Sir Ashley Fox
MP for Bridgwater · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Too many coastal towns suffer from poor transport links, economic inactivity, seasonal employment and the loss of young people seeking opportunities elsewhere.”
“I hope the Minister, when she sums up, will consider the effect of the right to guaranteed hours on businesses in coastal towns. Has she considered that, when those businesses take on seasonal workers during a period of good weather, they are compelled to offer those hours for the next reference period, whatever the weather might be?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. Britain’s coastal communities are among the most beautiful parts of our country, but behind that picture postcard image lies a reality that too often goes unnoticed—isolation, hidden deprivation and a lack of opportunity.”
“The Leader of the House is a decent and honourable man, and the fact that he is so clearly rattled this afternoon shows how uncomfortable he is with the statement that he has delivered to us. As he knows, the purpose of that Opposition day debate was to have a vote to delay recess by one day to scrutinise the new Prime Minister.”
“I want to give the Minister the opportunity to comment on how the right to guaranteed hours affects seasonal workers. We are enjoying some beautiful weather in Somerset.”
“Bridgwater high street has many excellent independent businesses, such as Styles Menswear, Soda & Rye, and Alise and Louie, but there are also too many dodgy Turkish barbers and criminal enterprises selling illegal cigarettes.”
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“The Highbridge bus passenger group in my constituency has raised the issues of Sunday services either not existing or starting so late that people cannot get to work, bus services being put on in the summer during the tourist season but not being available in the winter, and poor connections for rural communities. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, without additional funding, this bus Bill will not solve those problems?”
“As anyone who has ever tried to drive down a country lane will know, it is not uncommon for livestock to cross the lanes between fields. At the moment, if an animal is attacked when it is not in one of the farm fields, the responsibility falls on the farmer, rather than the owner of the dog, to prevent the worrying. Including roads and paths in this legislation is a simple measure to close this loophole and ensure that dog owners have to control their dogs around livestock at all times. Lastly, I support the move to include camelids within the definition of livestock, which will protect the llamas and alpacas at the Animal Farm Adventure Park in Berrow in my constituency. I am delighted to support the Bill and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chester South and Eddisbury for bringing it forward.”
“Currently, it is difficult for the police to collect evidence following an alleged attack. It is too easy for an owner to prevent police from collecting evidence, such as by taking samples of blood on fur. The Bill fixes that, ensuring that officers can act to collect evidence so long as they have reasonable grounds to believe an attack has happened. The Bill will also allow officers to seize and detain a dog that is believed to have caused an attack. Unfortunately, too many dogs that worry livestock are what we might refer to as repeat offenders. This measure makes it easier to prevent the most dangerous dogs from causing further harm to livestock. Perhaps the most important element of the Bill is the inclusion of roads and public paths within the scope of the existing legislation.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chester South and Eddisbury for introducing this important legislation. Farming plays an important role in my constituency. Livestock worrying can cause serious injury, immense suffering and, in the worst cases, death to farm animals. These incidents are not only traumatic for farmers but result in significant financial losses. According to data from NFU Mutual, insurance claims for dog attacks on farm animals exceeded £1.8 million in 2023. This Bill makes several improvements to the existing law. First, it creates a distinction between worrying and attacking livestock. That is important, because it allows the strengthening of police powers to respond more effectively to actual attacks.”
“Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that the cumulative effect of all the Government’s measures over the past 12 months—a £25 billion jobs tax, the £5 billion burden of the Employment Rights Bill, the removal of business property relief, which is reducing the incentive to be an entrepreneur—will be to drive unemployment higher?”
“Could the hon. Member tell us whether A1 Bacon—indeed, any business in Harlow—believes that the Employment Rights Bill will enable it to employ more people?”
“Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief will raise relatively small amounts for the Treasury, but they will have a devastating effect on those businesses, and the reason they are being brought in is that Government Ministers have no idea how small businesses and farmers operate?”
“Right now, if a small business gives someone a chance, it can let them go easily if it does not work out for either the employee or the business. Why on earth would it take that risk in future? It is deeply regrettable that unemployment is already on the rise. We know that every Labour Government leave office with unemployment higher than when they started. It is regrettable that business confidence is at an all-time low after this Government have been in office for only 10 months. That is all caused by their disastrous business policies. I urge the Minister that it is not too late to change course, but if the Government do not do so, they will create a whole new generation of people who are locked out of the job market altogether.”
“It will not be Amazon, Tesco or Shell; it will be the people at the margins—those who are looking for a job in their local family-run business. The real impact will be on those who are looking for work, because everything that this Government have done is an attack on jobs. Members must ask themselves: why would a small business, as an employer, take a risk on taking on an additional member of staff in this environment? It will be taxed more and it will be opened up to litigation from day one if it fails to follow the complicated legal processes in dismissing them. Day one rights will have a disproportionate effect on those people who we most want to help into work: young people without qualifications, those who have taken long-term sick leave, those with disabilities who need reasonable adjustments, and former criminals.”
