Lloyd Hatton
MP for South Dorset · Labour · United Kingdom
“Q14. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for his steadfast leadership in the face of two major conflicts. My right hon. and learned Friend’s efforts to successfully marshal international support for Ukraine and his work to ensure that our armed forces are not sucked into an aimless and dangerous war with Iran could—in fact, I believe they…”
“I thank the Minister for her considered statement. We recently learned that shortly after receiving £5 million from a crypto billionaire halfway across the world, the hon.”
“In South Dorset, the Lantern Trust and the Veterans Hub have recently applied for Valour funding, which would make a huge difference to both organisations as they grow the services they offer to veterans—in particular the hub, which is the first port of call for many local veterans.”
“T6. The Dorset Innovation Park already has a growing ecosystem of defence companies, including BattleLab and a proposed factory, which are developing cutting edge drone technology. The opportunities are truly immense.”
“Following initial conversations with volunteers across South Dorset, I know that they are particularly concerned that the proposed changes will harm the future recruitment of volunteers, undermine morale in existing teams and risk many volunteers leaving the service altogether.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this timely debate. As many Members have mentioned, the coastguard rescue service is an essential component of our emergency services, and that is certainly the case in South Dorset.”
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“Q Quickly, what is your analysis of the current landscape when it comes to the perhaps undue impact of corporate political donations, and how do you think this Bill will seek to change the landscape, ideally for the better? Dr Garland: That is quite a big question to squeeze into our remaining time. I go back to my point about there being no ceiling on donations from any entity, which is a major risk with corporation and individual donations. The size of donations is growing exponentially, and that has a damaging impact on voter confidence and trust.”
“On your last point, through my investigations I have found that Companies House has been abused by cryptocurrency exchanges. In one particularly egregious case, two IRGC-linked companies managed to register here in the UK under false names. They were operating for four years, while registered here in the UK, processing billions for the IRGC. That raises the question whether some foreign actor or criminal could set up a UK-registered company and donate through that? That definitely has to be looked at.”
“Q To build on some of the lines of questioning that have been put forward, I am keen to get your perspective on what the best approach is to make sure we look at the next big challenge that could be posed by crypto donations, particularly if those come indirectly. How do you see us being able to challenge that problem and take it seriously if we find that crypto donations are reaching political parties in this country via an indirect route, particularly via companies or a third party, for example? Alexander Browder: There need to be stricter “know your donor” requirements. Not only that, but the enforcement on parties should be greater. If they do not respect the political process, there should be higher fines and stricter policies.”
“We have heard from law enforcement that it is not clear to them that the proceeds of crime are not allowed as donations, for instance. If you have a situation where proceeds of crime can be donated, that is pretty extraordinary. We need a robust section 54A that puts some onus on the donor and makes a false declaration a criminal offence. I do not know whether that answers your question, Lloyd, or whether you wanted me to talk more about “know your donor”, but I think they complement each other. You have “know your donor”, which is about what parties do, but also the donor declaration, so that you are putting some onus on the donor to actually be honest about where that money comes from.”
“Q In the interests of full transparency, I have worked closely with Duncan and Susan and knew both of them prior to being elected to this place. I have a quick question that builds on some of the areas we have already talked about. Susan, on the point of how we put into practice checks that could look at people who may be connected to somebody who is politically exposed or to a high-risk jurisdiction, you said that the Bill has good “know your donor” checks but that they need to be strengthened further. How would those be delivered in practice? Dr Susan Hawley: The Electoral Commission needs to come up with robust guidance on that. It needs to look at industry standards from the regulated sector to tackle money laundering. I want to come back to the donor declaration, because that is also critical to this.”
“The way that is laid out in the Bill also does not provide a cap at all; it allows money to be donated to a host of different people. The revenue test really needs to be looked at again, because we have the Electoral Commission saying very clearly, “There is an increased risk of foreign interference if you keep the revenue test.” You also have tax experts saying that it is actually fairly easy to generate significant UK turnover while having no genuine UK operations. This is the moment to look at that again. It is also not quite clear why a company that owes a lot of tax, or that is making a loss, should feel it needs—or should be able—to donate.”
