Helena Dollimore
MP for Hastings and Rye · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Our roads in Hastings, Rye and the surrounding villages are riddled with potholes, and it is one of the biggest issues we face. One of the most frustrating things is that on the rare occasion that a pothole gets filled, all the other potholes around it are left untouched.”
“Reorganisation makes sense. The situation that we have now, with services split across a borough or district council and a county council, causes many issues. If a drain is blocked by leaves that are on top of the drain, it is one council; if the leaves are below the drain, it is another.”
“Of vital importance to our maritime sector is our coastguard and our volunteer coastguard officers. I know that the MCA’s planned changes to the operating model have been causing serious concern in coastal communities such as mine in Hastings, Rye and the villages.”
“I join Members across the House in giving my deepest condolences to the friends and family of Ann Widdecombe. I never had the privilege of meeting her, but I certainly remember growing up and seeing her on the TV and thinking what an outspoken, strong woman she was and how she would not take no for an answer. I pay tribute to her.”
“The former Member for Surrey Heath mentioned in a podcast fairly recently that the man who killed Sir David Amess had visited his home, using details that he had identified from the media. That is how serious this issue is. I know that the Speaker’s Conference has looked at this issue.”
“I, too, refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in respect of the GMB, and also declare that I am a supporter of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. I thank the right hon.”
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Every one of 221 lines we hold for Helena Dollimore, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 5.
“Constituents driving to Hastings down St Helen’s Park Road are confronted by the sight of a dilapidated London double-decker bus that has been left by the side of the road for years because local councils have refused to do anything about it. Some residents of St Helen’s Road are forced to live opposite that monstrosity. Will the Leader of the House join me in calling on Hastings borough council and East Sussex county council to knock heads together, grasp the nettle and get that bus moved?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) on securing this debate on the important topic of the affordability of housing in our rural communities. I represent a seaside community; around 30% of my constituency is coastal villages, where we acutely feel the pressures of the rural housing crisis. As other Members have spoken about, our community has seen the rise of Airbnbs and second homes, putting on real pressure and pushing up rental prices and house prices in our community. We have not seen enough affordable homes built in our communities. The situation now facing our villages and rural areas is that many young people find that they cannot afford to live in the villages they grew up in and are forced to move away from family.”
“Members, it is a very small area; I would be delighted to welcome the Minister there—anywhere can deliver affordable social housing, whether rural or urban. That is what we need to build on. As we move forward with the vital mission of building 1.5 million homes under this Labour Government, we must ensure that our rural communities see the benefit and that developers cannot wriggle out of their commitments to deliver affordable housing.”
“We see developers using loopholes around viability to wriggle out of their responsibility to deliver affordable housing, and too often councillors feel that their hands are tied by the current legislation. I urge the Government, as part of the reforms to the planning system, to ensure we stop developers getting away with wriggling out of their responsibility to deliver affordable homes. It is also clear that, with the right focus and the right local leadership, we can get this right. I draw attention to a brilliant local community-led housing scheme in Icklesham, a small village in my constituency just outside Hastings. The village came together to form the Icklesham Parish Community Land Trust and built 15 housing units for local people, all for social rent. If a village the size of Icklesham can do it—let me tell hon.”
“That is a pressure that many of our rural communities face. There is definitely a contribution that holiday lets can make to the local tourism economy, but many of us agree that we need to get the right balance between supporting tourism and providing homes for local families. It is so often the case that many local people in the rural areas of my constituency cannot afford to rent or buy in the areas they grew up in and are forced to move further away. We also see that, when developments do happen in those villages, too often new-build developments are given the green light with zero affordable homes on those sites. Just last year, in Peasmarsh in my constituency, 41 homes were given the green light on a greenfield site, with zero affordable homes.”
“At a time when local news organisations are closing or being cut back, we in my constituency of Hastings, Rye and the villages are very lucky to have two fantastic independent news organisations, Rye News and the Hastings Independent Press, both of which are celebrating their 10th anniversary. They are volunteer-led, and those volunteers do a huge job, updating the community on what is going on and holding people such as myself to account. Will the Leader of the House join me in wishing them a happy 10th birthday and thanking them for all their hard work?”