“The Deputy Prime Minister is using the Bill to burnish her credentials with the left of her party, for the same reason that she and her team briefed the press yesterday on why she wants another £4 billion of tax rises: it is all in order to be ready for a tilt at the top job. That is why one part of the Government are not listening to businesses when they say how badly they will be impacted by this legislation. However, there is another significant contingent: those who simply do not understand business at all. Vanishingly few Labour Members have experience in small businesses, and practically nobody in the Cabinet has any experience of business at all. Who is going to be hit the hardest by the cumulative effect of this Government’s punitive attack on business?”
“I had the pleasure of serving on the Employment Rights Public Bill Committee for more than 20 sittings to go through the legislation line by line. It is 300 pages of additional regulations and costs on our businesses. It is a pay-off to the trade unions for giving their support to the Labour party before the election. That is why the Bill was introduced within 100 days, basically unfinished, and why so many amendments had to be made to it in Committee and on Report. The Bill was written by the trade unions, which explains why the Government show no willingness to compromise on its most damaging parts.”
“This Government were elected on a promise to go for growth. They said that they had a costed programme and that everything else they wanted to spend money on could be paid for by increasing growth. Despite those promises, almost every single action that Labour has taken since entering office has been to stifle growth, not to improve it. Before the election, many businesses backed the new Government. They believed their promises on tax, stability and growth. Many of those businesses have now lost confidence in the Government, and who can blame them? The impact of the hikes in national insurance contributions and business rates, combined with the red tape of the Employment Rights Bill and the removal of business property relief, has totally undermined business.”
“I welcome the inclusion of this measure in the Bill. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that the extension of the measure to local authorities and social housing providers is essential if the Victims’ Commissioner is to fully represent victims of antisocial behaviour?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that using the test of reasonable force, as the Lord Chancellor proposes, raises the unpleasant prospect that prisoners so forced might bring claims for damages against the Lord Chancellor, which would be a further insult to victims? I firmly support my right hon. Friend’s view that “grossly disproportionate” is the correct legal test to use.”
“One of the reasons why our prisons are so full is that we have more than 10,000 foreign nationals in them. What steps is the Minister taking to deport them?”
“In January 2024, my constituent, Mr Michael Moyse, wrote to the Treasury about his business, and the Royal Mail has confirmed that his letter was signed for. As he did not receive a reply, he came to my surgery in January this year seeking assistance. Having investigated the matter, I wrote to officials in the Treasury on 18 March requesting that they reply to Mr Moyse. They did not do so. I wrote again to the Treasury on 7 May. My constituent has still not received a reply. Will the Leader of the House have a word with the Chancellor and ask the Treasury to reply to my constituent?”
“The Church of St Mary Magdalene in Stockland Bristol in my constituency has been planning since 2019 for extensive repairs and to turn the church into a community hub. Due to the changes in the listed worship scheme, it finds itself £300,000 short. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an enormous sum for a small community to raise?”
“Increased investment in the United Kingdom is always welcome. Will the Minister confirm that this Government will never interfere in the fiduciary duty of pension trustees to get the best return for their members?”
“Will the SPS and energy deals that the Minister has in mind be on the basis of a mutual recognition of standards, or does he envisage the United Kingdom accepting EU standards now, being dynamically aligned and placing ourselves under the jurisdiction of the European Court?”
“My right hon. Friend is correct. While I was in the European Parliament, opinion poll research was conducted into whether people could name their Member of the European Parliament, and only 2% of British people could name any Member of the European Parliament—regrettably, it was not me.”
“I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) that this is the beginning of a process to bring the United Kingdom within the regulatory control of the EU, and thereafter, perhaps an attempt by the Labour party to make us join the EU.”
“An agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures could be reached were the EU and the UK to recognise each other’s standards. Our standards are already the same as, or higher than, the EU’s, and the EU knows this. But the EU has no intention of doing that. It intends to wait until the UK has a Government who will agree to its rules, agree to the dynamic alignment of those rules and then agree that the Court of Justice of the European Union is the final arbiter of those rules. It seems that the EU’s patience has been rewarded, because when I asked the Minister earlier to clarify what approach he intended to take, answer came there none. It is clear that this Government intend to sign us up to EU rules, over which this House will have no say. When those rules are changed by the EU, Britain will simply have to follow.”
“The Government say that the agreement will improve growth in our economy, and that is commendable, but we on the Conservative Benches would take that assurance far more seriously if the Government had not spent the last 10 months making life more difficult for British business. The Employment Rights Bill will increase costs to businesses by £5 billion a year, borne mostly by small and medium-sized enterprises, and the £25 billion national insurance jobs tax will make it more expensive to employ people—unless, of course, it is an Indian business importing workers from India, because then it will benefit from the new trade deal negotiated by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade. A closer trading relationship with the EU would be very welcome. Trade frictions could be diminished easily.”