“Q Thank you; that is helpful. Another key point that we have discussed in detail is about recent investigations finding that around £6 million in donations through UK-registered companies have ultimately turned out to have been owned by individuals who are not eligible to vote here in the UK, and therefore not permissible donors. Do you feel that the proposed safeguards governing corporate political donations are sufficient, and do you think that this Bill goes far enough to up the ante against that kind of foul play? Dr Susan Hawley: No. I think it has done a valiant job in introducing the beneficial owner test and a UK connection test, but we know that the Electoral Commission has flagged the revenue test for corporations as a real risk for foreign interference.”
“Nathan Gill is serving a 10-year prison sentence for bribery offences, which he admitted to in court, that happened nearly 10 years before he was convicted. There is a long lag if you rely on that kind of enforcement to address offending, and the problem that you are trying to stop.”
“Ideally, we would like to see that looked at again, because no other regulator is hampered by that high threshold. Duncan Hames: If I may, the problem with enforcement is that it takes a long time, and we are talking about democratic events here; by the time enforcement takes place, the consequences have already happened. People saw Elon Musk giving out cheques to make millionaires of people taking part in an election campaign in the States; they all thought that the rules were being broken and that something should be done about it, but nothing was, and he was at the right hand of the President within weeks of that moment. We ought to be looking at measures that we can take that prevent problems from happening, rather than just chasing things after the event.”
“We have a report coming out next week in which we compare the Electoral Commission’s powers to the Information Commissioner’s Office and Ofcom. Those bodies have this in the legislation, and they also have not just a maximum fine level but a percentage; the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended that it should be £500,000 or 4%, whichever is higher. Again, you could argue that, if you have a multimillion-pound campaign budget, £500 k could become a potential cost of doing business, so we need that percentage option to give the Electoral Commission the flexibility to impose penalties in egregious cases. Secondly, the Electoral Commission has a very high threshold, compared with other regulators, for when it can actually impose penalties.”
“Q Shifting attention slightly towards enforcement, we know that, when trying to tackle foreign interference in the democratic process or dodgy donations, enforcement is essential to creating a better, fairer and more transparent landscape. The intention is to increase the Electoral Commission’s fining capabilities to £500,000 per offence, up from the current £20,000, via secondary legislation. Do you think that that shift upwards is sufficient as a strong, robust deterrence against breaking the rules in this country? Dr Susan Hawley: It is very much an improvement on what we have at the moment; I think everyone would agree that, if you have a multimillion-pound campaign budget, a £20,000 fine is frankly laughable. We would, however, like to see it strengthened in two ways. First, we would like this to be on the face of the Bill.”
“If we are talking about foreign interference, those are the tools that need to be deployed against impermissible donations.”
“I think that there is growing recognition within law enforcement bodies that that is required. Up to now, the problem has been that those law enforcement bodies will argue that they do not have the laws or the sentences that would empower them to use the serious investigative tools that they have at their disposal to get to the bottom of some of this behaviour. That is why the criminal offence in section 54 and section 54A really needs to be looked at. We welcome the amendment recently tabled by Matt Western to address the knowledge test so that it is not set too high. We also need to look at sentences because we hear again and again from law enforcement that if you do not have a serious crime-level sentence, you cannot use the skills that you can deploy for serious crime for this kind of offending.”
“Q I have a very quick final question, taking a step back and responding to what you have just said. You feel that in the current landscape no single law enforcement body has overarching responsibility for enforcement, and particularly enforcement of electoral finance laws. It feels a bit patchwork at the moment: sometimes it is the police; sometimes it is the commission. Do you feel that is something that we need to look at overhauling so that we can have a much more comprehensive response that works more robustly, and hopefully more swiftly, in response to the issues that you just mentioned? Dr Susan Hawley: We really welcome the recommendation of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy—published today—that there should be a specific unit.”
“Unlike in category A prisons, prison officers at HMP The Verne and HMP Portland are not routinely issued with protective body armour—namely, stab vests. Protecting our prison officers from harm is essential in all prisons, as has been made abundantly clear to me by local branches of the Prison Officers’ Association. With that in mind, will the Minister work constructively with me and Lord Timpson to introduce appropriate body armour for all prison officers, regardless of the category of prison in which they serve?”
