Martin Wrigley

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

The complete record

412 held · 393 searchable for Martin Wrigley. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 8.

This is not an official version of UK Parliament proceedings. It reproduces the published record and links to it; the official version is the one UK Parliament publishes.

1. “However, all that work will be for nothing if the 2,000 houses being built in that critical drainage area right now do not have SuDS that are certified, adopted and maintained in the long term. That flooding will return. The local authority thinks it might need pumps to empty the river into the estuary when the tide is in. That is not a good situation—that is not sustainable. We need to ensure that the SuDS upstream are done, and South West Water is not in a position to take that on. My work in the south west regional flood and coastal committee shows a universal feeling among all the people working in the area that we need schedule 3. I thank the Minister for her attention and her words today, but I ask her to look again at schedule 3. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered sustainable drainage systems.”

   House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

2. “I really appreciate the amount of work that she is putting in. A lot of good things have been described, and the Act is good—it is a great Act. I like to call out good things that have been delivered, no matter the colour of the party that delivered them. I am not here to bash colour against colour; I am here to get results for local residents. Water requires an holistic solution. In the year 2000 in Dawlish Warren—the place that was tide-locked—we had floods that were 6 feet deep. People were evacuated from their park homes by helicopter because of upstream problems, with too much water being released into Shutterton brook. Devon county council put in flood mitigation schemes, and flooding has been prevented.”

   House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

3. “The Association of SuDS Authorities supports the enaction of schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to create SuDS approving bodies. Of course, it goes on to say that it needs the appropriate funding to do that: “Whichever mechanism is chosen to provide inspection, maintenance and enforcement of surface water drainage systems our Local Government members stand ready to ensure SuDS are considered the primary solution for dealing with surface water issues in a multi-beneficial way. By learning from the experience of the Welsh Government SAB implementation in 2019 and through consistent delivery of policy and process we support the role of SuDS in delivering greener, safer, high-quality communities.” All that, and everything that the Minister talked about, is great.”

   House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

4. “I thank everybody for their contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) accurately pointed out that SuDS, although solving local problems, need to be balanced in the wider are. SuDS is not something that can be fixed or managed on a site-by-site basis; it requires an overall view, such as one from the local authority. I also thank her for noting that Wales has implemented schedule 3 and has lessons from working with it. Although I am sure the Minister has seen that, I draw those lessons to her attention as a way that that can be made to work. I thank the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) for supporting the need to maintain SuDS, and for showing that this is not just a west country issue, but a national one.”

   House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

5. “Will the Leader of the House please allow Government time for a debate on the suitability of Palantir as such a critical aspect of our national infrastructure?”

   House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

6. “In yesterday’s debate about Lord Mandelson, we heard a lot about the despicable crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. We also heard about Mandelson’s lobbying through his Global Counsel organisation, through which he introduced the Prime Minister to the chair of the company Palantir. Yesterday the Cabinet Office denied me permission to even see the background papers on an hour-long meeting that took place between Palantir, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Dominic Cummings in 10 Downing Street. The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee is concerned about the use of Palantir in the NHS, where we have a £330 million contract with Palantir. We also have a £250 million defence contract with the company and a potential contract for the new national police service.”

   House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

7. “Vaping is a difficult issue, particularly when it comes to recycling. I understand that vape shops are expected to take them back, but local authorities have real problems with the disposal of used vape canister things—I do not know what they are called—with batteries in them. Will the Minister consider helping local authorities with vape recycling, and providing funds to give them more facilities and a way to dispose of them?”

   House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

8. “I am afraid that my training was as an engineer, rather than as a lawyer, so I apologise if I get points of standard law wrong. However, it is fascinating to read the Bill in such detail. In clause 126(3), it says, “It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they did not know” I am interested to hear how the Minister thinks that somebody might prove that they did not know something. It strikes me that it is something that a person cannot actually prove. Secondly, in relation to clause 128, when a premises has been banned for 12 months, is there anything that prevents someone opening up the next-door premises and continuing exactly as before?”

   House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

9. “I fully appreciate taking action against those who promote such schemes, but there is an inherent approach here that may be new. By prosecuting the person who promotes the scheme, are we turning those people who have taken advantage of the scheme into tax avoiders, or victims, or somewhere in between? Some of them may have been innocent recipients of the unlawful activity that we have identified.”

   House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

   Check this claim →

10. “I take the Minister’s point that HMRC is not a regulator that looks at the quality of tax advice; however, it has every other aspect of a regulator that one might find. I used to work for a regulator in telecoms, and some of the powers in these measures are exactly what we had in that regulator. It is a regulator; although it does not regulate the quality of the advice, it still penalises. However, it has none of the mitigation factors that come with a regulator—the ability to appeal and to ensure that decisions that are being made are reasonable.”