“I welcome the Government’s stated aim of negotiating a closer trading relationship with the European Union—I wish the Minister well—but given this Government’s record of negotiating international agreements, I worry about what the Prime Minister will agree on our behalf. We have seen his weakness in the negotiations on the Chagos islands. The Government intend to give away the sovereignty of a territory that we already own and then pay billions of pounds to lease it back. I can assure the Minister that when he comes to negotiate the details with the European Commission, he will find it a great deal tougher to deal with than the Government of Mauritius.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for introducing the debate. Will he join me in paying tribute to my constituent, Mr Alan Frost, for raising the number of signatures required to achieve the debate? Does he also agree that freezing the level of the basic allowance at £12,570 most heavily impacts pensioners with limited income, who find themselves paying more income tax on small occupational pensions as time goes by?”
“The Government’s own impact assessment of their Employment Rights Bill says that it will increase the cost to businesses by £5 billion, which will be borne mostly by small businesses. Does the Minister share my concern that, when combined with the additional national insurance charges on employers, that will reduce the opportunities for young people in my constituency just as much as for young people in Kensington and Bayswater?”
“Does the Minister accept that the safety and security of our prison officers should always come before protecting the rights of convicted criminals? Will he provide stab vests and Tasers for all officers who request them?”
“Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the reason why we are here today is an error of judgment by the Sentencing Council, on which it refused to back down until threatened with legislation? Does the amendment proposed by the shadow Justice Secretary not offer greater protection to the public from future errors of judgment by the Sentencing Council?”
“The reason why we are legislating is that the Sentencing Council’s guidance proposed treating offenders differently based on their ethnic, cultural or religious identities. That is wrong.”
“I have already recorded my support for the principle of this Bill, which is unfortunately necessary to uphold the principle of equal justice. I speak in support of amendments 3 and 4, which would further strengthen this legislation. Amendment 3 would give the Justice Secretary the power to prevent future errors of judgment by the Sentencing Council. It would require the council to secure ministerial consent before issuing any sentencing guidelines concerning pre-sentence reports. We should be clear that that is not a measure aimed at politicising justice. However, we must ensure democratic oversight of a body that has shown itself to be capable of committing a serious error of judgment, which led to the situation today.”
“The Sentencing Council says that if, for example, someone is a white, Christian male, they are less likely to benefit from a pre-sentence report than if they were a member of a religious or ethnic minority. I believe that that is wrong.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. As a former solicitor, I am familiar with that provision, and I agree that any defendant who has not yet received a custodial sentence should have the benefit of a pre-sentence report. However, imagine two criminals who both have a criminal record, but one is a member of a religious or ethnic minority and one is not. The guidelines propose treating them differently, and that is not justice.”
“Amendments 3 and 4 are essential if we are serious about protecting the most basic principle of a free society, which is equality before the law. Without them, the Bill addresses the symptoms, but not the cause. As such, I urge the Committee to support those amendments and reaffirm our commitment to equality before the law.”
“Amendment 4 would draw a clear legal line: mitigating factors in sentencing must relate directly to an individual’s actions and circumstances. Inherited identity or injustices not experienced by a particular convicted criminal should not be relevant to the sentence passed by the court. Race, religion or cultural background should not determine whether someone is sent to prison, and it should not determine whether or not someone should benefit from a pre-sentence report. The Lord Chancellor has argued that the current Bill allows her to “move at pace” to reverse the worst aspects of the Sentencing Council’s proposals, but this is not just about moving fast; it is also about ensuring that we never face this situation again.”
“We cannot allow this to happen again, and Parliament must have a say when guidance threatens the impartiality of our legal system. Amendment 4, which addresses the content of sentencing guidance itself, is equally important. The amendment would make it illegal for sentencing decisions to consider a defendant’s group identity, particularly in reference to historical discrimination that has no bearing on their individual case. Current bail guidance from the Ministry of Justice already advises courts to consider the trauma suffered by individuals whose relatives experienced racism or cultural discrimination. It even refers to “important historical events” and their supposed differential impact on specific ethnic or cultural groups. That approach undermines the principle that people should be judged as individuals, not as members of a group.”
“Indeed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point; the point I wish to make to the Committee is that all defendants should be treated equally. It should not be a matter of whether or not they are a member of an ethnic or religious minority. The Sentencing Council did not withdraw the guidance on principle, and it did not acknowledge its error. It was forced to backtrack only after public and political pressure, largely from the shadow Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). Even then, the council continued to defend the policy’s rationale in private communications to the judiciary. That is not accountability—it is evasion. That is precisely why amendment 3 is so vital.”