“It is no secret that clean energy is creating the next generation of well-paid jobs, and it is essential that South Dorset gets its fair share of them. The development of offshore wind at Portland, including the exciting Morwind and PortWind projects, would certainly help to create much-needed maritime, engineering and construction jobs for local people. With that in mind, will the Minister work with me, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Crown Estate to support the development of offshore wind off the coast of Portland?”
“I welcome the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s work to get the Leonardo helicopters contract over the line, as that will help protect defence jobs right across Dorset, Somerset and the wider south-west. Will the Treasury and Ministers continue to work with the Ministry of Defence to secure investment in the defence sector in Dorset and across the west country?”
“We must always understand that this is not a static problem, but a compounding one. If we do not proceed with the measures in the Bill, we will not be able to improve the situation in the Crown courts. Instead, it will deteriorate further and the backlog will spiral out of control. The situation is simply inexcusable. We must understand that it is impossible to defend the status quo. Without structural reform, the criminal justice system will continue to buckle, which is why I am such a keen advocate of it.”
“It is important to acknowledge this challenging landscape, so that victims, those who work within the criminal justice system and the wider public can all appreciate exactly why this Government are taking forward the bold measures in the Bill. Whichever part of the criminal justice system we inspect, we see the devastating impact of the swingeing cutbacks and gross mismanagement of the previous Government—cuts to prisons, cuts to the Probation Service, cuts to legal aid, cuts to the Crown courts, cuts to policing and cuts to the Crown Prosecution Service. What I find most frustrating is that we too often forget our inheritance, and we must not do so when we go into the Lobbies this evening. We cannot forget the chronic backlog of cases in the Crown courts that we inherited.”
“I am delighted to speak as an enthusiastic supporter of the Courts and Tribunals Bill. I wish to put on record my thanks to both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Courts and Legal Services for their excellent work before the Bill came to this place, which included consulting with Back Benchers at every opportunity. This is a critical piece of legislation that will rebuild our buckling criminal justice system after years and years of neglect. I will keep my remarks focused on the important context within which this Bill should be considered. We must, in this place, be absolutely clear that the previous Government left the criminal justice system on the brink of collapse.”
“We must understand that, to relieve the scale of pressure currently facing the Crown courts and the wider criminal justice system, this Bill must make its way through this place.”
“I completely accept that there have been successes in some parts of the country, including in Liverpool, but that is not the case elsewhere, which is why a much wider package of structural reforms is essential. I firmly believe, in response to that point, that we must pull every lever at our disposal to stabilise the system and begin to turn the corner on the rising backlog in the Crown court. We need transformative change, backed up by investment and modernisation, to fix the problem. That is not optional; it is essential. That is why, in my view, the reforms in the Bill form a coherent package designed to deliver system-wide change. We cannot indulge in a game of pick and mix and simply implement the measures that we prefer.”
“At the heart of the criminal justice system are people waiting for justice—waiting for wrongs to be put right, for fairness, for their day in court and for closure. The progressive case for court reform is not a technocratic exercise in efficiency; it is a fundamental argument about how our legal institutions serve the British people, because when the criminal justice system breaks down, it is the most vulnerable who always pay the highest price. We must not lose sight of that today. We can either manage the slow decline of our courts, watching as victims are neglected and abandoned, and public confidence drains away, or we can support the Bill and modernise and repair the system so that justice is delivered quickly and fairly. I enthusiastically choose the latter option.”
“The Government can put certain measures into one piece of primary legislation, but there could be others down the line to pick up the recommendations of the review. We must remember that magistrates, prison and probation officers and police officers will not thank us if we preside over an unreformed system in which Crown courts are allowed to crumble and backlogs are allowed to balloon for years to come. Every aspect of reform is required, otherwise cutting the backlogs and providing more timely justice will never be achieved, and we in this place will have done too little. Finally, I add my voice to the chorus of parliamentarians who have been speaking up for victims who have so far been failed by the status quo.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for making such an eloquent speech. Does she share my concern that if we were, heaven forfend, to walk away from the crucial reforms in this Bill, the police officers, prison officers, CPS staff and those who work in our Crown courts would not thank us for the mess that we would be leaving them, with the Crown court system grinding to a halt and backlogs ballooning?”