    House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

11. “From reading schedule 20, about the tribunal, it is unclear to me—it may be my ignorance, in which case I apologise—whether this is an existing tribunal or a new tribunal and whether it is an independent tribunal.”

    House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

12. “As a councillor, I have had many differences of opinion with officers. From their point of view, they have been right, but I know, from my point of view, that they have been absolutely wrong. There are different ways of looking at a case, so it needs to be an independent tribunal.”

    House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

13. “If the tax advisers are put out of business, firms will not be able to continue their work, because they will themselves be struggling with the however many millions of pages of tax law there are. Worse than that, if firms see this as an existential threat, we will get offshore lawyers coming in to do the tax adviser work. Will the Minister look again at the composition of the tribunal to ensure that it is not equivalent officers, but truly independent persons, preferably from outside HMRC, who are making decisions on that tribunal? They could look at the evidence fairly and assess it to determine whether the tax advisers have done the heinous things that they are accused of—and in which case deserve their suspension—whether they are in fact making honest mistakes, or whether there is a difference of opinion between them and the officers.”

    House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

14. “I am particularly concerned about the tribunal. I served for nigh-on 10 years on a tribunal for the Phone-paid Services Authority, which has now been absorbed as part of Ofcom. We were endorsing or not endorsing the decisions of the executive, which was charging phone services companies up to £250 million per breach of the code that they had signed up to. That tribunal was headed by a senior barrister, with two lay members who did not work for the executive and were fully independent. We considered all the breaches that people were making in terms of the code, in terms of proportionality and in terms of the evidence that was put in front of us by the executive. I do not see something similar in schedule 20, and this is a considerably more important piece of work.”

    House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

15. “I can’t give you the full information so that you can do a proper tax assessment, because anything I give you will be available to HMRC when it says, ‘Give us everything.’” That is truly draconian.”

    House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

16. “There is no provision for someone to appeal and say, “Why are you asking for all the data of all my clients?” No reason—HMRC just wants it. That does not comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. There is no legitimate interest there. There is no reason for holding that data. In fact, if HMRC is asking for all the data, it is actually going against GDPR. I do not fully understand how what the Minister has just said, which sounds eminently reasonable, relates to what is written in the schedule. Clarification would be much appreciated, because as it stands this is a real problem. I hope I have misread or misinterpreted it, because otherwise it really is not very good at all. This will cause people problems when interacting with their tax adviser. They will say, “I can only give you a minimum amount of information.”

    House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

17. “I am slightly perplexed, because what the Minister has just said does not relate in many ways at all to the words in my copy of the Bill. Maybe I have the wrong copy. It does not talk about IT systems, forms or any of those things. What it says, quite clearly, is: “The Treasury may by regulations make provision requiring a relevant data-holder to provide to HMRC on an ongoing basis any data specified for that type of relevant data-holder.” It does not say that it can do so because it suspects wrongdoing or to look at risk assessment. It simply says that HMRC can demand any data from any of its customers at any time, on an ongoing basis. Unless I have completely misunderstood, which I entirely accept may be the case, that is not only draconian and arbitrary, but disproportionate.”

    House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

18. “The Minister mentions that our suggestion would add complexity to the system, but the system, in and of itself, is becoming overly complex. It started very simply: “Here is a winter fuel allowance for a harsh winter.” Every winter is harsh. Would it not be much simpler and more efficient to wind this into the main pension in future years? Will the Government consider that?”

    House of Commons29 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

19. “I thank the hon. Gentleman for initiating this important debate and laying before us the scope and scale of the atrocities going on specifically in the occupied areas, as well as in the whole of Ukraine. We have to remember that when—on the blessed day—peace arrives, it will take some time before Ukraine becomes safe. Given the amount of unexploded ordnance, the number of atrocities and the recovery that is required, does he agree that we need to consider options and futures for those Ukrainians to whom we have given shelter in the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, to give them an option for when they return, rather than assuming that peace is the point at which they must return?”

    House of Commons29 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

20. “On reading the clause, I too was concerned about the costs for SEND. Devon, which is a very rural county, spends something like—from memory—£50 million a year on taxis to move children across the county who require special schools in different areas. A 20% tax on that would equate to £10 million. Will the Minister clarify whether taxis used for SEND transport by councils are included? If so, will the Minister please negotiate the extra money that will be required, so that we do not have our SEND budget in Devon cut by £10 million?”

