Jon Pearce
MP for High Peak · Labour · United Kingdom
“I very much welcome the fact that this farming road map recognises the importance of upland farmers like mine in High Peak. Will the Secretary of State set out what support will be put in place to support my farmers, and will she meet me to discuss access to the SFI for those farming on common land?”
“This week in Parliament, I hosted Mummy’s Star, a charity that supports mums with cancer in and around pregnancy. The charity was set up by my constituent Pete Wallroth in honour of his wife, Mair, who tragically died just after their son was born.”
“The Minister’s statement will be hugely welcome in High Peak, where thousands of households are reliant on heating oil. Many have told me that the prices they are being charged have more than doubled. These households have been overlooked for too long.”
“T3. Towards the end of last year, I held my second High Peak careers, skills and jobs fair in Glossop. The event was a huge success. There was a real buzz around the opportunities on offer for local young people at companies like Street Crane in Chapel-en-le-Frith, Buxton Water, and Swizzels in New Mills, all offering high-quality apprent…”
“I am very grateful to the Minister for publishing this strategy. I recently met with the community in Tintwistle in my constituency, who are concerned about speeding and unsafe driving on the A628. I have also had similar conversations with communities in Peak Forest and in Padfield.”
“My constituents in Glossop and the surrounding areas are up in arms at the news that Reform-run Derbyshire county council is proposing to close their local tip.”
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“I very much welcome the Minister’s unequivocal commitment to a two-state solution. The Government are right to reject anything that risks undermining the ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages. However, no top-down political solution will be sustainable unless we build trust between Israeli and Palestinian communities and support the peacebuilders of the future. The Prime Minister has committed the UK to taking a lead on an international fund for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Will the Minister provide an update on the progress that has been made on that fund?”
“Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Sam Elliott, a 16-year-old from Buxton, in my High Peak constituency, who ran a marathon across the month of January to raise important money for Prostate Cancer UK? Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, so will the Leader of the House join me in encouraging all men to check their risk on the Prostate Cancer UK website? It takes 30 seconds, but it could save their lives. Will she support me in considering a debate on tackling that most important risk to men’s health?”
“As a result of the previous Government’s bad deal, companies in my constituency tell me about the impact that the barriers to trade with the EU are having on their businesses, hitting profits and affecting jobs. Does the Minister agree that it would be foolhardy for this Government not to tackle those barriers and back British businesses?”
“I thank the Minister for her statement and for the Foreign Office’s diplomatic efforts in securing the early release of Emily Damari, which we have all been hoping and praying for here in the House. Will the Minister assure the House that she will use those same diplomatic efforts to secure the early release of British-related hostages in phase 1 and to ensure that the next phase of the deal is agreed?”
“I thank the ministerial team for all their hard work in producing the Bill within six months of Labour’s election in July. Is there anything more emblematic of the decline and mismanagement presided over by the last Government than the state of our rivers and waters? It was fascinating to hear from the shadow Minister that the Opposition seem suddenly to have realised that this is a bigger problem than they ever thought it was when they were in government. As we have heard from Members on both sides of the House, waterways throughout the country have been choked with record levels of sewage. In 2003, 39 sites in my constituency were polluted by Severn Trent Water and United Utilities. Across those sites, there were 2,579 sewage dumps—and what was the punishment for the bosses of those companies? Did any of them face imprisonment?”
“I welcome that intervention from the shadow Secretary of State, but let me suggest that if the measures in this Bill had been implemented by her Government, we might have seen some of those enforcement actions.”
“The Bill will see that every outlet has independent monitoring. I am proud to support this major step forward in the Government’s wider reforms to fix the broken water system left behind by the Conservative party. This is a great first step, and a commission will look at the whole water industry, which will hopefully address some of the concerns raised by Members. Only by taking these actions with this ambitious plan, which the Government have done in their first six months in office, can we begin to turn the page on years of decline and attract much-needed investment into the sector, which will preserve the beauty of High Peak and the Peak district for the long term.”
“This Bill, coupled with the Government’s wider programme to safeguard the environment, will ensure that the beauty of the Peak district in my constituency, with our nature-rich rivers, is entrenched for generations to come. The Bill introduces tougher penalties, including imprisonment for water executives who fail to comply with or obstruct investigations. The Bill will ban bonuses for CEOs and senior leaders unless high standards are met on protecting the environment and their consumers. The Bill will also introduce severe and automatic fines for offences, closing the gap in the Environment Agency’s enforcement powers. Importantly, the water companies will have to start covering the costs of enforcement action. Unlike the previous Government, we will not let the water companies hide from their wrongdoing.”
