Charlie Dewhirst
MP for Bridlington and The Wolds · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite the recent successes of two new dental contracts in Bridlington and the decision to postpone the closure of the care unit at the hospital, I am sure the Leader of the House is aware of the challenges of optimising health services in coastal towns, particularly in Bridlington and Hornsea in my constituency.”
“Without wishing to disappoint colleagues who have excellent local agricultural shows, the Driffield show is the biggest and best one-day show in the country, and this month it will celebrate its 150th edition.”
“I am sure the Minister will join me in paying tribute to the team at the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Bridlington, who keep people safe all the way from Northumberland down to Suffolk across 250 miles of coastline 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
“Further to the excellent point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), the Minister will no doubt be aware that Bridlington is the lobster capital of Europe, and therefore any delays at Dover have a serious impact on our vital export market.”
“The Secretary of State seemed to ignore the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) about the use of land and increasing food production, so I will ask specifically again: how are our farmers expected to increase food production if we are taking 9% of agricultural land out of productive use…”
“May I echo the Secretary of State’s comments in relation to the sad passing of Sir Desmond Rea? In response to the Dillon judgment, a Northern Ireland spokesperson said on 7 May: “We welcome the clarity provided today by the Supreme Court, which has confirmed that the ICRIR is fully equipped to deliver human rights-compliant investigation…”
The complete record
Every one of 311 lines we hold for Charlie Dewhirst, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 7.
“The Secretary of State is well aware that the East Riding of Yorkshire receives the lowest level of funding for children with SEND, and I hope that the current review gives the Government an opportunity to rectify that. On a wider point, parents like me often look ahead to the school holidays with a sense of dread, because the provision for out-of-school activities for children with SEND is so limited and what is available is often expensive. As part of this review, will she look at what more can be done by local authorities to provide opportunities for young people with SEND outside term time?”
“The Minister mentioned her meeting with Laura Sugden, and I pay tribute to Laura for her campaigning on the issue. It is more than seven years since Anthony Lawrence brutally murdered Laura’s partner Shane Gilmer. Laura was attacked with a crossbow, and was pregnant at the time. I know that a response to the consultation is coming, but can the Minister give us more detail about the timetable for that response? What next steps will we likely see?”
“I am concerned that some of the people involved in local authority inquiries could be the very same individuals who have covered up these heinous crimes for years. Why is the Minister so unwilling to seek justice for the victims of these child rape gangs through a national statutory inquiry?”
“As a Leeds fan, I know a thing or two about bad ownership and financial mismanagement, and we have heard some good examples of that from Members representing Reading and Sheffield Wednesday. However, we should dispel the myth that every football club owner is some super-rich maniac trying to squander their fortune in order to destroy a local football club.”
“The league contributes over £8 billion to the UK economy, pays £4 billion in tax, and employs over 90,000 people. Its reach is truly unparalleled, as other hon. Members have referenced. I have seen kids wearing Chelsea shirts in rural Rwanda and met Man United fans in Pyongyang—in fact, it may surprise the House to know that the premier league is widely watched in North Korea, albeit through pirated broadcasts. However, I understand that Spurs do not regularly feature in the coverage, thanks to their captain Son Heung-min. I am sympathetic to fans up and down the country who fear that the owner of their football club is going to run it into the ground.”
“Having been elected more recently, I am somewhat less burdened by previous legislation, but let me be clear: having worked in sports administration for many years, I have serious misgivings about a Government regulator in football. I know that this legislation started out as a very well-meaning initiative, but I have concerns—they have already been raised by other hon. Members—about creeping scope and the potential impact of Government meddling in a great British success story. It is hard to argue that the premier league is not England’s finest export. It is the envy of global football, a competitive and unpredictable league that attracts the biggest names in the game to play in front of packed stadia, with hundreds of millions more watching around the world.”
“I disagree on the ideological level—on the ideological point about who should regulate football. I will come on to that in a second, but I do not believe it is the Government’s job. I believe that the football landscape already provides for regulation.”
“No, I will make some progress on this point, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind. As a former employee of a football club, Hull City, and as someone who has worked for a national governing body of a sport at the Rugby Football Union, and for a national elite sport funding body at UK Sport, I have some experience of this issue. Each of those bodies—the EFL, the EPL and the FA—has a role in regulation.”
