Mike Martin
MP for Tunbridge Wells · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I am curious about this mantra that there have not been any blackouts. Over the past six months, businesses in the St John’s area of Tunbridge Wells have complained of blackouts. I surveyed my constituents who live in the area, and 60% said that they had experienced some blackouts—not long-term ones, but intermittent blackouts.”
“Might the Minister comment briefly on the Government’s approach to water? In the recent heatwaves, South East Water reported that water usage went up by 15% because people were taking extra showers and so on. She will know that South East Water has had huge problems with resilience in the network; that pushed it right to the brink.”
“We have a similar problem with South East Water, which is probably the second-worst water company in the United Kingdom after Thames Water. With South East Water, too, this Labour Government have been too timid. Does my hon.”
“We actually have examples of water companies lying. We had South East Water coming to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in January and giving false evidence—so much so that the Chair considered bringing it back for being in contempt of Parliament.”
“There are a number of options on the table for Kent, and no matter which one the Minister chooses, we will need to do some tidying up of ward and division boundaries, because there are vast disparities between the number of electors and some of the current county council boundaries.”
“Thirdly, we need to trust the public and tell them not just about the threat that we face but about the current state of our armed forces and where they need to get to. Question put and agreed to .”
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Every one of 372 lines we hold for Mike Martin, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 8.
“The parental leave review will not get to the heart of that matter, so will the Minister consider including the Department for Education in the review to get to the heart of equality between men and women?”
“As someone who is about to welcome their second child into the world—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you very much. I am delighted to be discussing parental leave and I welcome this review. The Minister said that one objective of the review is to reset the relationship between men and women—I paraphrase—and to make that more equal. May I gently suggest that while the measures set out are necessary, they are insufficient? To get to the heart of that matter, we need to look at early years funding. When £6.12 is provided by the Government for early years provision, but providers, such as the Little Learning Tree in my constituency, say that it costs £7.50 to deliver, we have a problem.”
“As we all know, the tagline for the Royal Marine commandos was “99.9% need not apply”. When it comes to parliamentary spoken contributions, the hon. Member is in top 0.1%, so he has achieved that goal.”
“Obviously, this is a cross-party issue; no party would seek to make political capital out of it. We all agree that it is completely unacceptable. But I urge the current Government to continue to push hard on it and to make sure that the service chiefs understand that it is a political priority and a leadership issue. I will conclude now. We have discussed a plethora of issues and there have been many good suggestions from across the House today. Some of the failures reek of apathy, which I hope is being corrected. I hope that we are going forward into a new era of better funding and greater focus on some of the recruitment and retention problems that the armed forces have faced. Unless we take action, we will fail those people who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.”
“I would like to focus on two things. The first is an issue that we have explored repeatedly, but where things have perhaps not improved as quickly as we think they should have: bullying and harassment, particularly —almost exclusively—of female recruits and women in the armed forces. This was laid out comprehensively in the Atherton report, and recently we had the service chiefs in front of the Defence Committee, which I sit on. I questioned General Sir Roly Walker, the Chief of the General Staff, on this, and I read out to him some accounts. One woman described being pinned down and assaulted in front of a senior officer, yet nothing was done about it. That was just one example. How can we expect women to remain in the armed forces when they are not respected for the important contributions that they make?”
“Members have said, recruitment into our armed forces in the north-east accounts for a disproportionate share of the total, with the region contributing 7.3% of new recruits despite accounting for only 4.6% of the working-age population. It is also the region with the highest rate of per capita recruitment in the country. This reflects a deep sense of pride and patriotism, which I saw for myself when serving in Afghanistan alongside members of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who are so distinguishable by their headdress—a red hackle, in Labour colours, appropriately for today. But we cannot rely just on the north-east, nor can we ask more of our forces without giving them the support that we need, and this is where we come to retention. So many forces personnel are leaving because of the conditions they face.”