“The petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urge the Government to review current laws and guidance followed by scaffolding businesses and ensure that scaffolding personnel must, by law, be a member of a governing body who are responsible for controlling how scaffolding businesses are run including safety standards, strengthening skills training and to improve the level of scaffolding competence. And the petitioners remain, etc. ] [P003044]”
“Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of Maria Georgina Dennis, Declares that the petitioner’s 11-year old son was tragically killed in December 2022, when an unsecured scaffold board came loose from the back of a flatbed van and travelled through the windscreen of the petitioner’s vehicle; notes that the Health and Safety Executive wrote in her report that the securing of the load was “grossly inadequate” and “the insecure loading caused an immediate and likely risk of ‘harm’”; and further notes that the defendant protested in court that he had not been trained properly.”
“The petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urge the Government to review the current laws and guidance in this area, including safety standards, skills training and awareness of the risks. This petition has been signed by about 2,000 people.”
“I am presenting this petition on behalf of my constituent Maria Dennis, who tragically lost her 11-year-old son, Harry Dennis, two years ago in a tragic accident when an unsecured scaffolding board from a flatbed truck went through the windscreen of the car carrying Harry, killing him. I want to pay tribute to Harry’s mum, Maria, for her determination to channel her grief into campaigning and action to make sure that a tragedy such as this never happens again. Maria is campaigning to raise awareness of the dangers of unsafe loads so that other families do not have to endure this agony. Unsafe loads kill hundreds of people every year, and it is estimated that 62,000 items fell off vehicles on the strategic road network in the last year alone.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her commitment to ending the farcical situation that we have had for a very long time in Hastings and Rye. We have two tiers of local government, which means that when a resident comes to me to talk about a blocked drain, I have to ask them exactly where the leaves are. If they are the top of the drain, it is the responsibility of the borough council; if they are below the grill, it is that of the county council. I welcome her commitment to ending that farcical situation and making services more efficient for residents, but as we embark on this process in East Sussex, I ask her to hear the voices of our seaside communities and to make sure that, when we are designing a unitary authority footprint, it is of a size that works for our communities and that allows us to tackle the inequalities that they face.”
“I thank the Minister for her statement and her commitment to driving up standards in all our schools—and I gently invite those on the Conservative Benches who seem to think that multi-academy trusts are a panacea for everything to take a look at the experience of my constituents in Hastings and Rye, where we have been spectacularly failed by some particularly bad academy chains. Nowhere is this rise in school standards more urgently needed than my constituency, where over half of young people leave school without the equivalent of a grade C in GCSE maths and English. Three out of three secondary schools in Hastings are currently rated as requiring improvement and at one of them, Ark Alexandra, 123 children left last term because they did not feel that school was meeting their needs. Will my hon.”
“The new Labour Government have provided that funding and put in place a realistic and honest framework for our communities that sets out when we will get that work done.”
“I thank the hon. Member, my constituency neighbour, for giving way and I congratulate him on securing this debate. We both care deeply about our three local hospitals and I, too, pay tribute to the work of our amazing NHS staff. Recently, I was at one of those local hospitals with a family member and I will be there again next week. Does the hon. Member agree, however, that when Labour came into office, it was confronted with the fact that the Conservative Government had not budgeted for the new hospital that they had promised for our community, and that the money for it had run out in April? If the Conservative Government had been serious about committing to the new hospital programme, they should have budgeted for it.”
“I welcome the Labour Government’s confirmation of funding, which will help the Conquest hospital in Hastings, part of the East Sussex Healthcare trust, and other hospitals that my constituents use. It comes alongside the Chancellor’s announcement of a big package of support in the Budget, with record investment in our NHS to provide more appointments to clear the backlog left by the Conservatives.”
“May I ask what steps the Government are taking to improve our preparedness for the next pandemic, wherever it may come from and however it may be transmitted?”
“It is a source of national shame that our country was so underprepared for the covid pandemic, and the Conservatives need to take their fair share of the responsibility for that. We all worry about where the next pandemic will come from, and I am particularly concerned about the risk posed by dengue fever. For those who are not aware of it, let me explain that it is a disease spread by mosquitoes. It has been travelling closer and closer to the UK in recent years owing to rising temperatures and climate change, and has most recently been found in Paris. As one who represents a constituency on the south coast, I am especially worried about the warning that it could be within the UK within years. There is currently no cure, but there is a vaccine going through trials thanks to international collaboration, of which our country is a part.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. The hon. Member referred to the record of his party while in government for the last 14 years, and said that it set the threshold for a water boss being denied a bonus at the level of criminal activity. Does he agree that many of our constituents would find it strange to set a bar for not having a bonus at the level of committing criminal activity, given that in many workplaces up and down the country a bonus is based on good performance and on serving customers? The last Government set the bar for banning bonuses far too high, and that is why, despite repeated failure, the boss of Southern Water still received a bonus, as the boss of Ofwat confirmed to the Select Committee.”