“The hon. Member will be aware that any sentencing magistrate or judge can request a pre-sentence report, so I would say that his use of the word “rationing” is inappropriate.”
“My constituents are horrified by the Government’s failure to order a national inquiry into the child rape gang scandal. Does the Minister share the concerns raised by Sir Trevor Phillips that the decisions made by the Government appear to be obviously political and designed to avoid offending Muslim voters of Pakistani origin?”
“The previous Football Governance Bill, introduced last year, tried to strike that careful balance. While I would have had questions about that Bill, I have even more significant concerns about this one. That is because Labour’s version is a different beast. It has expanded the regulator’s remit to cover parachute payments, solidarity payments, fan engagement mandates, new spending controls, and unnecessary diversity, equality and inclusion reporting. This Bill will take £130 million out of football and spend it on administration. It will expand the role of the state into a sector that is commercially successful and where that intervention is unnecessary. It is more Government at a time when we need less, and that is why I shall oppose this Bill tonight.”
“Compliance costs for clubs are estimated at £35 million; that is money that could be spent on football instead of compliance. Is that really a good use of money? The operational costs of the regulator are estimated to be £97.9 million, all funded through a new levy. Small clubs will struggle under the burden. What the Government are saying is that they want to take £130 million out of the game and spend it on administration. That means that the cost of Labour will yet again be felt by working people, despite what the Government claim. I am fully aware that it was a Conservative Government who launched the fan-led review into football governance chaired by Dame Tracey Crouch. That review made targeted recommendations for an independent regulator, focused solely on financial stability and protecting club heritage.”
“How long will it be until an independent cricket regulator is proposed, and perhaps rugby after that—we could have two, one for union and the other for league? I believe we should make a different choice: we should accept that the state already does too many things in our country and does many of those things not very well. I believe that we should limit the role of the state to a smaller number of areas and demand that it performs those roles better. This Bill threatens the future health of English football. Labour’s changes to the remit of the regulator will impose a significant regulatory burden, which will be felt particularly harshly by lower league clubs. The ultimate cost will be borne by the fans. Ticket prices, already rising on average by 7% this season, will rise further.”
“Football is not just an important cultural institution in Britain, but one of our great successes and our most successful export. I accept that the Government have only the best of intentions in wanting to set up an independent regulator and I am sure Labour Members genuinely believe this Bill will achieve good things, but I fear they are mistaken. I fear that the regulator will hinder growth in a sector that should be powering our economy forward instead of being held back by red tape and political interference. The Prime Minister says he wants to reduce the number of quangos yet has set up 41 new ones in his first eight months in office. That is because this Government’s first instinct is always to regulate first and ask questions later.”
“Can the Minister outline Government plans to reform the funding of fire authorities? That is especially important in Somerset, where changes to employer national insurance contributions, the ending of the rural support grant, the removal of the services grant and the reduction of the pension grant will cost Devon and Somerset Fire Authority nearly £2 million a year, at a time of rising costs.”
“4. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of not issuing new North sea oil and gas licences on levels of economic growth in Scotland.”
“If the UK achieves net zero in 2050, we will still consume about 14 billion barrels of oil and gas a year. We are currently on track to produce 4 billion barrels a year. Will the Secretary of State explain why he prefers to import our energy, rather than produce it ourselves?”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman and his party for bringing the motion. It is important that we improve the quality of our rivers and seas. Does he share my concern that in the Water (Special Measures) Act the Government refused to allow local areas to retain the money fined from water companies to improve the environment in that area? Were they able to do that, that would lead to a real improvement in the quality of our environment.”
“Draft guidelines from the Sentencing Council now propose substantially lower sentences for immigration offences than levels agreed by Parliament, so will the Lord Chancellor call on the Sentencing Council to revise those guidelines, so that they align with the time periods agreed by Parliament?”
“Given that the Sentencing Council refused the Lord Chancellor’s first invitation to rewrite its guidance, is she confident that the limited nature of this Bill is sufficient? Would she not be wiser to take a broader power to ensure that in future all sentencing guidance has an affirmative vote in this place?”
“We must put into law the principle that no factor like race, religion or cultural minority status should ever influence sentencing procedures. Justice must remain blind, not selectively blinkered. If we lose equal justice, we lose the foundation of a free society.”
“By tilting the system toward giving those reports preferentially to certain identity groups, the council would effectively be tipping the scales of justice, and the council knows it. Baroness Falkner, chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, has warned that the guidelines may violate the Equality Act 2010. If we allow sentencing outcomes to be guided by race, faith or cultural identity, we abandon the core British principle that the law applies equally to all of us. I agree with the Lord Chancellor that we should pass this legislation to override this guidance, but how confident is she that we will not face a similar situation again? I would like her to go further and ensure that Parliament is given oversight of all future sentencing guidance.”