australian Government’s approach is instructive, whether or not Members of this House agree with the detail. I thank the hon.”
“The current legislation, however, means that bereaved parents like Ellen are still left to fight bureaucracy. In Ellen’s case, she is seeking retrospective action too. The Government should look at how exactly they can rectify that urgently and in retrospective cases. There is now an acknowledgment that giving parents the right to automatic access to living children’s social media accounts may have unintended and undesirable consequences relating to child protection, but if the law and parents are to acknowledge that balance, social media companies must do their bit to keep children safe online from predators, inappropriate content and content that may cause children to harm themselves.”
“There is, of course, a much wider debate about online harms, but Ellen is using her experiences and her campaign to bring about positive change in this debate. She is seeking answers in order that others do not have to in future. The case of Jools and Ellen is not the first time that social media companies have come up short. The dynamic and fast-moving nature of the internet means that social media companies are able to act before legislators have a chance to catch up. This is a problem that has persisted for many years, but it is notable that they act only when pushed by brave campaigners like Ellen shining a light on what is happening. As we have heard, the Online Safety Act takes us a step forward, and it does improve rights of access.”
“In years gone by, that would have required searching through a child’s bedroom, perhaps looking at diaries, notes, letters, toy boxes, stickers or any other clues. The modern-day equivalent of such a search necessitates access to social media accounts, but because the law has not kept pace with the realities of modern life, that search has not been and cannot be completed. This is a cruel and inhumane process to impose on a grieving parent seeking nothing more than answers about what happened before their child took their own life. That is all Ellen wanted. I ask all of us present, and anyone watching at home, to consider what we would want to happen if we found ourselves in Ellen’s shoes, and go further to think what rights a parent would assume in those circumstances, as a matter of natural justice.”
“In her search for answers, Ellen found herself blocked by a legal system unable to tackle the complexities of social media and obstructive social media giants that placed process ahead of compassion. The police had no reason to suspect a crime, so did not see a reason to undertake a full investigation into Jools’ social media. The inquest did not require a thorough analysis of Jools’ online accounts. None of the social media companies would grant Ellen access to Jools’ browsing data, citing regulations. A court order was needed to access his digital data, which required eye-watering legal fees. Ellen sought nothing more than what amounts to access to her deceased child’s personal effects.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank the Petitions Committee for enabling this debate and the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for opening it. There is nothing any parent fears more than the loss of a child. Tragically, in 2022, Ellen Roome suffered this loss. Her world was shattered when she came home to find her son Jools not breathing. He had taken his own life aged just 14. While Ellen was dealing with the enormous pain of her loss, she also had questions about what had happened in the days, weeks and months leading up to Jools’ death. Jools was a happy boy. A video filmed just before his death shows him playing happily with friends. The absence of any hints that he might have been inclined to harm himself led Ellen’s search to his social media accounts.”
“9. Whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of compensation for rail passengers in Cheltenham due to the impact of the Old Oak Common station development.”
“The Secretary of State’s constituents will also be affected. Compensation comes in many forms. It may be in the form of better wi-fi on trains to improve the service for business users. It may be in the form of more rolling stock to end the bizarre practice of running half-length trains out of Paddington at peak times. And it may be in the form of an investigation into how we can reduce the ridiculous turnaround times at Gloucester station that delay Cheltenham passengers so much. I hope the Minister will confirm that all these things are being looked into for passengers in my constituency and the Secretary of State’s constituency.”
“According to media reports today, the former Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk is issuing cease and desist letters to those who have accused her of crashing the economy”
“I hope not. Members will be conscious that I am being very careful with my wording. I wonder whether the Chief Secretary might wish to take advantage of parliamentary privilege to compare and contrast the impact of her disastrous mini-Budget with what is being discussed today.”