“In the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, we took evidence from the chief executive of Ofwat, who was clear that the bonus that the boss of Southern Water, Lawrence Gosden, received this year would not have been paid had the previous Conservative Government brought the measures in this Bill before the House. The Conservatives had 14 years to change the rules, but they failed to do so.”
“I thank the Minister for all her work in introducing this Bill so quickly in the new Parliament. It is a Bill that my constituents in Hastings and Rye desperately need. As I have said many times in this House, our constituency of Hastings, Rye and the villages has suffered hugely at the hands of Southern Water. Litres of raw sewage has been pumped into the sea. Our town centre has been flooded twice, leaving homes and businesses under sewage water, and our taps have run dry twice in less than a year. We in Hastings and Rye felt the impact of 14 years of Conservative failure to crack down on water companies’ bad behaviour.”
“I think Opposition Members are slightly confused about the record of the Government of the past 14 years, of which both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives were a part at different points. My constituents in Hastings, Rye and the villages would find the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that the last Government fixed the crisis in our water companies very bizarre indeed. I draw his attention to the powers that this Government are introducing to ban bosses’ bonuses when they fail our constituents. The last Government left thousands of outlets unmonitored, and when there were monitors, they were reporting to the water companies themselves. What this Government are doing differently is not allowing the water companies to mark their own homework; we are saying that monitors should report directly to Government, not the water companies.”
“What we are discussing today is a measure to ban bosses’ bonuses, because it is so important that we do not see what we have seen over the last 14 years of Conservative Government—the continued failure to prevent Southern Water from rewarding bosses with bonuses. Laurence Gosden, the chief executive of Southern Water, received a bonus last year when we had seen repeated failure in Hastings and Rye under Southern Water’s watch. As I said earlier, the chief executive of Ofwat confirmed to the Select Committee that had the measures in the Bill been put in place last year by the Conservative Government, the bonus would not have been paid. Laurence Gosden only received that bonus because of the failure of the Conservatives to act when they had 14 years to do so.”
“I am yet to hear an apology from the Conservatives for their failure to put monitors on any outlet in my constituency, their failure to make those monitors report to Government at all, and their failure to address the severity of the sewage scandal that has caused so much disruption for my constituents, for local businesses and for so many people up and down this country. I pay tribute to campaigners in so many of our constituencies. Many are in the Public Gallery and they have done so much work exposing this scandal for what it is. We would not be discussing the scale of this scandal were it not for their hard work. In my constituency, Clean Water Action Group campaigners go out regularly of their own accord and out of their own pockets to test the water to expose what Southern Water is doing in our community. I pay tribute to them.”
“I will make some progress, because I know that we need to make progress in the debate. In conclusion, I thank the Minister for her work on bringing the Bill before the House so quickly. I know that this is just the start of the change that we need to deliver on our water companies. This Government are acting where the previous Conservative and coalition Governments failed, and are working to clean up our water system.”
“During the debate, we have heard a lot of words from the Opposition parties, but we had very little action during their 14 years in Government. We on the Government Benches have raised clear examples pointed out by Ofwat where it has not had the necessary tools to ban bonuses when it wanted to do so with Southern Water. While we are on that topic, I express my surprise that the hon. Member for Waveney Valley has not turned up to this sitting of the Committee.”
“On the questions that the hon. Gentleman is asking around the type of monitors we have on sewage outlets, is he aware that the Environmental Audit Committee looked at this very issue in the last Parliament? It recommended the approach currently being taken by the Bill, which is to look at monitors upstream and downstream that look at the water quality. The Committee regarded that as the best way to assess this issue.”
“Does my hon. Friend share my horror at our current situation, in which constituents are getting ear and eye infections from swimming in the sea or rivers? One constituent of mine even attributes their deafness in one ear to an infection they got in the sea. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is desperately needed for our constituents?”
“In Hastings, Rye and the villages, we have some of the worst potholes in the country, so I welcome the record £21 million awarded to east Sussex to fill potholes. Will the Secretary of State join me in calling on Conservative-run East Sussex county council to fill the potholes, and ensure that Hastings and Rye gets its fair share of that funding?”