“Those of us who support a club that was previously owned by Ken Bates and Massimo Cellino have had our fair share of rough ownership over the years. Coming back to the wider landscape and who should regulate, above the Football Association, EFL and EPL we have UEFA and FIFA as international bodies representing the global game, and they each have a regulatory function. I believe that instead of the Government creating yet another quango, headed up by a Labour party crony, they should be working with the Premier League, EFL and FA to resolve current concerns such as financial sustainability and fit and proper ownership. That would be a far more satisfactory outcome for the clubs and ensure that sport and politics are kept at arm’s length.”
“The devil will surely make work for idle hands. My fear is that the football regulator will not behave as a guardian of the sport but will instead look to involve itself more and more in day-to-day club operations. We have come a long way since the dark days of the 1980s—an era that reached its nadir just under 40 years ago with the Heysel disaster, which saw English clubs banned from European competition for five years. It was a period when the best English players sought to ply their trade in Serie A, La Liga and Ligue 1. English football is now the envy of the world. I am sure our competitors in Spain, Italy and Germany are watching and would be delighted if we were to regulate ourselves into a less competitive place. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“It would be another two-tier system created by this Labour Government. The idea that the championship is a poor relation is also false. Every championship club receives £7.8 million from the Premier League, which is between 20% and 40% of their typical annual revenue. The EFL has recently signed a domestic broadcast deal worth more than £900 million, increasing its own revenues by 50%, and the championship is already the sixth-richest league in Europe. Finally, I want to address the issue of the medium to long-term future of the regulator. This legislation has morphed from creating an independent regulator with a narrow scope to creating a Government regulator headed up by a Labour party donor, with sprawling powers. Once the regulator has dealt with the most pressing issues, who knows how it might justify its existence in future.”
“I also worry that the Bill is playing to a certain viewpoint among EFL clubs that money from the bottom half of the premier league should be redistributed en masse to the championship. Those clubs argue that that would give the promoted clubs—one of which I am a fan of—a better chance of success. I fear that could have serious unintended consequences. It could create a small group of entrenched successful clubs at the top of the premier league and ultimately damage competition, as the top clubs accumulate more and more wealth, to the detriment of clubs lower down. It would effectively end any chance of a club such as Leicester winning the title, or teams such as Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford and Nottingham Forest cementing themselves in the league and challenging for Europe.”
“The hon. Member raises a very good point. FIFA’s recent history is not a proud one, but we do not have time to go into that. There is an important point about the way in which UEFA and FIFA operate within the landscape. There is a danger that measures including parachute payments, which affect competition tools and structures, being in the scope of the Bill places the Government on a collision course with those international federations. That has already been discussed. Ultimately, the fact we are here discussing this Bill today is a sad indictment of the relationship between the existing stakeholders. However, it is not beyond the wit of Government to find solutions that do not involve a new regulator. [ Interruption. ] Well, I am not burdened by previous legislation.”
“Further to the last question, there is rightly concern that Russia continues to bypass sanctions through its shadow fleet. What measures are the Government taking alongside our allies to prevent that?”
“Does the hon. Member agree that the new hospital programme is just one part of the jigsaw and that facilities such as Bridlington district hospital and Alfred Bean hospital in Driffield in my constituency are much under-utilised resources? We should be making the most of every NHS facility by bringing community services back into those places.”
“The language used by the Government when discussing this issue has been, on occasion, particularly disappointing, and needs to be clearer when separating the issues of freehold and leasehold. My constituents are not leaseholders in this instance, and it would reassure them if the Minister would outline how the Government intend to address this specific area. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise these concerns on behalf of my constituents. It is not a local problem; it is a national issue that needs swift and decisive action from this Government.”
“Further to what the Minister has set out in the House in recent months, I urge him to adopt the Competition and Markets Authority’s 2024 recommendations as a matter of urgency to ensure common adoptable standards, and to mandate the adoption of public amenities on new housing estates. However, we must not leave existing homeowners in limbo. Residents such as my constituents at Wolds View and Mortimer Park deserve equal protection. I would appreciate the Minister clarifying in his closing remarks what specific protections will be extended to the 200,000 homeowners currently affected. Let us be clear: they are freehold residents who own their own homes.”
“Another affected development, the Mortimer Park estate, which is also in Driffield and was developed by Barratt Homes, consists of 165 properties, with another 120 being built. Those are just two local examples I am aware of, but there are others in my constituency in Market Weighton, Hornsea and Bridlington. To echo the stories we have heard in this debate, many residents feel that they were not told adequately at the time of purchase about what was to come in terms of estate management. Many feel they face the double whammy of estate management costs and their council tax payments.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I commend the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing and leading this important debate. Many Members are aware of the efforts to change the law and raise the profile of the fleecehold campaign by the Home Owners Rights Network. HORNET has revealed that 960 sites across the UK are affected by this practice, with a staggering 213,000 homeowners affected. I want to touch on the fantastic local work being done in my constituency of Bridlington and The Wolds. I pay particular tribute to the great work being carried out by the Wolds View action group, which is based on the Bellway estate in Driffield in my constituency, led by Dr Jenny Shaw and the residents of the Wolds View estate.”