“I will keep it short and sweet, Mr Speaker. Weymouth train station does not have a working toilet, which means that wheelchair users, passengers with heavy luggage and parents with a pram are left having to go 20 minutes to get to the nearest toilet. Will the Secretary of State work constructively with South Western Railway to finally get a working toilet at Weymouth train station?”
“Morwind recently received funding to conduct an important feasibility study for a major offshore wind hub at Portland. If built, the hub would be a key part of the west country’s manufacturing supply chain, and it would create hundreds of well-paid green jobs for local people. Will the Minister work with Morwind and me to deliver the hub at pace, and will he come to Portland to meet the key players and get the ball rolling?”
“Just last month, The Guardian reported that the chief executive officer and chief financial officer of Wessex Water received around £50,000 in undisclosed payments from a parent company. Just weeks before, it was reported that a former Wessex Water boss was handed a whopping £170,000—again from a parent company. The galling part is that both payments were made in the same year that Wessex Water was slapped with a ban on paying bonuses. With all that in mind, does the Minister agree that if bonuses can simply be rebadged as extra payment from parent companies, we must urgently toughen up the bonuses ban so that we can finally hold failing water company bosses to account?”
“For the past few months, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale) and I have been campaigning for a new drone centre to be designated at the Dorset Innovation Park. The park already hosts a strong defence ecosystem for testing, developing and researching drone technology. Alongside this, the county has a well-established network of colleges and universities, in Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth, offering the skills we need to make this a success. With all this in mind, will the Minister continue to work with me and all relevant stakeholders to establish a drone centre at the Dorset Innovation Park, which I know will help to strengthen national security and, of course, secure good jobs?”
“I am so proud that on the Isle of Purbeck, in my constituency, we hosted the first official wild beaver release in England, some five centuries after they were hunted to extinction.”
“Only a third of UK rivers are in good health, making our rivers some of the most polluted in Europe. Looking closer, 85% of the UK’s rivers and streams have been heavily modified, which is stripping away habitats and accelerating a big fall in biodiversity. Yet we all know that our rivers are crucial for both nature and communities. Riverways are a vital source of fresh water. They support wildlife, boost biodiversity and help to regulate the climate locally. Take my home county of Dorset. Our county is fortunate to play home to one of the world’s rarest habitats: chalk streams. The high mineral content and year-round moderate temperatures mean that local chalk streams such as the Stour and Frome are home to a broad array of wildlife and habitats.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of protecting and restoring river habitats. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the Making Space for Water campaigners, whose tireless work in championing our riverways is exactly why we are here today in Westminster Hall. It is a privilege to open today’s debate and see it so well attended, as we make the case for practical solutions that will protect our riverways, restore river habitats and boost water quality in all of our rivers and streams. It is essential that I outline the significant challenge facing both nature and rivers up and down the country. Unfortunately, most of our rivers are in crisis, plagued by pollution from both agriculture and sewage. Subsequently, they are on the brink of ecological collapse.”
“Finally, they also help to filter polluted water and improve its quality further downstream. They play a crucial role in aiding nature’s recovery. However, the mighty beaver cannot and must not act alone. Like many Members present, I am committed to help restore nature across all our riverways, creating the conditions for wildlife and habitats to flourish in our rivers once again.”
“I agree that a co-ordinated approach that works with farmers, landowners and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is required. That extensive work took place in my constituency, and it meant that the release was broadly seen as a success story. We would certainly like to replicate that across the west country and the UK. To continue the saga of the beaver, their release in Purbeck has been a success story, and I am so pleased that the beavers can call the expansive freshwater and dense woodland at Studland their new home. Of course, that is also a good news story for restoring nature and boosting water quality. Beavers are nature’s engineers. By creating wetland habitats, they can help to retain water during floods and release it during droughts.”