“The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) mentioned the subject of devolution. In Gloucestershire, we stand on the cusp of a democratic outrage: the county council leadership has suggested that districts are backing it in cancelling this year’s elections, and backing a single unitary authority for the whole of Gloucestershire. Having spoken to other districts, that is not the case, and I know that Labour Members from Gloucestershire share my concerns. I add my weight to the hon. Member for West Worcestershire’s call: that, if county councils persist in this kind of democratic outrage, we must have time to debate that in this House. I hope the Leader of the House agrees.”
“The number of constituencies that will be impacted by the work is absolutely huge. Starting from furthest away, it will be every constituency in Cornwall and Devon, most of Somerset, Bristol, parts of Herefordshire and Worcestershire, south Wales, Gloucestershire—my own area of the country—Wiltshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire. That is a lot of people whose journeys will be slower for a long time, and a lot of people who will have to make alternative arrangements when trains are cancelled.”
“During the period of disruption while construction takes place, we will endure 29 days of disruption in this current operational year—that disruption has already begun—30 days of disruption in 2025-26, 41 days of disruption in 2026-27, including 14 days when no trains run at all, 34 days of disruption in 2027-28, including 11 days when no trains run at all, and 47 days of disruption in 2028-29, including 18 days when no trains run at all. The disruption for the following year is not yet known. The majority of the impact will fall on Sundays and at Christmas. We might assume that Sunday is a quiet day on the railways, but since my election and my need to travel to London, sometimes on a Sunday evening, I can tell Members that that is not the case, particularly when Great Western Railway is unable to run most of its timetable.”
“But it is much more complicated than that. Old Oak Common is being built on the Great Western line, as I mentioned, and consequently a decision has been taken that all trains using the line will eventually stop at Old Oak Common. That decision makes sense to those in charge of big transport infrastructure, but it will not necessarily make sense to the people we serve in the west and south Wales. Rail industry experts tell us that it will add between four and seven minutes to each journey in the long run.”
“The first is how the impact of construction work at Old Oak Common can be mitigated. The second is how Old Oak Common can become a useful station for our regions. The third is how the Government can use their power to mitigate the long-term impact of slower trains heading to and from the west and south Wales, by improving services in other ways. I will ask a number of questions, and although I am sure that some of them do not yet have answers, I hope the Minister will at least be able to address each one to confirm the Government’s position and their intentions. First, I will deal with the construction phase. Most people who are aware of the new station will know it as the place where the previous Government had intended to terminate HS2. That was before the new Government decided to bring back the suggestion that HS2 will end at Euston.”
“Unfortunately for people in the west and Wales, it is indeed the case that there will be widespread disruption to trains between London Paddington and the west and south Wales for the next six years, and after that six-year period is over, every train between the west and south Wales and London will be slower. The reason for the delays and slower services is the new Old Oak Common station, which is being built to serve HS2. At this point, it is important to state that today’s debate, and indeed the wider public discussion, cannot be about whether HS2 happens at all or whether Old Oak Common station is built. HS2 is happening, and anyone who has travelled on the Great Western line recently will know that Old Oak Common is being built. But there are three points that we must all take up on behalf of our constituents.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of Old Oak Common station on rail services to the West and Wales. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. We all know that opinions on High Speed 2 are many and varied—whether or not that line is a good thing is not up for debate today—but nobody would have expected that the development of a high-speed rail line heading from the north to London and back again would have a negative impact on trains heading west. Something about that statement seems entirely illogical.”
“If an interchange to the Elizabeth line is secured, can the Minister tell me the anticipated journey time to central London to and from my Cheltenham constituency after those works are complete? Can the Minister also confirm whether technical studies on interchanging with overground services have begun, so that we can work out what is possible? Nothing that Members are hearing so far suggests that the technical work has been properly considered, or even whether it has been started at any level. If studies have begun, what work has been done to cost future works? If they have not, when will those studies take place?”
“I am certain that most Members present will agree that those additional four to seven minutes must be offset, and Old Oak Common has the potential to become a significant interchange, enabling travellers from the west and south Wales to switch to the London transport network earlier, perhaps via the Elizabeth line or London Overground services. Achieving that aim would ensure smooth onward journeys, not just into central London but, if it is done right, elsewhere. What assurances can the Minister give us that the station interchange will be just as convenient as Paddington, if not more so? Is the convenience of the interchange with the Elizabeth line as secure as Members have been led to believe in some of the briefings, or is that not yet guaranteed?”
