Richard Tice
MP for Boston and Skegness · Reform UK · United Kingdom
“Congratulations to the Government on doing what I have been urging for seven years, which is to take this strategic national asset into public ownership. What is needed now is a comprehensive, bold vision for the blast furnaces. I am concerned about the talk about more electric arc furnaces.”
“The dictionary definition of gerrymandering is the manipulation of boundaries to suit a particular party, and decision after decision after decision in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and many, many more have, surprisingly, been the local Labour party’s proposal.”
“East Midlands Railway has cut replacement bus services on a stand-by basis when there is not sufficient railway capacity in peak season. I am concerned that that is because it is deliberately cutting any form of expenditure before going over to Great British Railways.”
“There is complete chaos at the National Energy System Operator. Whistleblowers are phoning politicians to express their concerns about blackouts. Independent investigators have had to be appointed, and NESO had to cut the interconnector for exports, without notice, in order to guarantee supplies.”
“While his own MPs may have sent him off without resorting to VAR, I have some good news for the Prime Minister: under his tenure, 76% of England football matches have been won, which is the greatest, most successful record of any Prime Minister in history.”
“Despite being a foot taller than her, I somehow always found myself looking up to her. When she phoned, I always stood up on my toes: incoming—beware! That was Ann. We will miss her dearly. Also, the Scottish whisky industry has lost a very discerning customer.”
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“She could have said that we should stop paying welfare to overseas nationals in order to protect British citizens. She failed to make those choices, and that is why we have had to increase taxes to the highest levels ever.”
“The Minister clearly does not know the facts of the Budget that he is presiding over. The numbers in the Blue Book show that borrowing will be £21 billion more than the OBR forecast back in March. Over the next four years, borrowing will increase by over £60 billion. To help the Minister: mathematically, that is up. All the data and the numbers are going in the wrong direction, but it did not need to be this way. The Government could have followed Reform’s fine recommendations. The Chancellor could have said to the Governor of the Bank of England, “Stop paying voluntary interest on the quantitative easing reserves.” She could have also said that we should stop quantitative tightening, which is why we have the highest QE programme in the western world. She could have said that we should reduce the foreign aid budget.”
“I have been very generous with my time, but many others wish to speak. It is time for change, because this Budget disincentives work and it disincentivises risk-taking, and some of the finest and brightest of our nation are seriously considering leaving the country. There is, however, some good news: this is the last Budget that this Chancellor has given. Why? Because she has proven herself to be a learner driver with her multiple car crashes. Based on the parliamentary Labour party’s antics, it is probably also the last Budget that the Prime Minister will preside over. The final good news is that after the next general election, Reform will redesign and re-engineer the economy to make work pay, to make risk-taking pay and to get our economy growing again.”
“For many people, it is complicated, but fundamentally, if the active fund managers overcharge and underperform, we should not be surprised if investors end up going elsewhere, and that might mean overseas. We need to change the way we look at things, deregulate sensibly and reduce unnecessary taxation in order to improve the quantity of pensions invested in UK-listed equities.”
“One of the reasons that the LGPS is underperforming is because too much of them are invested in unlisted funds, and now invested in what I would call quite woke funds, but that is a whole different issue. People cannot get out of those unlisted funds, which are at 20% to 40%, and those funds cannot be properly valued. The fees are much higher and they are not performing as well. Those are the key reasons why the performance is deteriorating. The 10, 20 and 30-year track records of the local government pension schemes are all at over 7% in the long term, but in the short term, they are rapidly deteriorating because of wrong investment decisions and overpaying fees, and because we have a market in the UK that is over-regulated and over-taxed. All of those things reduce the incentive to invest.”
“We are over-taxed, and we enjoy the longest tax code in the world. At 24,000 pages, it is four times the combined works of “Harry Potter” and nothing like as much fun. We need to look again at all those issues, and then we need to look at the performance of our pension funds. If we look at the performance of one of the biggest pension funds in the world, the local government pension schemes, which I have been very focused on, we will see that they are being overcharged substantially, by a factor of about five of what they should be paying, and they are underperforming. In the year to March ’25, the LGPS produced a great performance—not—of 3.3%, yet paid out over £2 billion in fees. Frankly, if the active funds cannot match the tracker, why not use a tracker? That is the challenge for the active industry.”