“I would welcome any further detail that she can give us on exactly how this Government, alongside a new, tough single regulator, will block failing water company bosses from receiving bonuses through the back door. From conversations, I know that the Minister shares my view that a tough bonus ban is critical to challenging the corporate misbehaviour that is all too present across the water sector. By embracing this important campaign, we can boost water quality, aid nature and biodiversity recovery, and enhance rivers and streams across the country. Indeed, we can make space for water once again.”
“They act as natural infrastructure, storing water when we have too much and releasing it when we have too little. The benefits go beyond flood protection. Restored river corridors trap pollution before it reaches our waterways. They support farmers, strengthening the resilience of their farmland without undermining food production. If we are truly serious about restoring nature, protecting rivers and boosting water quality, making space for water must be at the heart of the Government’s approach. I know that the Minister is an enthusiastic advocate for our rivers and streams, and has met the team behind the Making Space for Water campaign. Indeed, she spoke proudly at the campaign launch just last year. I hope that today she will take the opportunity to set out what further action her Department can take to protect our riverways.”
“With the right support in place, that will allow farmers and landowners to create river buffers and wetlands alongside their land. It would allow them to plant riparian trees and floodplain meadows, and to reintroduce beaver populations, just like they have already done in Purbeck. If successful, that will all help to create a network of connected, nature-rich river corridors. Clean, functioning river corridors are a good news story for everyone: they help nature to recover and water quality to improve, biodiversity is no longer in freefall and our countryside becomes much more resilient. Where already implemented, healthy river corridors slow down the flow of water and reduce the risk of devastating floods and prolonged droughts.”
“The decisions they make about their land shape the quality of our water, the health of our rivers and the survival of our wildlife. In my constituency, from Purbeck to Wool to Weymouth, many farmers and landowners are already stepping up, carving out space for nature alongside their nearby rivers and restoring the landscapes that we all depend on. But they cannot carry that burden alone, and it is abundantly clear that they still lack some of the financial support that they need to best protect our riverways. To that end, targeted and simplified financial incentives must be considered, and be given to farmers and landowners to restore and enhance our rivers and streams. That is the key and, I believe, most important ask of the Making Space for Water campaign.”
“Farmers and landowners are currently standing on the front line of our environmental crisis, and the role that they play, and will play in the future, when it comes to protecting our riverways and enabling nature recovery is absolutely critical. They are seeing, at first hand, the pressures facing our rivers and the threat of flooding all year round. As has previously been remarked on, just this week Storm Chandra brought absolute havoc to my home of Dorset. The heavy rainfall has flooded rivers, left fields waterlogged and livestock areas almost completely unusable, and severely restricted access to farmland. Farmers and landowners are not just experiencing these challenges; they are absolutely critical to solving them.”
“The recent announcement by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the sustainable farming initiative will go some way to ensuring that farmers and landowners can play their part in protecting rivers and wildlife. However, I remain concerned that gaps remain in the role that nature-based solutions can, and must, play in cleaning up our rivers. That is why I support the Making Space for Water campaign run by the Riverscapes partnership, which is a broad coalition of the Rivers Trust, the National Trust, the Woodland Trust and the Beaver Trust—safe to say, there is a lot of trust in the campaign.”
“Alongside strengthening regulation and ensuring that pollution certainly does not pay, further work must be done to restore wildlife and reduce flood risks along our rivers. Again, I should stress that the Government are taking the necessary action. The recently published environmental improvement plan includes an important target to double wildlife-friendly farms by 2030, and I know that that is welcomed by a huge range of farmers in my constituency of South Dorset. The commitment of £500 million for landscape recovery will hopefully play a vital role in revitalising nature while helping communities better withstand floods.”
“If bonuses can simply be rebadged as undisclosed payments from another arm of a large web of companies, the bonus ban is at risk of becoming unenforceable. That weakens public trust, undermines the authority of our regulators and allows those responsible for gross environmental damage to be rewarded for failure. I firmly believe that the Government, working closely with a new, single regulator, must tighten the rules to prevent water companies from exploiting corporate structures to disguise what are clearly bonuses in disguise. Without that, I fear the bonus ban will not change the corporate culture and wrongdoing within these big firms, and water companies will continue to pollute our precious rivers and streams.”