“Last but not least, I thank those farmers who engaged. They are very busy, and they have had an awful lot on their plate in the past few years, but a lot of them gave up a lot of time to look closely at the regulations to ensure that they are as good as they can be. Although some will say that the regulations are not perfect and that there is more work to do—particularly to ensure that the new Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator is effective and works alongside the Groceries Code Adjudicator to stamp out unfair practice throughout the supply chain—I think that they are a huge step forward and I am delighted to support them.”
“I will keep my remarks brief, but it would be remiss of me not to say something, having spent about two years working on the issue in my previous role at the National Pig Association, before being elected to this House. I first pay tribute to the two previous farming Ministers, Victoria Prentis and Sir Mark Spencer, for getting the process underway, and I thank the current Minister for his support, both in Opposition and now in Government. I am delighted to be here as we reach the conclusion of what has been a lengthy process. I also pay tribute to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials who have worked on the process from the start. Their engagement with the sector has been fantastic. I know that all the farmers involved felt engaged throughout the formulation of the draft regulations.”
“I have twice invited Ministers to visit Bridlington district hospital with me to see its much-underutilised potential. In the light of the ongoing challenges faced by coastal and rural health services and the newly announced changes to integrated care boards, may I hope that it will be third time lucky, and extend that invitation once again?”
“8. What estimate she has made with Cabinet colleagues of the number of farms affected by changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief in Wales.”
“Farmers across the UK have already been rocked by the changes to APR and BPR, and yesterday we had shock news that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will take no new sustainable farming incentive applications in England. What reassurances can the Minister give farmers in Wales that the sustainable farming scheme will be delivered in full and on time on 1 January next year?”
“The Minister’s statement says, “This decision is about investing in long-term stability.” First, we had the body blow of the family farm tax, the reduction in BPS and the pulling of capital grants, and now we have the cancellation of SFI. How is any farming business expected to invest in the long term?”
“It moved the trade union movement into the 21st century and ensures that hard-working people are not disrupted by little-supported strike action.”
“Unions should not and do not run businesses, but they are an important part of our industrial relations landscape. There can be little doubt that this is, unfortunately, a Bill drafted by the few to the detriment of the many, and the numerous provisions that will largely abolish the Trade Union Act 2016 threaten to drag the country back to the dark days of the 1970s. The very enjoyable speech that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) perhaps illustrates that return to the 1970s. I am pleased to see a number of his friends from the rebellious left on the Government Benches, and I look forward to hearing their comments in due course. The Trade Union Act 2016 was brought in by the last Conservative Government to reflect the modern British economy and workplace.”
“I wish to develop some of the detailed and eloquent arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), and to speak in particular about the amendments relating to part 4 of the Bill and the trade union movement. Before he leaves, let me thank the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) for his very measured comments. I enjoyed his referral back to the industrial relations of the 1950s, although I should point out that we have moved on a little since then; I will say more about that shortly. I also thought that he simplified the Opposition’s position. We are not here to bash the unions. We support a progressive, modern trade union movement in which the balance is struck correctly between employer and employees.”
“We have moved away from being a society and an economy of heavy industry and large manufacturing, and of towns that may have been built on one or two industries, or one or two factories, where everybody in that area was largely employed, either directly or indirectly, in those places. That was where the trade union movement was required, where it was strong and where it was needed. The modern workplace is very different. We are now largely a services-based economy, and the relationship between employer and employee is much more modern and much more flexible. We have heard about the need for the traditional trade union movement, and about a return to secondary action, flying pickets and so forth. Clearly, there is no place at all for that in the UK now.”
“I think the best solution would be proper privatisation of our railways, including nationalised services like Northern, which is constantly on strike. I would use Hull Trains, which serves a lot of constituents in my area and is very rarely, if at all, on strike, as an example of an excellent, private open-access firm. Rail franchises that have been nationalised have a far greater problem with strike action than those that have not. I wish to go back briefly to the ’70s—the height of the trade union movement. The number of trade union members peaked in 1979, at around 14 million. Since then, the number has declined considerably to around 6 million, the majority of whom are in the public sector. It is often for good reason that people in the public sector are members of a union, but it means that the landscape has changed.”