“What discussions have Ministers had with Network Rail about whether the speed limit associated with the construction work could be 80 mph rather than 60 mph? The second area to explore is how Old Oak Common might become a station that serves our constituencies, rather than simply making things less convenient. That is a much more complex discussion, and those of us who have seen the maps will know that that is still up for debate. Rail industry professionals suggest that there is an opportunity to either improve services or significantly mitigate the impact of the potential disruption, but the core problem is clear. At a time when the national rail network is struggling so badly and the Government are promising a brighter future under Great British Railways, our constituents must be able to see benefits.”
“I absolutely agree. Although joining up London with the north and the midlands is a laudable aim, there is a real risk that the west and south Wales could be left out. The amount of money being spent on HS2 is not matched by rail investment towards the west, as those of us who represent constituencies there are well aware. My first question to the Minister is: what assessment has been made of the fixed-term construction disruption to the economies of the constituencies affected, including my own in Cheltenham? What assessment has been made of the clear risk that the disruption caused by construction is wider than that which is currently being reported, with perhaps extra days of construction work leading to more cancellations?”
“Five-carriage inter-city trains routinely run in excess of passenger capacity for large parts of journeys to the west. Will the Minister confirm that, as part of the mitigation of the Old Oak Common disruption, more rolling stock will be found to ensure that passengers do not routinely have to endure journeys in which they are forced to stand for unacceptably long periods of time? I have stood with pensioners and vulnerable people next to the loo for longer than an hour on journeys west from Paddington. Will the Minister confirm that those of us who use trains for business can expect wi-fi improvements? Although the current GWR service offers wi-fi on board, it routinely proves useless for large parts of the journey, which is definitely a drag on the economy.”
“I can see why the hon. Member’s constituents in Devon would not be interested in going to London before going to the midlands. She makes a very good point. If those studies have not begun, what work has been done to cost the future works? If not, when will those studies take place? For those whose journeys are inevitably taking them to the area around Paddington, what reassurances are there that congestion west of Paddington can be dealt with in order to maintain capacity? My third point is about restoring trust in our railways by making more general improvements to passenger experience—I want to mention some hyper-local issues, which I hope the Minister will listen to. Although there will undoubtedly be a period of disruption and uncertainty, there are also some clear opportunities to improve rail services.”
“What are Ministers doing in the short term and during the period of disruption to ensure that a Sunday timetable actually runs between London and the west country?”
“I accept that it is unlikely that any progress will made soon, but what chance is there of improving rail infrastructure around Gloucester, to remove the need for the driver to switch from one end of the train to the other—a very 20th-century solution? Finally, I come to the trains themselves. The current rolling stock is functional, but what plans do Ministers have to make the carriages more pleasant? Older constituents recall the days of comfortable seats and a buffet carriage with snacks. In other European nations, inter-city trains even have carriages with special family-friendly areas where children can play. A civilised and family-friendly nation should surely consider that. It is no exaggeration to say that weekends are a nightmare.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The impact on tourism is felt by all our constituencies in the west, many of which are tourism hotspots. The point about connectivity is important. If we can have 5G on the Elizabeth line in London, which is already well served by public transport, why can I not have 5G in the countryside between Swindon and Stroud when I travel back to my constituency? It makes no sense. The benefits to business users would surely justify the investment. I have already asked the rail industry whether progress might be made on the frustrating turnaround times at Gloucester, which delay Cheltenham passengers every day.”
“Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), the new Minister for the Armed Forces. Having researched this issue in the previous Parliament, he played a leadership role by passing on information to new hon. Members, helping to bring about today’s debate, for which we thank him.”