“We need to look again at the whole issue of regulation, and at the status of the FCA relative to the PRA and the Bank of England—that is working group No. 1. Working group No. 2 is on pensions and savings. We also need to consider big-picture issues: why, for example, are we giving tax relief on £300 billion of cash ISAs? How does that help the UK economy? Those are the big questions that we need to look at. The third working group is on small and medium-sized enterprise growth capital. The right hon. Member for Salisbury asked why it is that on second, third and fourth-phase rounds of fundraising, companies are going elsewhere in the world. The truth is that our markets have become too difficult for raising that additional capital. The fourth working group that I have set up—and it will report in six to nine months’ time—is on taxation.”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) on securing this debate. In reality, equity investment from pensions is deteriorating because UK equities are not performing relative to their global counterparts. One of the reasons for that is that we have become over-regulated and over-taxed. When the big bang was launched 40 years ago, the City of London became the most important financial centre in the whole world. In the last 10 years, that has changed. That is why, at Bloomberg a couple of weeks ago, I announced the creation of four key working groups to look at a complete reset—a sort of big bang 2.”
“Is the Minister aware that the quantity of listings on the London stock market has collapsed by about 80% in the last decade, and that the number of companies listed on AIM—the alternative investment market, which was the original growth market 40 years ago—has fallen to a 25-year low, so something fundamental is going wrong with our listed markets?”
“I urge the Prime Minister, among all the noise, to utilise that leverage, because that, I think, is one of the most powerful negotiating points that the west has against the vile dictator, Putin.”
“May I remind the House that last year I personally donated a five-figure sum, bought a pick-up truck, filled it with first aid supplies, drove it with friends and colleagues to Ukraine, and donated it to the brave soldiers of Ukraine. My support and Reform’s support for Ukraine has been rock-solid throughout, Prime Minister. It is important that this House is united, which it is. Last week, when the 28-point plan emerged, we rejected it immediately. Just yesterday, I was with a Ukrainian delegation, and we were talking specifically about the leverage that European nations have with regard to the frozen assets, the majority of which are here in Europe.”
“It is not a coincidence that, just a few weeks after the collapse of the China spy case, MI5 is issuing this major espionage alert. China smells weakness. With regard to the embassy, while the Minister says it is a decision for another Minister, the reality is that it is a strategically important decision by this Government on behalf of the British people. Does he understand that the British people will be shocked if planning consent is granted, and China will again smell weakness?”
“Another week, hundreds more jobs slaughtered on the altar of net stupid zero. It is leading to high energy costs, high policy costs and high taxes, and making this business—along with so many others—completely unviable. How many hundreds of thousands of other industrial workers are terrified that they are next? Can the Minister confirm to this House whether any discussions have been had with ExxonMobil, or whether any indications or concerns have raised by that company, about any other plants, businesses or refineries in the United Kingdom?”
“Given the chaos around the Budget, none of us would be at all surprised if the date itself changed. Nevertheless, is the Treasury aware how incompetent it looks in the eyes of the markets, which are utterly aghast, and in the eyes of businesses, which have stopped investing and stopped hiring?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. After I spoke in the British Steel debate when the House was recalled on a Saturday back in April, three newspapers from the Mirror Group published false, inaccurate and, frankly, libellous statements about me that weekend, which were retweeted by a number of Labour MPs. I am pleased to report that the Independent Press Standards Organisation, the press regulator, has found in my favour against the Mirror Group, forcing it to apologise and to permanently delete those articles and all the social media posts. I am most grateful to those Labour MPs who deleted their posts when they were so informed.”
“Does the Secretary of State not understand that, given the judge’s comments that the evidence fell well short of the standard required, veterans do consider that that was a vexatious prosecution? They do consider that the prosecution of Soldier B is a vexatious prosecution, and they do feel utterly betrayed by this Government’s repeal of the legacy Act.”
“Given the Government’s difficulties and delays in establishing a public inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, will the Leader of the House and the Government consider establishing a Joint Committee of both Houses to look into it, with parliamentary powers to summon people and papers, to arrive at answers and the truth faster and more effectively?”
“Yesterday it emerged that Hamas do know where the bodies of the remaining hostages are, as video evidence emerged of them playing games with one body, removing it from a building, burying it, then bringing along the International Red Cross and pretending that they had found it and dug it up. Do the Minister and the Government condemn that, and what more can they do with our international allies and the Gulf nations to put pressure and leverage on Hamas to return all the remaining bodies immediately?”