    House of Commons29 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

21. “I endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. We have a number of quarries in Newton Abbot, and the same principles apply. I am, however, doubly pleased that the extensive increase was not included in the Budget. I was taken to a local factory in Newton Abbot that makes high-value, high-performance propellers that it exports all over the world. The factory was to be put out of business, because it pours the metal into moulds of sand, and the cost of disposal of that sand would have been more than it could have borne. That would have shut down a £20 million-a-year business. I am extremely grateful that the increase has not been implemented, but I draw the Minister’s attention to such side effects when considering future proposals.”

    House of Commons29 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

22. “I have been trying to get records from the Cabinet Office of a meeting held between Peter Thiel of Palantir, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings on 28 August 2019. I am getting conflicting data back. Is it in the public interest that the management of this information is being outsourced to Palantir?”

    House of Commons22 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

23. “We hear an awful lot from the Government about building sovereign digital capabilities in the UK, and this morning we heard about Britain becoming Britain’s biggest customer, yet Government procurement contracts continue to go to giant American providers—in the Ministry of Defence, in the NHS and even in the Cabinet Office. Will the Leader of the House make available Government time in the Chamber for us to debate the meaning of a sovereign AI capability? How might we change Government procurement to enable British firms to bid for these intensely important elements of Government mechanisms?”

    House of Commons22 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

24. “I welcome the White Paper and a more effective regulator, which is really good. However, I am concerned by the lack of urgency on clean water supply capacity. The report talks of a shortage of 5 billion litres a day by 2050. Meanwhile, we read warnings that seven English regions will be in serious water stress by 2030, and gov.uk and the NFU have warned of potential droughts this summer if not enough rain is captured over January, which has been dry until now. Will the Government accelerate plans for more clean water supply before the 2050 and 2055 dates?”

    House of Commons21 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

25. “For me, this is personal. It reminds me of what I saw when I was in Tehran nearly 50 years ago, at the beginning of the revolution. My father was appointed naval attaché to the British embassy in Tehran before and during that revolution, and we saw some awful things. What kept us going when the nights were cold, the power was off, the phones were cut, the guns were going off outside and people were demonstrating on rooftops nearby was the British World Service broadcasting; we could rely on that information. What extra support is the Minister giving the BBC to ensure that the World Service and BBC Persian are boosted in that area, so that we can get information through, and give people the lifeline that I had as I took the last flight out before Khomeini arrived back?”

    House of Commons19 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

26. “I agree with the Foreign Secretary that we should be working with our allies—I welcome that approach—but I fear that Donald Trump does not agree with her. What are the Government doing to harden our infrastructure? We are heavily dependent on several American IT systems, including Palantir, controlled by Peter Thiel, who is well inside the coterie of Donald Trump’s Administration. On sanctions, we have seen that they could switch off Microsoft’s provision of services to the International Criminal Court. Will the Government look into ensuring that Palantir is not a single point of failure in our critical systems—in the health service, defence, the Cabinet Office and now the police?”

    House of Commons19 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

27. “My hon. Friend raises very good points on this matter. There are two issues that I have always seen with the DBS check. First, like an MOT, it is only as good as the date when it is issued, and people do not have to subscribe to the update service. Does she agree that updates should be mandatory? Secondly, a DBS check cannot be passed from one organisation to another—people need a fresh one every time—which seems to be an unnecessary waste of time. Does my hon. Friend agree that her card idea would probably solve that?”

    House of Commons19 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

28. “I want to ensure that we look for settlement in the long term. Ukraine has recently changed its law to allow people to hold second passports, but the UK is not yet on the list of countries with that agreement. I urge the Government to look at that to ensure that we have a process towards long-term settlement in the UK, so that those industrious Ukrainians who have started businesses can thrive and develop and contribute not only to our economy, but to the rebuilding of Ukraine. We can do many things. I applaud the Government for all that they are doing, but we can do more. I ask that they please help the Ukrainians to help themselves and to help us. Slava Ukraini!”

    House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

29. “If Donald Trump is able to magic a ceasefire out of thin air, which I and probably this House feel is very unlikely, we will be in a position where we technically and potentially have peace in Ukraine—I dream of that day, but I do not expect it to be soon. However, if we have peace, we know that the Ukrainian visas will be ended. The visas will finish, and we will expect people to go back, but we all know that there is a difference between peace and safety. We know that Ukraine is covered in unexploded ordnance and landmines, which could take up to 40 years to clear. The land could gain peace, but it will not be safe. I have a lady in my constituency whose village is in the Russian-occupied zone; it has been demolished, and her house is rubble. She has lost her husband, brother and father, and she has nothing to go back to.”