“I do not want to speak on behalf of the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery), but he made his views very clear. I am sure that we will hear more in that tone as we go through the afternoon. It is really important that the Bill does not take us back to a place where growth is stifled. The Government talk about the importance of growth but, taken together, this Bill and the Budget will cause us a very severe problem, because there is very little point in having extra trade union representation if unemployment is going through the roof. Those who are unemployed will not be represented. My big fear is that, overall, this Bill is an act of economic sabotage. It protects the dinosaurs from extinction, it damages the UK economy and it ensures only that trade union donations continue to flow into the Labour party.”
“I thank the Minister for his statement today and echo his comments about the missing sailor. I also add my thanks to all those who have been involved in the rescue operation, particularly those at the RNLI station in Bridlington. My constituents are rightly concerned about the potential environmental and ecological impact, not least because we have the biggest bird colony in mainland Britain, Bempton and Flamborough in Bridlington have the largest shellfish landing port in the UK, and we have around 5 million visitors to the area every year, enjoying the beaches from Bridlington down to Hornsea. Has the Minister yet had any assessment of the direction of any potential pollution and the role that currents and wind direction will play in where that pollution might eventually end up?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that although this does create the right to consult, it is not particularly clear what type of consultation will take place, what opportunities financial institutions will have to make representations, and whether such representations will carry any weight; so it leaves the Minister in a considerably powerful position, going forward?”
“The highest pub in the Yorkshire wolds, the Wolds Inn at Huggate, is a great success story—Mr Speaker, I would be delighted to buy you a pint there the next time you find yourself on the right side of the Pennines—but, like many pubs in my constituency, it faces a crippling rise in non-domestic rates at a time when margins are very tight. Local pubs are not just businesses but much-loved community assets, so will the Minister reverse this tax grab and start supporting the great British local?”
“In my constituency of Bridlington and The Wolds, rural parishes face huge financial pressures to maintain their historic church buildings. Their costs often run into tens of thousands, yet they receive no funding from the Church of England or the Government. The Church of England’s buildings comprise more than 50% of the country’s listed buildings, but all the money needed to maintain them has to be raised locally. This maintenance will soon be beyond the ability of our local churches in rural areas, so will the hon. Lady make representations to the Church of England to ensure that there is more financial support for local churches so that we save this wonderful part of our heritage?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the impacts of the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief are already being felt by businesses across the country? Farmers are simply having to shelve investment for fear of a huge inheritance tax bill. That is affecting the wider rural economy, because no new machinery is coming and no new buildings are being built. It means fewer tax receipts for the Treasury, fewer jobs and a poorer United Kingdom.”
“It would therefore be very helpful to see that detail in order for Parliament to be confident about the content of that code of practice and how these powers will actually be used.”
“Q The Information Commissioner has indicated that some of the areas of previous concern on the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill have been answered. Do you not share that position, and do you continue to have concerns in that area? Ellen Lefley: We continue to have concerns, acknowledging that there are two key oversight mechanisms in the Bill that were not in the previous one: this independent reviewer role and the code of practice. It would be far easier for Justice, but more importantly for Parliament, to be assured of the proportionality of any human rights infringement if that code of practice were before us. Paragraph 79 of the human rights memorandum to the Bill notes that the code of practice will significantly impact whether the EVN measures are proportionate and prevent arbitrary interference with people’s privacy.”
“I actually think that the number of fraud staff in the Department is slightly concerning not because of a lack but because the number of people suggests the scale of the problem. Because of the spiralling nature of fraud, we have had no option but to significantly scale up the number of people working on both prevention and detection of it. I hope that by embracing new technology, and through data sharing and other mechanisms, we can gradually reduce that number over time. It is a damning indictment of the state that we are in with fraud and error that we have that number of people. To answer the question, I am assured and we have secured funding for the people that we need.”
“Q A number of times you mentioned the importance of human engagement throughout the investigative process. Are you convinced that this programme will be sufficiently resourced? The previous Government, for the DWP angle, said that they needed an extra 1,400 counter-fraud officers and 2,000 additional officers to look at universal credit. Are you confident that you will be able to deliver these investigations in a timely fashion and achieve the savings that you want? Andrew Western: That is an important question, on which I have sought to reassure myself. We have already been through a spending review process in which we secured additional funding for further targeted case review officers and officers in the fraud space.”
“T4. Open access operators such as Hull Trains offer excellent, cheap, unsubsidised inter-city services to locations across the north, so why are Ministers trying to block their expansion and stifle growth?”