“I really welcome the measures in the Bill to ensure that the many children being home-schooled have all the support they need to get back into mainstream education. I was extremely concerned to find out that in the last academic year, 800 children in Hastings were being home-schooled—that is one in 16 children, or 27 classrooms of children. While there will be parents providing a good-quality education at home, I know from speaking to teachers and to local shops who see these children in their establishments that some are not necessarily getting a good education. We need to get those children back into school.”
“I have travelled to that airport as an aid worker, and I took that UN house flight. I can only imagine the impact on aid operations in the region when such incidents occur and UN colleagues are on the runway. Will the Minister join me in reiterating our call as a country that aid workers must never be targets? Will he outline what is being done to ensure accountability in instances where aid workers are killed? What steps is the UK is taking to ensure the protection of aid workers and humanitarians?”
“Today we have rightly heard a lot from Members in all parts of the House about the desperate need to get more aid into Gaza—an issue that many of our constituents are concerned about and that the Government are rightly working very hard to address. One of the most disturbing trends in this conflict is the huge number of aid workers who have lost their lives—over 300 humanitarian workers to date. As the Minister knows, one of the most basic fundamentals of international humanitarian law is that aid workers must be protected. In the recess, we saw an air strike on Sana’a airport, when a plane operated by UNHAS—the UN Humanitarian Air service, which our Government proudly contribute to—was on the runway. The head of the UN World Food Programme was also in the airport at that time.”
“Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker. May I welcome this record investment in our hospices from the Labour Government? The Conservative Government had 14 years to do that, but they shirked that responsibility. Will the Minister join me in thanking the amazing staff and volunteers at Saint Michael’s Hospice and Demelza hospice in my constituency who do such amazing work all year round to support families and children who need amazing care?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for the work he and his Department are doing to change the compensation rules so that when these incidents happen, my constituents get higher levels of compensation—something that the Conservatives had 14 years to do, but failed to do. Had they acted in that time, my residents would not be left without compensation for the incidents that have happened in Hastings, Rye and the villages.”
“We have been left on our own to pick up the pieces, all while Southern Water’s boss has been allowed to collect a huge bonus. That money should be spent on fixing broken pipes, not rewarding failure.”
“Another constituent in Winchelsea beach told me that he cannot grow vegetables because for the last decade his back garden has been regularly flooded with sewage. A family in West St Leonards had to move out of their home for months and live in temporary accommodation after sewage flooded their home. The town centre in Hastings was flooded twice in one year. Businesses and residents who had just moved back into redecorated homes saw their homes flooded all over again under a foot of sewage water. They then had to be rescued by firefighters. It was shameful. It has cost our community millions in damage, as well as the untold human cost of having possessions, property and livelihoods ruined. In the vast majority of cases, residents and businesses in my constituency have not been properly compensated by Southern Water.”
“Volunteers from the clean water action group in Hastings go out testing the water three times a week. I also thank our local East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, who time after time are the first on the scene when sewage is spilling out on to the street. The community that I represent in Hastings and Rye is furious at the conduct of Southern Water. From Camber Sands to Old Roar Gill, sewage has poured on to our beaches and beauty spots. Our way of life as a seaside community has been compromised. Our appeal as a tourist destination has been tarnished and livelihoods have been ruined. Many people have got sick from swimming in the sea, or caught ear or eye infections. People have ended up in hospital with sickness, and one constituent even attributes her deafness in one ear to an infection that she caught swimming in the sea.”
“I declare an interest as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on water pollution. Today, we will vote on a landmark piece of legislation to begin the clean-up of our water industry. The measures in the Bill ramp up regulation, ban bosses’ bonuses and ensure independent monitors on every sewage outlet, linked to a system of automatic severe fines. Make no mistake: these are the biggest increase in powers for a generation, and the changes cannot come soon enough for my constituency. Before I come to the devastating impact that Southern Water has unleashed on my constituency, I pay tribute to the campaigners and community volunteers who exposed the scandal. It is only because of their determination and detective work that we have understood the scale of the problem.”
“This Government are acting where the previous Conservative Government failed, to end the disgraceful behaviour of the water companies and their bosses with this Bill. This is just the start of the change. I thank the Government for announcing an independent commission on the water sector to see what more they can do to ensure that the water sector works for customers and the environment. I will work very hard to ensure that the voices of my residents in Hastings, Rye and the villages are heard as part of that process.”