“I absolutely do. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) made the point that, compared with HS2, the amount of money that needs to be invested for improvement in the west country is relatively small. By way of compensation to Cheltenham for the disruption, can the Minister please ask Network Rail to stop blocking the long-awaited extension to the cycle path that links Cheltenham town centre to the station? Network Rail has been getting in the way of that development for years. It just needs to get out of the way to improve connectivity in my constituency. I have asked a number of questions, which are intended as helpful contributions. I am sure that other hon. Members will have pertinent points about the impact on their constituencies. Before I finish, I would like to pay tribute to the work of the hon.”
“I am aware that I get another chance to speak shortly, but the reason I raised Network Rail’s blocking of that scheme is because of the way it has been done: by extending contract negotiations over years, to the point when a bit of cycle path is costing tens of thousands of pounds per metre because Network Rail demands ever greater levels of infrastructure to be inserted. I have raised this with Ministers and all sorts of people, but it is clear that Network Rail just wanted to kick it into the long grass by making it uneconomic. I know that the Minister is an advocate for active travel, so if she could intervene with Network Rail and just say, “Get it done,” I would be grateful.”
“The opportunity that is being sold by the rail industry, and has been sold by the Government in the very recent past, is thrown into doubt if there is uncertainty about whether all the trains will stop at Old Oak Common, so it seems there is quite a bit of thinking to be done. I appreciate that the Government are in an imperfect position here. We all are. I suggest that work on the technical studies into the opportunities and economic benefits that we might get in our constituencies and that the nation as a whole might accrue needs to be picked up as soon as possible. I thank the Minister for her response today. I look forward to hearing more in due course. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered the impact of Old Oak Common station on rail services to the West and Wales.”
“A key point that I took from what she said was that although the station is designed to take all the trains stopping there, including every service from the west, that need not be the case. That is different from what we are generally being briefed on as Members. When we talk about the technical studies that need to go into the future infrastructure that might link into the overground services elsewhere, there is an impact on timings, on the public debate and on the Government’s willingness to fund the studies and the infrastructure. We are now in a period of uncertainty about whether all of the Great Western main line trains will indeed be stopping at Old Oak Common.”
“Thank you, Mr. Efford; I will speak for no longer than an hour. There is much to reflect on. I am grateful to all colleagues for turning up to this important debate, and to the Minister for addressing a number of the points raised. I appreciate there were probably about 35 questions raised during various speeches, including some from myself. Will the hon. Lady take time later to work with the Rail Minister on responses to my questions about everything from the hyper-local, such as the Honeybourne line, up to the bigger picture stuff around wi-fi connectivity and the delays that Cheltenham passengers suffer at Gloucester? The main thing to come out of the Minister’s response is that there is still an awful lot to play for.”
“My constituency of Cheltenham is already built up to its boundaries and is working with its neighbours on the joint local plans referenced by the Minister, in part to deal with a housing waiting list of more than 2,500 bequeathed to us by the last Government. We also have a big, sprawling town centre and plenty of empty space. What is the Minister’s message to councils that have that combination of challenges?”
“Businesses report that cyber-attacks are increasing, as is the amount of time they have to wait to employ someone to deal with those cyber-attacks. What is the Department doing to fill that skills gap?”
“I was never brave enough to serve on a planning committee during my 10 years as a local councillor—there are just not enough hours in the day. There are a range of views on this. I have some sympathy with the notion that we need to speed up the delivery of new homes—we have a housing crisis, and it is important that we do that—but does the Minister accept that, with the streamlining he is talking about, one new planning authority simply will not cut it?”
“However, the university warns that the benefit of the £300 tuition fee increase the Government offered this year is likely to be wiped out by the changes to national insurance for employers. I would like the Minister to respond to that point later. The challenge for the new Government is to put things right, change the rhetoric and reinstate as much fairness in the system as they possibly can. We know that that is not going to be easy—we have all had challenges in the past, haven’t we?—but the Liberal Democrats cannot support an increase in fees at this stage. Reports now suggest that fees are to break the £10,000 barrier fairly soon and rise to £10,500 over the next five years. Before we could support that, more work is needed to undo the failures of the previous Government and restore fairness to the system.”