“Perhaps that helps us to understand the enforcement issues we have been talking about. I also remember that just before the election, the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), in his previous role as Water Minister, told Environment Agency officials not to publish the headline figures of the total number and duration of spills. How typical of the Conservative party’s approach—rather than face issues head-on and tackle them, it chose to hide them and keep them in the shadows. That approach to government has left our water infrastructure crumbling. By failing to confront these issues, failing to invest in our broken infrastructure and letting consumer money be spent irresponsibly, the Conservative Government left my constituents in High Peak paying twice. These points underpin the importance of this legislation.”
“I welcome the hon. Member’s intervention. I simply say to him that his party was in power for 14 years and did nothing. To go back 30 years seems rather extraordinary. In 2002, the United Utilities chief executive received a bonus of nearly £1 million, and Severn Trent lifted its bonus to £3.36 million. That is millions of pounds that my constituents in High Peak have put in bosses’ back pockets to reward their failure. When I speak to residents on the doorstep in High Peak, they ask me, “How did they get away with it? How can they be allowed to do this?” They got away with it because Conservative Members let them. The previous Conservative Government cut the Environment Agency’s budget by half between 2010 and 2024, leaving the agency toothless to tackle the disgraceful behaviour of our water company bosses.”
“I wish to close with the words of Elie Wiesel on the perils of indifference and the dangers of passivity: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.””
“As the Prime Minister rightly said last week while visiting Auschwitz: ‘But where is “Never again”, when we see the poison of antisemitism rising around the world in the aftermath of 7 October?’ I am proud that our Prime Minister and this Government are committed to tackling that evil. I commend the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust, the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and all those others who work day in, day out to fight antisemitism and to teach our children and young people of the utter horrors that can be unleashed if it goes unchallenged. The battle against antisemitism and hatred must be fought on many fronts, and it is on all of us to join that fight. For a better future, we cannot be bystanders.”
“All the while, antisemites take to our streets chanting for Jihad, glorifying Hamas’s crimes, and comparing the state of Israel to those who sought to annihilate European Jewry less than a century ago. But Britain is not unique. In Amsterdam, Israeli football fans have been hunted, attacked and abused on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht. In Melbourne, a synagogue was set alight while worshippers were sat inside. And in the UAE, a young rabbi was kidnapped and murdered. Each one of these crimes reminds us that hatred against Jews and hatred against the world’s Jewish state cannot be separated. Anti-Zionist antisemitism is simply the latest iteration of history’s oldest hatred.”
“None of us knew that day that on 7 October 2023 the Jewish people would suffer the bloodiest day in their history since the terrible events of eight decades ago, which we mark today. That modern-day pogrom was committed by Hamas, an organisation that shares the same genocidal aspirations and sadistic fervour of those who perpetrated the Holocaust. And none of us knew that day that within hours of those terrorist attacks, Britain would see the first wave of antisemitic incidents, which last year reached their highest-ever recorded total. It is beyond shameful that, in 21st-century Britain, Jewish places of worship are defaced and graffitied, and require protection by security guards; that Jewish pupils are unable to wear their uniforms on the way to school; and that Jewish students are intimidated on our campuses.”
“I, too, had had a face marked by rage, by pity and joy, quite simply, a human face!” Two days after visiting Yad Vashem, I visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a quiet, unassuming kibbutz close to the border with Gaza, founded on socialist principles by Mizrahi refugees from Morocco and Egypt in 1951. None of us who visited that day knew that within weeks its peace and tranquillity would be shattered, the kibbutzniks would be raped and murdered, and hostages would be taken, including our own Emily Damari, whose release alongside the two other hostages at the weekend has provided a glimmer of light in the darkness. Now we must make sure that all the hostages come home to their families.”
“I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their contributions. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky) for the moving story about his family. Like many other Members who have spoken today, I too have visited Yad Vashem—in July 2023. Nothing quite prepares you to stand in the Hall of Names, surrounded by the images of those who perished in the Holocaust and the Pages of Testimony that detail their lives—lives so cruelly and brutally cut short by the greatest act of mass murder in human history. To describe them simply as victims robs them once again of their humanity, dignity and individuality. As Benjamin Fondane, the French-Romanian poet who was murdered at Auschwitz just three months before its liberation, wrote: “Remember only that I was innocent and, just like you, mortal on that day.”