    House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

30. “Their daughter had highly rated qualifications in maths and physics from a Ukrainian school that were not recognised by the school in the UK. It would be helpful if the Government could provide guidance to our schools on the extent to which they can recognise qualifications from Ukrainian schools. That was one of the family’s explicit asks. Let me add that we should look at what we can do in terms of dentistry. I have a Ukrainian dentist in my constituency who is going through an elongated process to try to requalify to practise dentistry in the UK. Goodness knows that we need all the dentists we can get, so let us help them and make it easier for them to settle here for longer. There is a problem with the Ukraine permission extension scheme.”

    House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

31. “She had been waiting for more than 28 days, and she was worried that she would not be able to stay without a visa. I ask the Government to look at enabling the renewal of those visas sooner than 28 days before they end. Last year, I was able to win an extra two years’ certain stay for Ukrainians on those visas. That was fantastic, and I thank the Government for doing that. However, we still do not know how that is going to work and whether we will still have the problem of the 28 days and people having to wait right up until the very end of their visas. None of the Ukrainians I know in the UK are sitting back and waiting for help; they have all gone out and got jobs. They are starting businesses, doing things and rebuilding lives here, and we need to look at how we can make that work. One of the issues for the family was qualifications.”

    House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

32. “Like many in this House, I stand with Ukraine and its defence of the frontline of Europe, and I am proud to do so. A couple of weeks ago, I was helping some of the local Ukrainians who are living in my constituency under the Homes for Ukraine scheme to move home. They were being visited by their father, who is a senior officer in the Ukrainian navy. He was very grateful for the fact that we are keeping his family safe, and he said how important it was to the Ukrainians that we were able to do so. However, there are still some things that we need to do to ensure that they safely remain here in the UK. One of the daughters had just applied for the extension to Homes for Ukraine—the Ukraine permission extension scheme—to which people can apply only 28 days before their visa runs out.”

    House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

33. “T6. In February’s Government consultation on local government reorganisation, will the Minister consult on all four—I think it is four—options put forward by Devon, and how will she weight the criteria, so that she can decide on a selected, amended or perhaps new proposal in June?”

    House of Commons12 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

34. “Does my hon. Friend agree that the relief scheme could be complemented by a pumpwatch scheme, whereby the petrol price comparison platform has rapid publication of all fuel costs for forecourt prices? That is approved by the Competition and Markets Authority and the RAC estimates it could take up to 3p off a litre, in addition to the specific rural relief scheme that he mentions.”

    House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

35. “What message does the Foreign Secretary think that this weekend’s outbreak of unilateral acts of violence, kidnap and taking assets outside of international law sent to Valdimir Putin, particularly with reference to Russia’s view of the need to seriously negotiate peace with Ukraine? Will the Foreign Secretary confer with her Ukrainian counterparts about giving our Ukrainian guests the option of a right to settle in the UK? Will the Minister meet me and Ukrainian guests to discuss options moving forward?”

    House of Commons5 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

36. “I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a sitting councillor in Teignbridge. Looking at the figures—which I have been desperately trying to do, although they are tiny—it looks to me like Teignbridge is getting a negative change in this year’s settlement of -0.07%, while Devon gets a small increase. I suspect that might not adequately make up for what Devon lost last year in the rural services grant. Does the Minister have any hope for our finding a way to solve the problem of delivering services in a rural area, even though we have areas of high deprivation? That is a common thing across the House, and it is clearly hitting everywhere.”

    House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

37. “The hon. Member’s situation sounds very familiar to me. In my constituency, in the middle of Kingsteignton, we have a large clay quarry called Zitherixon, whose operators are trying to extend their permission for mining, even though it has been established for some 300 years and planning permissions are somewhat ancient. Does the hon. Member agree that, however the mining is permitted, whether by appeal or by planning some time ago, those doing it must be held to the most modern and best possible environmental and residential standards for local people?”

    House of Commons16 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

38. “We must think about how we use it in processes and how we expect the output to be regular, because it will not be. We do not get the same answer twice—but that has been true of Google for a long time. If any hon. Member asked the same question as me on Google, they would get different answers.”

    House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

39. “They are trained: feed them 5,000 pictures of a cat and they can identify a picture of a cat. It is slightly more subtle and advanced now, because we have added good natural language processing and large language models— that big data. We are feeding them much more data so that they can recognise more things. There is huge value and opportunity in that, which we must be careful not to regulate into insignificance. I will say one other thing. There is a fundamental problem with AI: it is non-deterministic. Because it is recognising patterns, we cannot predict what it will do. Therefore, our current testing methodology of a known set of data, a known process and an expected set of outcomes cannot be relied on, because AI will give an answer that could be this, that or t’other.”