“As a result, the university is closing some courses and consolidating others, reducing student choice. Some courses combining multiple humanities are the first to close; fashion is likely to go as well. That said, the university is doing what the Liberal Democrats have suggested too—cutting non-teaching costs and innovating. The university is also taking advantage of Cheltenham’s cyber-security future. It recently opened a new £5.8 million cyber and digital centre, which will help cement Cheltenham’s position as the cyber capital of the UK. That places the university in the same sphere as CyNam, the local industry group, and alongside high-performing small and medium-sized enterprises that drive the local economy. That kind of innovation has to be at the centre of what universities do in the future.”
“Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas)—tells me that, of a turnover of £85 million, £65 million is from tuition fees, and around £20 million of that is from foreign students, but this year it has reductions in foreign students for both the January and autumn intakes. As I said, this is not just about the visa issue; it is also about rhetoric. The university tells me that its agents who recruit students from abroad say that the feedback from those students is that they are perhaps not quite so wanted in the UK as they once were, so they are selecting degree courses in Australia, America, Canada—elsewhere, where they feel more welcome. The result is a £4 million hit to the University of Gloucestershire’s tuition fee revenue. That is significant.”
“They stretched the repayment period so far into the future that some of today’s students will be paying back their loans until 2066. They also lowered the repayment threshold, leaving students paying back an extra £206 a year. The earlier mentions of foreign students by the hon. Members for Erewash and for Luton South and South Bedfordshire (Rachel Hopkins) were pertinent, and I will now move on to that issue. The combination of the visa crackdowns and the rhetoric about foreign-born students placed further stress on the sector. The upshot is that the Office for Students suggests that about 40% of universities are likely to run a deficit this year. Locally, the University of Gloucestershire—based in my constituency and those of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Alex McIntyre) and my hon.”
“That is why the Liberal Democrats believe that the reintroduction of maintenance grants is a vital first step, and I was heartened to hear the hon. Member for Erewash raise that in his opening remarks. Maintenance grants were scrapped by the Conservatives in 2016, which makes it so much harder for young people from less well-off backgrounds even to get to university in the first place. It is regrettable that the new Government are not yet committing to the full restoration of maintenance grants, and we urge Ministers to consider them as a way of bringing fairness back into the system. Scrapping maintenance grants was not the only way in which the Conservatives made the system less fair for students, lecturers, universities and everyone else.”
“When I speak to students today in my constituency of Cheltenham, it is a very different picture from the one that existed when I went to university in the early noughties in terms of how much they pay for rent, food and energy bills. The previous Government made the tuition fee system unfair. The Liberal Democrats, however, cannot support simply raising fees at this stage without substantial reforms. At this stage, the right thing to do would be to undertake a full review of finance in the sector to consider ways to improve access to, and participation in, degrees, as well as the quality of courses, because value for money for students remains extremely important. While the sector is struggling, we must absolutely not lose sight of the key challenge—removing barriers to entry for new students.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson) on securing this important debate. University funding is undoubtedly in crisis. We have heard mentions of universities around the country, and there is a very similar story at mine, which I will tell later. The previous Government broke the sector’s finances. That left the country with a system that is unfair to students, while pushing many institutions to the brink. We should not forget, in among that, the lecturers who work so hard in our universities too, as well as all the support staff. On the other side, we have students who increasingly feel burdened by the cost of living crisis and the long-term repayment of loans.”
“The focus on public procurement will be welcomed by SMEs in the cyber-security sector in my constituency. CyNam has thousands of members, and when I talk to its SMEs they tell me that there is a real risk of our losing talent in the start-ups community to cities abroad such as Lisbon and Toronto. Can the Minister confirm that the steps being taken by the Government are good news for SMEs and Cynam?”
“The Golden Valley development adjacent to GCHQ in Cheltenham will pay a vital role in our nation’s cyber-security. The recent confirmation of £20 million from the Government for that development is welcome, but will the Secretary of State confirm that the project will continue to feature in future iterations of the national cyber strategy?”