“The Conservatives had 14 years to update the compensation guidelines for such incidents, and failed to act. Because of the action that this Labour Government are taking, if future incidents occur, my constituents will be eligible for greater compensation from Southern Water. The Conservatives let the water companies off the hook for far too long. Instead of forcing the industry to invest in crumbling infrastructure, customers’ money was instead siphoned off into shareholder payouts and bonuses. My constituents now face record water bills because of that failure. We inherited a crumbling water system from the Conservative party, and this Labour Government are acting to clean up the mess.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. One of the things in the Bill that I really welcome is that it will stop water companies marking their own homework. The monitors on every outlet will report independently to the Government, so that we can issue automatic severe fines—a big change and step forward. If huge amounts of sewage and major flooding in my constituency were not enough for one community to endure, we have also suffered major water outages at the hands of Southern Water. The taps have run dry twice in recent memory. In September 2023, 10,000 residents of Rye were left without water for up to nine days. In May this year, in Hastings, 30,000 people were left without water for five days. It caused huge disruption and had a major impact on local businesses. It has to stop.”
“Queensway Gateway in my constituency is known as the “road to nowhere” because it has been left unfinished for over a decade, so my constituents in Hastings and Rye were delighted that the Labour Government confirmed more than £2.5 million to finish the road. However, Conservative-run East Sussex county council has let the works overrun for months and months, leaving residents and businesses stuck in delays. Local businesses have lost millions. Will the Leader of the House join me in calling on East Sussex county council to get the road finished?”
“Parents, teachers and students in my constituency were horrified to find out that the University of Brighton Academies Trust has been taking a whopping 20% of the Government grant meant for our local schools and education. What is the Minister doing to resolve these issues and make sure that every child in Hastings and Rye gets the best quality education?”
“The right hon. Lady talks about the figures. Does she accept that her Government’s record was one of leaving £300 million of the farming budget unspent in the Treasury coffers, not helping farmers?”
“My colleague on the Select Committee has great expertise on the farming industry. He will therefore know that, for the last 14 years, the record of his party in government has been one of failure for our farming industry, with 12,000 farms closing since 2010 and energy bills skyrocketing because the Conservative party failed to invest in energy independence, hitting our farmers and reducing profitability.”
“Many farmers in my constituency of Hastings and Rye are feeling the impact of 14 years of Conservative failure. In particular, they have faced many challenges with flooding. Can the Minister tell me what steps we have taken in the Budget to protect small family farms and how we will continue to support farmers facing flooding?”
“In 2022, Lubov Chernukhin opened an amusement centre in Hastings town centre known as Owens. The project received more than £400,000 of taxpayer money as part of the Conservatives’ levelling up towns fund plans. Ms Chernukhin has also donated more than £200,000 to the Conservative party. [ Official Report , 29 October 2024; Vol. 755, c. 10WC.] (Correction) Shortly after opening, Owens closed, and earlier this month it was covered in boarding, which now dominates Hastings town centre. Can the Minister advise me how my constituents can get their money back, and how we can ensure that money is never wasted again like that?”
“I thank the right hon. Member for giving way. He has a very beautiful constituency in the Lake district and has campaigned strongly on this issue. Would he therefore welcome this Government’s commitment to cleaning up the water industry and that they called in the water bosses within the first week of the Labour Government to say that investment must be ringfenced for infrastructure and not spent on bonuses, and will he be supporting the Water (Special Measures) Bill?”
“I declare an interest as a customer of Southern Water who lost my water supply for five days earlier this year, as did 30,000 of my constituents. As the Secretary of State knows well from his visits to Hastings and to Rye, we have major issues from flooding to sewage to water outages. I welcome the water commission. How can my constituents, particularly volunteer groups such as the Clean Water Action group, have their voices heard, particularly their concerns about ensuring that the regulators have the power and resources to clean up our sea?”
“I welcome the Labour Government’s commitment to cutting the waiting times for driving tests and making that a key priority. It is great that the Secretary of State has met the chief executive of the DVLA to really grip the problem and make it clear that it is a key priority, because it is such a pressing issue for many across our constituencies. I want to make sure that I leave plenty of time for colleagues to speak in this important debate, so I will end my remarks there.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for securing this debate on such an important issue. I speak for many Members across the House when I say what a pressing issue the lack of driving test availability is for so many in our constituencies. I have been contacted by many residents in Hastings and Rye who are trying to get driving tests, but face very long waits when they log on to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency system. The issue is having a big impact on many constituents. We have new parents hoping to get a driving test in time for the arrival of babies, people with caring responsibilities and also people who have a business need to secure a driving test. It is a really important issue that matters to many across our constituencies.”