“Although the pay increases are welcome to our hard-working armed forces—indeed, we also welcome that as Liberal Democrats —we would argue that specific recruitment and retention bonuses would help to accelerate recruitment into the forces. We therefore propose a £10,000 bonus for new recruits who complete their phase 1 and phase 2 training and then serve for two years—that is, their initial commitment. We would also pledge a further £20,000 bonus for those who have left the forces and then return. We could then get them in already trained, so to speak; they would just need to do their annual training to get back up to speed. Those two things, coupled with some of the pay increases that have come through recently, would help with the recruitment pipeline. As hon.”
“I note that the Government hinted in the strategic defence review recently that they might increase the size of the Army at some point—I think the wording was that it would be desirable—but that this must of course fit within our financial envelope. With the new announcement of 3.5% on core defence expenditure, perhaps we could accelerate some of that increase in the size of the Army, because although the SDR was a very good document, I think it represents jam tomorrow, and I would argue that the threat is today—as I think the Government would also accept. In addition to reversing those cuts, the Liberal Democrats would focus on the recruitment problem.”
“There are no alternatives to having boots on the ground. It is only troops that can take and hold territory—and the last time I checked, land is where everybody lives, so that is the decisive domain in warfare. Perhaps more importantly, when we look at how dangerous the world is at the moment, ground troops are what deter, more so than any other type of force—and I for one can think of nothing scarier than a division of Northumbrians, Mackems and Geordies facing me. [ Laughter. ] That is why—from jokes to serious policy—the Liberal Democrats are proposing to reverse the Conservative cuts of 10,000 to our Army.”
“Members have mentioned, it is not just the UK; other European forces also suffer from smaller armies than they should have and problems with recruitment. I am sorry to repeat the words of the Minister back at him, but recently he told the Defence Committee that “more work is needed” to ensure that the UK is ready to fight an enduring war. I would contrast that with the national security strategy published yesterday, which says that we need to be ready to defend our homeland now. I encourage the Government to take away the juxtaposition of those statements and respond. We often hear people say in the media, “Do we need soldiers in an age of cyber, information and space? Perhaps we don’t need people anymore.” This is the siren call about how technology will solve our military problems, but the answer is: yes, we do need those people.”
“The latter has continued and we have lost 2,000 members of the Army since the general election. We are left with the smallest Army since the 1790s. As we know, that is while a war is happening on NATO’s border in Ukraine. I would argue that that decline in our Army has left us dangerously exposed. In addition, only 75% of our troops are medically deployable. When we look at the size of the recruited Army, that is a deployable force of only 52,000, which is incredibly small when one considers how dangerous the world is at the moment. Depending on which figures are to be believed, Russia, by contrast, has 750,000 troops in Ukraine. There is a glaring mismatch. We saw some of that play out in conversations around the coalition of the willing, and whether we could put troops alongside allies in Ukraine. As some other hon.”
“It is as pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) on securing the debate. Few topics are more important for the armed forces than recruitment and its partner, retention, which the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) ably articulated. I am the Liberal Democrat spokesperson today but I am also a proud former soldier. I will try to encompass the whole of the armed forces in my remarks, but my natural tendency is to substitute the word “Army” because that is where I was shaped as a young man. The Army is on its knees. The cuts it faced under the previous Government were as merciless as they were reckless: 10,000 soldiers were cut from the Army, in addition to failing recruitment.”
“I fully welcome the announcement, and I thank the Minister for making the statement. In an age of uncertainty about the reliability of our US ally, it seems an odd choice to be leaning into them, in the sense that we will be dropping dual-key, US-made munitions from these planes. It makes more sense if this is a stepping stone to a fully sovereign UK capability, but that would raise questions about the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Will the Minister comment on whether this is a stepping stone to a fully sovereign UK capability?”
“The strategic defence review mentions that there will be an increase in the size of the Army at some point if funds allow. Does my hon. Friend not agree that, now that we will be spending 3.5% of GDP on defence, we can accelerate that shift and grow the size of the Army now to provide that deterrent effect?”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but does he not now regret his vote to leave, seeing as it created all of these problems for his constituents?”
“I am sure that the Minister is aware that the UK is one of only three countries in Europe that does not offer a lower rate of VAT for hospitality and tourism. For example, France, Italy and Spain charge only 10% on those sectors. Will he consider lowering the rate for those sectors as part of the UK’s VAT regime to give our high streets the boost they need?”