“T6. As we speak, the Chagossians are in the High Court to try to stop the terrible Chagos surrender deal. Given this Government’s passion for international human rights, and that we all agree how badly the Chagossians have been treated, will the Government finally agree to grant them a referendum on this dreadful deal?”
“Thousands more jobs are at risk, alongside the thousands of families and jobs at risk at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, all because of this Government’s policies on net stupid zero, yet the Minister talks warmly about the growth prospects for Petrofac. To grow, we need an industry; to have an industry, we need more oil and gas licences. Will the Minister change course and allow exploration and more licences to produce oil and gas in the North sea?”
“There is an enthusiastic pressure on the Minister and the Department to listen to these concerns and respond to them with constructive answers and keep everybody updated. As other hon. Members have said, the Minister should communicate that rapidly to industry participants. She needs to give the industry confidence that it is worth bothering to seek planning and start on site on important new housing projects here in the United Kingdom and help us all to create growth, wealth and more homes.”
“A competitive process or regulator could operate alongside the existing process, so that it does not act as too great a block. If it does, we will suffer the worst of all worlds, one in which those who most need new homes in our cities, particularly affordable homes, suffer the most. As a consequence of well-intentioned—but badly implemented and organised—caution and prevention, they will miss out. The numbers are as bad or worse than people fear, particularly in city centres. The issue also means that people are just not bothering to develop on brownfield sites—I have a number of them in my constituency—because the costs are too great, and because of the fear of the Building Safety Regulator and of ever-more regulation that may make the situation even worse.”
“When we have traditional building materials that have stood the test of time for hundreds of years, be it brick or concrete, we could apply common sense to say, “Well, if using those materials, there should be a fast fast-track process.” I question also whether the whole concept of gateway 1 is necessary at all. If a project gets to gateway 2, that covers gateway 1. A developer is not going to spend hundreds of thousands or several millions on a planning application and get on site if they know they are not going to pass gateway 2, so why bother with gateway 1 at all? Numerous other examples have been talked about. Although there have been changes, we need to monitor those changes very quickly. It may well be that what we need is either an outsourcing or—dare I mention the word—competition.”
“I have been listening to businesses from the property industry, which is my core industry—I started digging trenches in 1983, so I have been in the industry a long time. House builders and investors are now telling me that they are done. They are just not going to bother. We have heard experiences of people allocating a year from completion to occupation. Investors are saying, “We’re not going to bother. We’re going elsewhere.” We have to act faster on this. There are a couple of key things that we need to consider, including the application of a strange thing called common sense, which, too often among regulators, is sadly not very common.”
“I will do my very best, Sir Desmond, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Members for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) and for Northampton South (Mike Reader) on securing this important debate. The Building Safety Regulator has the potential to hinder dramatically the Government’s laudable regime of building more homes and more affordable homes. We all remember the horror of Grenfell, and having this entity is probably the right way forward, but there are certain key lessons that are rapidly being learned. Hon. Members have spoken about some of the specific details, but I fear that the consequences of this issue are even greater than we may imagine.”
“Does the hon. Lady accept that, in a democracy, it is important to be able to hold everybody to account, including judges? Does she accept that we need to be able to check that they are making good decisions on behalf of everybody?”
“The hon. Member speaks passionately about the great town of Hartlepool, which I know well. He made a key point: our nation has always been very compassionate towards genuine asylum seekers. Under the previous Labour Government, some 20 years ago, the average number of asylum seekers was in the order of 20,000 to 30,000 a year, and they came legally. That is the crux of it: they came under legal and safe routes, and the country could absorb them. The hon. Member made a point about fairness; the current system is unfair, and too many of those now coming illegally are actually economic migrants as opposed to genuine asylum seekers.”
“The hon. Member speaks passionately about all of us being keen to close down the hotels, including those in my constituency of Boston and Skegness. He talks about being for things, so is he for moving asylum seekers who are here illegally into houses in multiple occupation, or is he for moving them into processing centres in remote locations, as Reform suggests?”
“Last Thursday, the Minister at the Dispatch Box agreed with me that China is indeed a national security threat, and the Government have consistently said that they are “disappointed”. As the Minister knows, I like to be helpful and constructive at all times, so I asked a KC to advise as to whether a private criminal prosecution could be brought under the Official Secrets Act. The advice I have is that the answer is yes, as long as it has the consent of the Attorney General, and as long as the Government are helpful and constructive by providing evidence and witness statements. Will the Minister confirm whether the Attorney General will give such consent and provide appropriate evidence?”