“I am sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the incredible bravery of the hostage families. We are joined in the House by the families of Tal Shoham, Nimrod Cohen, Ohad Yahalomi, Omri Miran and Shay Levinson. I met with them this morning. Their suffering continues—the uncertainty, the sleepless nights—while they wait for a final deal and to know whether their loved ones will be coming home. What reassurances can the Foreign Secretary give to them and to the House that the UK will do everything in its power to make sure that their loved ones come home, that all UK-related hostages come home as a matter of priority and that all hostages come home as soon as possible, to end their suffering?”
“Small businesses and start-ups are vital to the local economy in my constituency and throughout the UK. Can the Secretary of State explain how his AI action plan will help those small businesses to seize the opportunities of AI, and deliver the growth that we desperately need across the country?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB. I am interested in the shadow Minister’s proposition, because the number of members of the Conservative party relative to other parties has been in the press over the last few weeks. Does the Conservative party do what he proposes and remind its members of the opportunity to leave on an annual basis, or do its members just do that of their own volition?”
“In recent weeks we have seen the distressing footage of Israeli hostage Liri Albag, who has been held captive by Hamas for over 14 months. The hostage families, including Mandy Damari, the mother of British national Emily Damari, are campaigning day and night for the ICRC and other humanitarian organisations to have access to the remaining hostages, but Hamas are refusing. Will the Minister condemn Hamas’s refusal to secure humanitarian access to the remaining hostages and set out what steps he is taking to return those hostages to their families?”
“Combined with the increased ability of the Environment Agency to bring forward criminal charges against lawbreaking water executives with tougher penalties, including up to two years’ imprisonment, and new powers for Ofwat to ban bonuses unless water bosses meet higher standards of protecting our precious environment, that should concentrate the minds of executives at Severn Trent and United Utilities. It was a Labour Government that created our national parks 75 years ago today, and it is a Labour Government that are taking the steps to protect the rivers that run through those parks for the next 75 years.”
“Severn Trent, which was fined £2 million for reckless pollution, still lifted its bonuses to £3.36 million. We must stop rewarding failure. At the general election, ending the pollution of High Peak’s rivers and waters was a top priority. It was raised in all six—yes, six—hustings I did, often more than once. In High Peak, the pumping of raw sewage into our precious rivers has become emblematic of the utter chaos and failure of the past 14 years, so I greatly welcome the measures in the Bill. The independent monitoring of all outlets will provide greater transparency for my constituents and will enable the regulators to hold United Utilities and Severn Trent to account.”
“Today, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the foundation of our national parks. The Peak District, where I live, the majority of which is in High Peak, is our original national park and still the best, but our beautiful nature-rich rivers that run through the Peak District and High Peak are being soiled by raw sewage. High Peak is one of the top 50 constituencies that have been worst affected by sewage being dumped into our rivers. In 2023, the River Derwent and the River Wye suffered thousands of sewage overflows, contributing to water pollution and ecological harm, yet the water company bosses responsible rewarded themselves with outrageous bonuses. In 2022, the United Utilities chief executive officer received £3.2 million of remuneration, including an annual bonus of nearly £1 million.”
“These measures are reasonable in and of themselves, so I put it to him that he is worrying about something that is covered by the test.”
“I refer the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB. The hon. Gentleman is making the point that it would be impossible for an employer to reasonably avoid something so extreme and out of the ordinary, but that would actually fall directly in the test, because the tribunal would look at whether it was reasonable for the employer to have put in arrangements, procedures or preparations to avoid a likely, foreseeable scenario. His concerns are completely misplaced, because no employer could reasonably avoid a situation that was impossible to avoid. To go back to the fundamentals, as the hon. Gentleman said, we and employers should be taking all appropriate and reasonable steps, because 40% of women in the workplace suffer sexual harassment.”
“I emphasise a point that the shadow Minister will find relevant: a 2023 Buckinghamshire healthcare NHS trust staff survey showed that there had been nearly 400 incidents of sexual harassment by third parties. Many of those incidents will have affected his constituents. It is vital that we make this legislation, because employee representatives at the trust have said that one thing that would help is a protection against third-party harassment. If we do not include this provision in the Bill, we will continue to leave his constituents exposed. I encourage the shadow Minister, who I genuinely believe cares about harassment, seriously to reconsider his opposition to the clause.”
“The employment tribunal and the employment appeal tribunal said that the employer knew what was likely to be in Bernard Manning’s act—we can all imagine what might be in Bernard Manning’s act—but did not take the necessary steps to protect the employee in the circumstances. These are exactly the scenarios that the shadow Minister raised, in which we would expect the employer to consider very carefully who was staffing the event, what policies should be in place and how any issues should be managed—including, for example, by warning Bernard Manning that he might not wish to make racist remarks to members of staff. When we talk about risk assessments, we must remember that the biggest risk is that third-party harassment will continue. That is the most fundamental issue.”