“If you will allow me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will read a small quote from page 10: “We will continue to abide by the important principle—shared by NATO and its key partners—that the security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions are inextricably linked”. But that is not how the US views it. The Trump Administration see them as quite separate, and would prefer the United Kingdom to focus its efforts on the Euro-Atlantic. How does the right hon. Gentleman explain that discrepancy?”
“There is much to like in the statement. I particularly like the reduction in energy costs of between 20% and 25%, but I would like to push the Secretary of State a little on that; so that industry can plan, when does he think those 25% reductions are going to happen?”
“Five months ago, I tabled a written question and the Government responded saying that they would publish next steps at the earliest opportunity. Then two weeks ago I received a reply from the Government to a further communication stating that an update on commencement would be provided in due course. Each communication I receive from the Government is a little vaguer, a little bit less definitive about commencement. Yesterday, at her instigation, I met with the Minister for VAWG and I thought, “Fantastic, finally we will get some answers.” But there was nothing, I am afraid—there was nada, zip. I gently ask the Minister present now—not the Minister for VAWG—what is the point in arranging a meeting if the Government are not going to say anything new to what they have previously said?”
“The Act criminalises harassing, following and shouting degrading comments and making obscene gestures at women and girls in public with the deliberate intention of causing them harm or distress, and it carries a maximum sentence of two years. So I am quite disappointed and confused by the interactions that I have had with the Government on this issue. Every time I have pressed them for an update on commencement, I have not really received a substantive answer. For example, eight months ago I asked a question in this House and received a letter from the Government telling me that the Home Office is making all the necessary arrangements and that I would be contacted when a commencement date is confirmed. As a new MP, I thought this was quite promising.”
“The Act started life as a private Member’s Bill laid by my constituency predecessor, Greg Clark. He was approached by a sixth-former in our constituency who said that she had been harassed while coming home from school. One third of schoolgirls in the United Kingdom say they have been harassed in their school uniforms. We should be ashamed of that statistic, and Greg was ashamed and he took action. The 2023 Act, as passed, creates a specific offence of harassment on account of someone’s sex. Like the new clause I rise to speak in support of, it received cross-party support, including, it must be said, from the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is now the Minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls.”
“I rise to speak in support of new clause 43 in my name and in the name of the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) and of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), both of whom I thank for their support. It is also co-signed by 100 Members from across the House representing our entire political spectrum from almost every party, including many Members of the Labour party. New clause 43 seeks to do something very simple: to commence the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023, which has already received Royal Assent. This Act simply criminalises the harassment of people in public based on their sex, but this is a crime that overwhelmingly affects women so this really is about the criminalisation of harassment of women in public.”
“In the Government’s defence, I do not think that this is a difference in policy; it is a difference in timing, but the timing seems to be very elastic. We seek a definitive time when the Act will be commenced—perhaps the Minister can respond at the Dispatch Box.”
“That is difficult to understand, because I think we all want the same thing. I will conclude. Implementing the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act is an important step in helping the Labour Government to achieve their own manifesto commitments. Let this not be another speech without action. I urge hon. and right hon. Members to vote for new clause 43.”
“One of the things we are trying to do is to change the culture of men in how they act towards women; this Act is a part of that and really does contribute to the Labour Government’s priorities and manifesto. Indeed, the Minister for VAWG sat on the Public Bill Committee for the Act in 2023 and said that the Labour party would work with the then Conservative Government to ensure that the Bill passed without a Division, and so it did. The Government have signalled that they will vote against new clause 43, which has been selected for a vote tonight. When the new clause has cross-party support and the original Act had unanimous cross-party support, why will the Government vote against the new clause? It seems to me that they are voting against their own manifesto and their own commitments while in opposition.”
“I can actually give the hon. Lady a very specific time: it is 21 months to the day since this Act received Royal Assent. If the Minister would be so gracious, we might have from her either a time for commencement or, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow says, a specific problem that is stopping the Act being commenced, rather than some of the more general responses we have had to date. I am doubly disappointed that although this Act was passed in a previous Parliament—expressing the unanimous will of Parliament, as it passed without a Division—it is entirely commensurate with the Labour Government’s policy to halve violence against women and girls. Harassment and violence are on a continuum and a spectrum.”