“Among all the noise of this China spy scandal, my constituents in Boston and Skegness—and the whole British people—want some clarity from the Government. Do they view China as a national security threat—yes or no?”
“Three weeks ago today, I met the Governor of the Bank of England to discuss the important decisions around quantitative easing and quantitative tightening, and the Governor agreed with me that this is actually a fiscal matter. It is triggering losses of tens of billions of pounds for the taxpayer every year, and therefore the Governor would welcome more input from the Houses of Parliament on this important matter. I wrote to the Chancellor—copying in the Leader of the House—to request a debate before the Budget, because if this House had a debate and voted on a different decision to guide the Governor and the Monetary Policy Committee, it would actually help the Chancellor in her difficult decisions around the Budget.”
“Ultimately, with all the good measures that we hear about, which I just touched on and other Members know can work, when we educate people about the horrors of knife crime, there also has to be a sanction. There has to be a deterrent—that if someone does not listen to the wise words of mentors, fathers, teachers or youth clubs, there is a sanction. It seems to me that the data does not lie. There are short-term variances, but the medium and long-term data is crystal clear in England and Wales: in the past 12 years or so, stop and search has halved, while knife offences have doubled. We have to have automatic detention for carrying a knife and automatic longer sentences for using a knife. A zero tolerance policy is what our constituents want.”
“Earlier this year, I had a slightly strange experience while campaigning in the glorious town of Boston in Lincolnshire, in my constituency. Some of my team were driving down a neighbouring street where a gentleman was walking along carrying a machete. They took a photograph of the machete and called the police, who were fantastic and responded immediately: I was taken off the street and the police found the gentleman. They arrested him and he was charged for carrying a machete. He went to court, but he was found not guilty of carrying a knife that could be a lethal instrument. We have to ask, where is the consistent application of sensible laws to act as a genuine deterrent? That is the point.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey, as always. I congratulate my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), on securing this vital debate. Knife crime is the scourge of our society. Almost every day or every week, in the newspapers and in our constituencies, we hear horrific stories from people and we have our own experiences. Many good examples have been spoken of today, and there have been different suggestions of how to try to reduce it, whether that is through education in schools, amnesty bins, knife arches —we do not want them, but maybe they help—youth clubs and much more besides. We have to be prepared to try things to see what works, and different police forces will make different progress. Ultimately, however, there has to be a deterrent.”
“I welcome the Minister to his place. Talking about industry, the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire is in receivership and is currently being sold, but thousands and thousands of jobs are at risk and the workers there are desperately concerned that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the official receiver are not running a proper process, frustrating potential bidders for the whole site. Will the Minister, in his new job, commit to helping ensure that the whole site is sold to a successful bidder?”
“We all welcome the release of the hostages, the ceasefire and the beginning of the end of the suffering in Gaza. I know the joy that the hostage families I met a couple of weeks ago in Israel will be feeling; they will be ecstatic. As we hope that the divisions start to reduce in the middle east, we must also hope that we can reduce the heat and division of this debate here in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister has quite rightly referred to the rise of antisemitism. Does he join me in hoping that now is the time to bring to an end the protests we have seen on our streets, with antisemitic chants such as, “From the river to the sea,” as we try to unify, to bring people together and to move forwards?”
“The stench emanating from the collapse of this Chinese spy case makes a manure heap seem positively floral. The bottom line is that everyone is disappointed, everyone thinks there is enough evidence and everyone seems to agree that China is a security threat, yet the case has collapsed and China has been given, essentially, carte blanche to carry on spying in the United Kingdom. I have it on good authority that senior figures in Washington now fear that Five Eyes has become Six Eyes. The one thing that has changed since charges were made in April 2024 is the National Security Adviser. Will the Minister give a commitment that the National Security Adviser will appear, and answer questions in person, before any parliamentary Committee that wishes to have those questions answered?”
“The right hon. Lady is speaking powerfully. Does she think that if her Committee had been allowed to interview Lord Mandelson, it would have come up with a recommendation not to approve his appointment, and, in such a situation, does she think that her recommendation would have been listened to?”