    House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

40. “Most of the harms that we have heard about in the debate are not new—they can already happen using other means—but AI makes them quicker, faster and easier to deliver, so what could have been done in PaintShop five years ago can now be done with AI in moments, and without the same levels of skill. There are not new harms; there are just new ways of using those tools. We need to look carefully at regulation and not focus too specifically on it as a technology, but think about the outcomes and how people are using. That is what needs to be regulated. AI is very good at pattern recognition. Essentially what we see today in ChatGPT and others is the same technology that I was taught at university many years ago; it is just that now we have the compute power to run those neural networks that can recognise patterns.”

    House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

41. “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. We have had some interesting contributions so far. I fully agree that we need to look at regulation, but I question whether we can regulate a technology. Today, every search we do is already powered by AI. To regulate a technology is a bit like trying to regulate a wheel rather than regulating the car. We need to look at how it is used and how it is then delivered. We have talked about many different types of AI, and we must be clear that today’s artificial intelligence with pretrained generative output is different from the potential future of general AI, which is something else again and a whole new question. Today’s technology takes a question and gives us an answer.”

    House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

42. “It is a similar story in rural Devon. In my constituency, schools in Broadhempston and Bishopsteignton are seeing falling roll numbers. Without the critical input of a core funding floor and help with transport, those schools may eventually close, which will kill those villages. We must not allow that to happen.”

    House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

43. “As was quoted in the ad break in the middle of “Coronation Street”, when people switched on their kettles and created a power surge, that system could switch on in 30 seconds and provide significant amounts of power into the grid. It was a very good solution, but it is last century’s solution. What we need is an information-based solution, an individually empowering solution, such as we are talking about here, with consumer flexibility coming first.”

    House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

44. “I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel)—we should have done this yesterday. The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago; the second best time is now. We are at the point of the second best time, but let us use this time and make sure that it happens. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate in pushing the Government to take action urgently. When preparing for this debate, I remembered a geography school trip I went on where we looked at last-century solutions for balancing the grid. We went to visit Dinorwig, which is a pumped storage system—or was; I am not sure it is still going—in the hills in Wales. During the night, it pumps the water from the lake at the bottom of the hill up into a corrie at the top—aptly, as it turns out.”

    House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

45. “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) has made the case extremely well. I think I have heard unanimous opinion around the Chamber that we should not only do this, but do it now with some urgency. Flexibility first is the way to go. I will go one level further than the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who called this a “win-win”: I would call this a win-win-win. We can shave £1.3 billion off infrastructure costs through actions like this, which will be reflected in every single person’s bill. That is a massive win. It is also a win for producers because it is easier to balance production and consumption, and it is a win for individual consumers who will reduce their individual prices. It is three wins in one. Why would we not want to do that?”

    House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

46. “The first pair of semi-detached houses that we built are well insulated, with solar panels on the roof and air source heat pumps. At the height of the gas price crisis, the power bill for that home was just £500. We can do that with modern insulation and modern efficiencies. Flexibility is one extra piece that we need to further reduce the cost. It is all part of a journey, and we are going in the right direction. I urge the Government to take faster action and to do everything they can to make it happen. As we have heard, industry is already looking for it. Let us make it happen.”

    House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

47. “That will need to be done as well, but all these things are largely contractual issues, not technical ones. We do not need to reinvent something humongously different; we simply need to get the contracts right and change the energy market. I say “simply”—I understand that these changes have their complexities, but they are achievable. We know what we need to do. The other massive energy issue is home insulation, which must not be forgotten. It is the single most important thing we need to do to reduce our fuel usage. The district council that I led demonstrated that very well—I draw hon. Members attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which notes that I am still a councillor on Teignbridge district council—when it started building council houses for the first time in 30 years.”

    House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

48. “That had not occurred to me, but it is an amazing idea; people taking their mobile power source with them—fantastic. That brings me on to other solutions that we should be looking at, particularly community energy generation, community networks and community power consortia, as well as business inclusion—businesses that can generate more electricity during the day than they are using. We should be encouraging those things to happen, moving away from the centralised model of the past and towards the distributed and inclusive model of the future. While flexibility is an excellent step, it will obviously not solve all the issues. We still need to fundamentally change energy generation contracts to de-link the cost of electricity from the price of gas.”

    House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

49. “May I draw to the hon. Member’s attention the analogy with off-peak train tickets? That is a similar way of using flexibility and offering consumers cheaper tickets when the trains are empty. He would have us believe that that is not a good thing, but it is exactly the same with offering flexibility in electricity consumption.”

    House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →

50. “Is the hon. Member proposing that the police should have the right to demand access to the digital ID to prove right to work on the spot? [ Interruption . ]”

    House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

    Check this claim →