“Let me take the debate from the north-east to the south-east and Kent. The story that the hon. Lady is telling is very similar to that of the A21 Kippings Cross junction in my constituency. Of course, we have the opposite problem: the houses have all gone in, but none of the infrastructure has been built. Now that the spending review is giving lots of money to northern constituencies—I do follow her argument that they have been under-invested in for some time—what is there for the south-east? Where does the balance lie in catching up on the infrastructure that has not been built in the south-east, while all the houses have been built?”
“My constituent Julian noticed that he had a mole on his chest that was growing and bleeding. Members of his family had died from skin cancer, so he was very concerned and went to his GP. He was referred to the Kent integrated dermatology service and was told that the results would come back in four weeks. They came back in 17 weeks. I know that this issue is of personal concern to the Minister, so would she please investigate what happened and write to me?”
“If we put aside the internecine warfare of the Labour party, the hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about a retreat from the world. Retreating from the world as the west, the UK or the US, opens the door to creating more problems, and then we retreat further. Would he argue that that is what we are doing—vacating the field to our opponents?”
“I want to clarify some of the Minister’s earlier remarks in response to questions from my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and in his previous answer. The Minister said earlier that the trade in goods from settlements attracts a higher tariff. Will he therefore confirm that the British Government, by raising tariffs and taxes on that trade, are making money out of the illegal settlements in the west bank, and does he think that is acceptable?”
“I think we can all agree that we would like a decision to be made in this case that does not encourage the Chinese Government to think that we are a soft touch. Let us try another tack. National security is going to be taken into account as part of this planning decision. I ask the Minister this hypothetical question: if there is only a 1% chance that the granting of this planning application causes some detriment to our national security, would it not be better to take a risk management approach and put the embassy somewhere else?”
“The cut to winter fuel allowance and the subsequent U-turn have caused much anguish, distress and misery to the parliamentary Labour party. Judging by the questions from the Minister’s Back Benchers, it seems that we will have two further U-turns, on PIP and on the two-child benefit cap. To save his colleagues the anguish, will he let us know now when those U-turns are coming?”
“I completely agree that not enough social homes are being built. Does the hon. Lady think we should have a target for social homes in the Bill?”
“I will give another example from Kent. In Tunbridge Wells in my constituency, the River Grom often has very high levels of ammonia due to sewage being dumped in the river. When that is reported to the Environment Agency, it claims a lack of funds, does not send its own investigators and often passes the matter to Southern Water, which is perhaps to blame for the problem in the first place. Does that not contribute to a lack of democratic oversight of our environment?”
“The right hon. Member is making a very important point. This issue is important across the whole socioeconomic spectrum. I had a relatively privileged upbringing, but my first job was washing dishes in a hotel. That job taught me what hard work is. The lessons that we learn in those types of jobs last throughout our lives.”
“His story is the same as the rest of the members of the forum’s. We were so concerned that together we submitted a submission to the Treasury’s consultation on business rates, and I implore the Minister to look that up and read it. I will not go through everything in the consultation, but there are two things I will focus on. The first is investment. The current business rates formula penalises investment. If someone invests in their premises, the rateable value goes up and their taxes go up—it is a tax on investment. The other is online. Amazon pays about 0.37% of its retail sales in business rates. Fuggles pays 3%. That is the exact opposite of what a tax system should do. I implore the Minister to look up the Tunbridge Wells hospitality leaders’ submission to the Treasury’s consultation.”
“Fuggles is great; it is run by Alex and has an extraordinary selection of craft beers, including local ones brewed in the constituency, and a number of gins, so I occasionally visit. Alex employs about 18 people. A number of Members have spoken about business rates relief being cut from 75% to 40%. That single change, announced at the Budget, has pushed up the cost of Alex’s business rates by 50%. To that we must add a number of other costs that have risen at the same time, such as national insurance, and before that, energy costs. An independent bar that employs 18 people, many of them part time—as we know, the NI increase hit many businesses that were employing part-time people in particular—finds it really hard to stay afloat. Alex is a member of the Tunbridge Wells hospitality leaders forum, which I meet regularly.”