“Despite new legislation, which I was proud to support, water companies continue to hide behind opaque and complex corporate structures, shielding themselves from scrutiny while our rivers and streams pay the price. Earlier this month, it emerged in The Guardian that the chief executive and the chief finance officer of Wessex Water received some £50,000 in previously undisclosed extra pay from a parent company. Just a few weeks before that, we learned that a former chief executive at Wessex Water had been handed a whopping £170,000 payment, again from a parent company. Both those payments happened in exactly the same year that the firm was correctly banned by the Government from paying undeserved bonuses. From the reports on just how Wessex Water is choosing to operate, we can safely say that something extremely fishy is going on.”
“In Wessex Water’s case, Government action led to a £500,000 fine—the second largest ever issued to a water company—for the Melksham sewage failure. It also led to a ban on Wessex Water bosses receiving their undeserved bonuses. The water White Paper, released just last week, further strengthens the regulation of the big water firms. I welcome the Government’s commitment to create a single, integrated, tough regulator, which will replace the current patchwork of regulatory bodies and hopefully deliver a more proactive, targeted and rigorous way of holding water companies to account. We must be honest about the challenges still ahead.”
“I am sure we will hear many more horror stories in this debate, with failing water companies found culpable for environmental destruction within our rivers and streams. The days of water companies polluting with impunity and hiding behind weak regulation must end. That is the mess we are wading through. Looking ahead, I am pleased that the Government are beginning to take all the necessary steps to clean up and better protect our rivers and streams. From the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, which finally gave regulators the power to curb water bosses from collecting undeserved bonuses, to the £104 billion secured in investment to start to rebuild water infrastructure across the country, the Government are beginning to get to grips with this scandal.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention; it is almost as if he had an exclusive sneak peek at my remarks. I will turn to the damaging role of water companies. Sadly, many firms have a sorry track record in protecting rivers and boosting water quality. For far too long, many water companies have profiteered, despite polluting our rivers and streams. Unfortunately, the previous Government did too little, too late to reverse the worrying trend. To name just one shocking example, Wessex Water, my local water company, killed some 2,000 fish in Melksham after a sewage pumping station failure. It was slapped with a fine for the damage on its watch, but by then it was too late, as untreated sewage had leaked into nearby rivers.”
“My hon. Friend is making an eloquent speech about the importance of cross-society working between Government, regulatory bodies and the stewards of our riverways and countryside. Does he agree that, unless we have that collaborative approach, we are unlikely to see the change we both so desperately want in order to restore the health of our riverways and allow nature recovery to take root in environments across the country?”
“I welcome the commitment to ensuring that polluters always pay for the projects that go so far in cleaning up our rivers and streams. I was equally happy to hear a defence of our chalk streams and their revival. Success here is surely critical to restoring nature and boosting biodiversity in our chalk streams across the country. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of protecting and restoring river habitats.”
“Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox). It was some light relief on a Thursday afternoon. In all seriousness, I think it is really important that we work on a cross-party basis in realising that the culture around bonuses—not pay, bonuses—for water bosses got totally out of control over a number of years. This Government have taken some important steps to tackle that, but there is definitely work to do to be more effective and I hope there is cross-party support for that. Finally, I thank the Minister responsible for water for her comments. There was plenty there to welcome, including a reaffirmation of the Government’s commitment to engaging with the Making Space for Water campaign, and a pledge to continue the work with farmers and landowners to have a truly joined-up approach to tackling agricultural run-off.”
“Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for emphasising the need to protect our riverways with essential collaboration between Government, regulatory bodies, farmers, landowners and environmentalists. I really welcome the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), who made a doughty and strong argument in defence of our unique chalk streams. That is our unique environmental inheritance in this country. We must ensure that we protect it. I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour), for vividly illustrating the sorry track record of so many of the big water companies, including South West Water. Perhaps rather interestingly, I enjoyed some of the political gymnastics on display today from the shadow Minister, the hon.”