“They happen already as a result of the vicarious liability element of the Equality Act; the clause would just extend them to third parties. All third-party harassment cases and issues arise from a case called Burton v. De Vere Hotels, in which Bernard Manning made racist comments to a waitress at a De Vere hotel and the waitress brought a claim. Both the original employment tribunal and the employment appeal tribunal held that it was harassment, but it was overturned on appeal because the right did not extend to protection from third-party harassment. That was the start of the process of trying to protect employees in such circumstances.”
“In my experience as an employment lawyer, employment tribunals are very well-versed in it and have a huge amount of experience with it. It would be a matter of fact for them to determine. It is important to understand that it will be, and always has been, a proportionate test that looks at the size and resources of the employer and the context of the employment situation. There will inevitably be guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on how employers should take all reasonable steps and what those steps might be, but it will be fact-specific. It may well include steps to mitigate, such as some form of risk assessment, policies, training or means by which an employee who is at risk of or has suffered third-party harassment can report it and action can be taken. All those things are fairly standard.”
“I promise to keep my comments brief. Clause 15 will amend section 40A of the Equality Act 2010 to provide that an employer must take all reasonable steps to prevent the sexual harassment of employees in the course of their employment. The concept of “all reasonable steps” has been part of the Equality Act 2010 since its inception, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester referred to. Section 109 of the Act provides a defence for the employer in respect of the discriminatory acts of the employee. It is about vicarious liability: in effect, if the employer can show that it has taken all reasonable steps, it will not be liable for the acts of the employee. Exactly the same “all reasonable steps” test is being applied here.”
“Many of those impairments were protected under the Equality Act, and those employees had protections against discrimination on the basis of disability. They had a right to reasonable adjustments that the employer had not considered because it did not ask the question, and which had not been implemented. In those circumstances, the employer is exposed to uncapped discrimination claims, which are very serious and very difficult to respond to, because no process has been followed. It is really important that we seek to reassure small, medium and large employers that having a light-touch, clear structure will mean that no employer falls into that trap again, and that we will save a lot of employers unnecessary litigation.”
“More often than not, those employers were dismissing people for reasons of capability: the employee had not got up to the necessary standard, and there was an issue with their work. In those circumstances, the employer often did not have much of a structure or procedure in place, and would eventually get to the point at which it would, in effect, give up and decide that the employee was never going to get to the standard that it wanted within the probationary period. The employer would dismiss people without any process or meeting—even without speaking to the employee at all—and without taking any evidence. All too often in the cases that I dealt with, it would come to light that there was a reason for an employee’s lack of capability, which related to an impairment.”
“Friend’s argument in order to try to give employees reassurance, which I think will come with guidance and the statutory probation period. Certainty on this issue would help many employers. What I found in practice was that there would be a probation period in the contractual relationship, but smaller employers that I advised often did not have a policy; they just had a shortened notice period—often a month, rather than the three months after the probation period. There would be no structure in place. All too often, I found that many of those employers got themselves into difficulty because they believed that they did not have to follow any process whatsoever, due to the two-year qualifying period.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Protection from unfair dismissal is already a day one right in respect of certain carve-outs from the two-year qualifying period, including for dismissal relating to a protected disclosure—whistleblowing—refusal to allow somebody to undertake jury service, or refusal to allow somebody to take family leave. That protection, and the principle of unfair dismissal, is already in statute as a day one right. Let us look at other day one rights, which are worth exploring a bit further. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield said, employees have a whole raft of day one rights, including most of the discrimination acts under the Equality Act and protections for whistleblowing. I want to continue my hon.”
“As I say, there is nothing new in day one rights—protection from unfair dismissal is already, in certain circumstances, a day one right; Equality Act claims are a day one right; whistleblowing is a day one right—but the Bill will help employers not to fall foul of those day one rights that already exist and give a far clearer structure to the employment sphere. With those reassurances and with guidance, there is nothing for employers to fear from this legislation.”
“I absolutely agree. Often, in those circumstances, it is extremely distressing for the employee, who, had the reasonable adjustment been in place to assist them with disability or to enable them to get to the required standard, would still be employed. They have to face the extra hurdle of declaring their particular impairment to the world. Reputationally, these claims can often be hugely damaging for employers that had never intended to discriminate and would never have discriminated against an employee, but for the lack of process.”