“We now learn that that is not the case, because the due process was carried out after the decision by the Prime Minister to appoint Lord Mandelson and after it had been announced to the world at large. Those two things cannot be true. Either full due process was carried out before the decision to appoint, or it was carried out afterwards—it was not carried out “during”. For that reason, regrettably, I conclude personally that the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House of Commons and the British people. Therefore, the Prime Minister needs to come to the House and give absolute clarity on what he knew and when, why he made those decisions, and why he chose not to ask for detailed forensic investigations at the appropriate time.”
“The whole point of lawyers and barristers is that they do due diligence, but no—not our Prime Minister. That brings me to the critical issue of whether the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House. He said two things to the Leader of the Opposition. First, he said twice that he had “confidence in” Lord Mandelson, and yet he knew the day before about a cache of emails, which he did not want to know the detail of, on Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein. The day after, the Prime Minister fired Lord Mandelson. Is it credible to believe that one can have confidence in a man, given those two facts that came about within a 24-hour period? Secondly, even more significantly, the Prime Minister said that “full due process” had been “followed during this appointment”.”
“We know now that as he made the personal decision to appoint Lord Mandelson, he received a two-page document outlining some of his links to the paedophile, and yet he carried on with that decision to appoint him. He made the appointment in that knowledge. That is woefully incompetent judgment. Last week, in the knowledge that there was a cache of emails about Lord Mandelson’s links to this paedophile, the Prime Minister made the judgment—as a lawyer who supposedly is forensic—not to ask the questions about what was in the emails. That seems to me an absolute failure of judgment. He then made the judgment to come to this House and say he had confidence in the man about whom he knew there was a cache of emails that he thought it inappropriate to ask the detail of.”
“The reality is that the Prime Minister personally decided to appoint Lord Mandelson as the ambassador to the United States, and in so doing, he has humiliated and embarrassed this nation on the international stage, because Lord Mandelson is someone who described himself as the “best pal” of a paedophile and advised that paedophile to use his time in prison as “an opportunity”—truly shocking. There are two separate issues that require proper examination: first, the judgment of the Prime Minister, and secondly, whether he inadvertently misled the House last Wednesday in responding to the Leader of the Opposition. Let us look at the judgment of the Prime Minister.”
“Last week, the Prime Minister expressed confidence in Lord Mandelson. This week, does the Minister express his confidence in national security vetting?”
“There is a very nasty smell about the collapse of this Chinese spying affair case. Just over a year ago, the Crown Prosecution Service counter-terrorism unit said after complex investigations that these were very serious allegations and that charges were brought, but now we are supposed to believe that it cannot provide any evidence whatsoever. It feels to me as if one of two things has happened here: either the Crown Prosecution Service was wrong—potentially incompetent—or someone very high up in the Government has interfered with this situation. Which is it, Minister?”
“Does the Minister accept that we owned the freehold of the Chagos islands, and does he agree with me that in the mid-1960s we paid Mauritius £3 million in old money—some 80 million quid in today’s money—to cede all future claims over sovereignty?”
“I am most grateful to the shadow Foreign Secretary for giving way. The Minister described the deal as an investment. Does the right hon. Lady agree that it would be helpful to educate him that a freehold is an investment and a lease is a liability?”
“We have heard today that this deal—this supposed investment that is actually a liability—is essential to the defence of our realm. Yet the Defence Committee has not studied that investment or liability. I think the British people have a right to know why not.”
“May I thank and congratulate the police for arresting successfully so many hundreds of people who broke the law and shockingly supported a proscribed terror group? Does the Minister expect them to be charged and prosecuted to ensure we have a proper deterrent against supporting a proscribed terror group?”
“I congratulate the Minister and the Government on doing the right thing in supporting our steel industry. I have been expressing concern about Liberty Steel since 2021. This is a critical moment, and it will be interesting to see whether private sector investment can be attracted into electric arc furnaces, with electricity prices where they are. I think there is a better solution, which I have spoken about outside this House: merging Speciality Steel with British Steel to create a cohesive, excellent, strong champion of our steel industry that we all support into the future and invest in. That is the way to ensure economic growth in this country.”
“With the number of crossings up more than 40% this year alone, at some 30,000, clearly the Government’s policies are acting as a magnet, not a deterrent. When will the Home Secretary realise that the only effective deterrent is to detain and deport everyone who comes here illegally, and that to do that, we must leave the European convention on human rights?”