“However, I fear that those in the Treasury have become like modern-day flat earthers—holding their position in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, whether from agricultural organisations, tax experts, supermarkets or MPs from across the political divide questioning the impact of this tax. We know that the modelling does not take into account the full impact of business property relief. It largely focuses on agricultural property relief claims, but many people, including tenants, family businesses and farming businesses, will only use a BPR claim and not an APR claim. That is why we need to look at this policy again in its entirety. I ask the Minister once again—dare I say beg him—to please pause this process. Let us get round the table with farming organisations and representatives, and find a better way forwards.”
“The reason there are again hundreds of tractors and thousands of people outside on Whitehall is that people feel their voices are not being heard. That is why we are in here and they are out there: because nobody has listened to them up to this point. I want to go back to a point well made by the NFU president in front of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in December. He said that the Government should set the sector the exam question and say what they are trying to achieve here. Then the sector can work with Government to reach that agreed point: either to prevent land banking by very wealthy individuals or to raise revenue to support rural public services. Whichever it is, let us get round the table and find a solution that works for all.”
“I thank the petitioner and the hundreds of people in my constituency who signed the petition. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) eloquently put it, it is encouraging to see many more MPs present on the Government Benches. I mean that genuinely; previous debates have been a little sparsely attended on those Benches, so I hope this is a sign that things are slowly turning and that there may be change to come. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) said that we should not be treating this issue as a political football. That message did not quite reach the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), but I agree that, although it has become a political football, the problem is that the people outside right now feel that they have not been listened to by this Government.”
“It is one of the most popular annual sporting events, and over the weekend millions of people across the UK were watching at home, in the pub and at rugby clubs. It celebrates old rivalries between the home nations and inspires so many children to get involved in the game. It also fills a void in the sporting calendar during the cold and wet weekends in February and March, when not many other major events—or, indeed, anything else—are taking place.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of free-to-view access for the Six Nations Rugby Championship in 2026 and beyond. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I am pleased to have secured this timely debate on the future of the Six Nations and its broadcast in the UK, as the championship’s current deal with the BBC and ITV comes to an end after this tournament. For the record, I am a former employee of the Rugby Football Union, but I have not been an employee there since 2017. I am delighted to be joined today by colleagues from across the four home nations, but I assure hon. Members that I will not mention the results of the England or Wales games at the weekend—there is no need to dwell on those. First, I will address the importance of the Six Nations to rugby union and the nation.”
“Would you believe, Ms Jardine, that I am just about old enough to remember the great Scottish grand slam-winning side of 1990? Who can forget what Gavin Henson did to us English in 2005? On the flipside, I was lucky enough to be at the Millennium stadium in 2017 when Elliot Daly scored that last-minute winner to break Welsh hearts. The tournament has made names such as Hastings, O’Driscoll, Warburton and Itoje household names. My fear is that any move away from free-to-air television could see audiences plummet and risk us missing out on the next generation of rugby players and fans.”
“I absolutely agree; the hon. Member makes a good point. I will come on in some detail to the importance of the tournament’s accessibility and how it inspires the next generation of fans and players. I also note that the match at the weekend was really excellent for at least 40 minutes, but we will leave it there. The tournament has a rich history. It was first played in 1883, as the Home Nations championship, among the four home nations of the United Kingdom. In 1910, the tournament became the Five Nations championship in 1910, with the addition of France. In 2000, it was expanded to become the Six Nations, when Italy was invited to join. Over the years, the Five and then the Six Nations has provided many iconic moments.”
“It is worth recalling that the last comprehensive free-to-air broadcast deal for test cricket was for the 2005 Ashes series—arguably the greatest of all time—but I question whether that rollercoaster summer of cricket would have grabbed the nation’s attention in the same way had it not been accessible to all. Since then, cricketing authorities have been battling for the survival of the test format; this is 20 years after it went behind a paywall. They have had to invent what I will call a new gimmick format for free-to-air television in an attempt to win over the next generation of fans. Thankfully, today’s is not a debate about the pros and cons of the Hundred, so I will return to the matters in hand.”
“I absolutely agree. The women’s rugby game has been a huge success story over the last decade, and the free-to-air coverage that we have of the women’s Six Nations has been a key part of that. I pay tribute to all the clubs up and down the country that have done such a huge amount of work to get more girls and women into the game and to play it. To go back to what I was saying about free-to-air access across the board, all current matches are shown on the BBC and ITV. That ensures that the sport has a vital window to the wider population; that is key to keeping it in the national spotlight.”