“For example, an emergency for the employee might be childcare, the illness of a family member, or the death of a family member—actually that may not be relevant because that would be a different type of leave. In those emergency situations, there is a right to dependant leave, but that dependant leave is unpaid. Would the shadow Minister accept the principle in those circumstances that the employer should equally bear the cost and pay the employee?”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my membership of the GMB. I apologise to the shadow Minister for not taking his interventions yesterday. I did take two, if that assists. I wanted to build on the point that the shadow Minister was making. I actually agreed with some of the examples he gave, in that there are emergency situations where things do not work out for a business. I am interested in whether the shadow Minister would apply the same principle when the employee has an emergency, which builds on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby.”
“The principle is, though, that with dependant leave in those emergencies, whether that is childcare or anything else, there is no right to pay; that is the point I am trying to make. The shadow Minister is saying that if there is an emergency for the business they should bear no cost of it. If there is an emergency for the employee, that employee will, under the statutory provisions on dependant leave, bear the cost of it. In both scenarios, the shadow Minister appears to be asking the employee to bear the cost. Is that correct?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I refer Members to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and my membership of GMB. I will apologise now if I have an out-of-date amendment paper; the one that I have is dated Tuesday 3 December. Very early on in our discussions, we had the strange definition of a small or medium-sized businesses as one employing 500 people or more. I just want to check whether the proposed amendment is indeed accurate, because it refers to “the test of reasonableness in subsection (2)(b)(ii)”. I do not think that any such subsection exists—I think it should be (3)(b)(ii)—but I appreciate that that might be my misunderstanding.”
“The hon. Gentleman mentions 5% of agricultural businesses being at risk. Is it not true that under the last Government, between 2019 and 2024, there was an 8% reduction in agricultural businesses in his constituency of North Cotswolds, thanks to the policies of his party when they were in government?”
“To misquote Brian Clough, I would not say that my constituency is the most beautiful in the country, but it is certainly in the top one. We have generations of farmers to thank for that beauty—those who protected the land and nurtured nature long before the Peak District was designated Britain’s first national park. If I thought for one second that these changes to agricultural property relief threatened future generations of farmers in my constituency, I would not vote for them, but I do not.”
“The Opposition’s incompetence saw farmers miss out on £358 million that could have been in their back pockets when they desperately needed it, and then came Liz Truss. Her mini-Budget and all those unfunded tax cuts—a point that I will return to—crashed the economy, causing interest rates to rise and driving many farmers to the brink. Over 12,000 farmers and agricultural businesses were lost under the last Government, so we will not take any lectures from the Opposition about the farming industry.”
“No. The message from this Government is that we are committed to farming, and to making it profitable and sustainable. That has to be the message that we send out to those young farmers. There is no doubt that farmers in my constituency have been struggling terribly for the past 14 years, working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, for very little reward. The last Government promised them the earth, but left them in the sheep dip. After all the Brexit promises, what they got was the Leader of the Opposition selling them out in trade deals with New Zealand and Australia. Boris Johnson promised farmers that subsidies would stay at 100%, but then the Government phased out the basic farm payment.”
“I live in one of the rural villages and speak to the farmers in my villages all the time. The fact is that those farmers voted for me because they were so let down by the last Government.”
“I will not take any more interventions at the moment. Before the Budget, I sat down with farmers in my constituency. They wanted to talk about two things. First, they were concerned about the effect of the changes to APR on family farms.”
“No, I will not. Secondly, they were concerned about cuts to the farming budget. The Chancellor delivered £5 billion for the farming budget, the largest ever investment in sustainable food production and nature recovery, and she delivered in terms of protecting family farms in my constituency.”
“No, I will not give way at this stage. Let us be clear: only 4% of estates in this country pay inheritance tax. As we have repeatedly heard, these changes will mean that a couple will be able to leave £3 million-worth of estate to their children without paying a penny in inheritance tax. To put that in context, if a couple owned a £3 million mansion, they would be paying £940,000 in inheritance tax.”
“I will not give way at this stage. Those estates over the threshold will have a 50% reduction in the amount they pay. We have already heard that the seven-year rule will continue to apply, so farming families will be able to make plans for the future.”
“Sorry, I will not give way at this stage. This debate has, however, shone an important light on one issue, which I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for raising: the fact that our farmers are working day in, day out, for very little profit. The question is how we support them to be profitable again. Energy bills are one of the biggest costs farming businesses face. This Government will help bring down those costs through GB Energy and by introducing grid reform to allow farmers to plug renewables into the national grid. We must protect them from being undercut by foreign imports.”