“We have to get the balance right between those three things, because often someone will come in for one of the legs of the stool, as it were, but stay to do something else—thus they stay longer and have more touchpoints with their community. Business rates are the foundational tax rate that affects those three things. If business rates are not right, we are not incentivising the right mix in the community—because business rates affect those three things slightly differently—and we are undermining the support that those three things give to the idea of the town centre being a social glue. I am not going to talk about all three things, but I will talk about hospitality. I start with Fuggles bar, which is around the corner from my house in Tunbridge Wells.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) for securing what is probably the most important debate we could have to rejuvenate our town centres. As some hon. and right hon. Members have touched on, town centres are not just a series of business transactions but the centres of our community, where people go to meet friends or to be part of a place where they can do familiar things. It is the social glue that is created by town centres that is so important; once that is lost it does not come back. In every town centre there is a mix of retail, leisure and hospitality.”
“On a point of order, Ms Jardine. It seems that the hon. Gentleman is confused and in the wrong debate. This is a debate about business rates, but he spent his entire time talking about local government sequencing of traffic works.”
“I thank the Chief Secretary for the statement. Giving money out to mayors to fix transport—there is nothing to disagree with in that. Kent, which as he knows is the UK’s strategic corridor to Europe, recently asked for a mayor and was rebuffed. Without a mayor, when will Kent get its money?”
“Recently, General Sir Roly Walker, Chief of the General Staff, said that he was “ashamed” by the stories of sexual misconduct—predominately crimes committed against women in service. He also said that lots of these crimes go unreported, so lots are unknown as well as the terrible ones that are known. How can we have a truly effective independent commissioner if there is no whistleblowing function through which these crimes can be reported?”
“The Minister is being extremely generous, as he always is. I pressed him on this point on the last occasion when we met across the Chamber, but some time has passed since then. He speaks of dealing with the issue “in the round”, which is a sentiment that I understand, but when? Can he give a timetable?”
“It is not just the House as a whole; the Defence Committee also was not given advance sight of the report. Committee members were left texting journalists over the weekend to find out what was going on. At the beginning of this Parliament, the Defence Secretary committed to the Defence Committee that he would be more open and more transparent, and reset the relationship with the Committee. Does the Leader of the House think that the Secretary of State is living up to his commitment to be more transparent, after what has happened today?”
“I am in favour of this new method of delivery, which gives us more options and probably makes it less likely in the long run that nuclear weapons will be used. However, cost is key, and with 20% of the defence budget already taken up by the defence nuclear enterprise, it is clear that our conventional capabilities are suffering. Can the Minister tell us whether the increased cost of these new warheads will come out of the Ministry of Defence’s budget, or out of a special Treasury reserve, as has sometimes been the case previously?”
“This defence review gives us a long shopping list of technological advances—the cyber command, digital backbone, drones, AI—and that is right and proper, but the British military is tiny. Recently, the Select Committee heard that if we had to fight tonight, we could scratch together five ships and 30 planes. The person who told us that was the former head of the MOD’s own strategic net assessment office. Does the Secretary of State agree that the lesson from Ukraine is that to fight and win wars, we need to have a mass of force—a large force—with tech that is good enough, rather than a small, perfectly formed, high-tech force? Is that lesson being heeded in the review?”
“We must have proper local consultation to ensure that the £23 million is spent appropriately and responsibly by the Reform administration in Kent. With the right investment and priorities, focused on children, the elderly and healthcare, we can bring in a network that brings people together and does not leave them behind.”
“Such measures are absolutely essential, but we must go further; we need to restore and expand services to tackle frustration and isolation. I welcome the £23 million pledged by the Government to Kent county council for bus service improvement, but that was under the Conservatives. Reform is now running Kent county council, but frankly I would not trust it to run a bath. Its priorities are not public services. Last night we saw the announcement of a DOGE—a department of government efficiency—starting at Kent county council. That is a bit of a joke when we consider that the new Reform administration decided to cancel the first iteration of the audit and governance committee; one assumes that would fulfil the same function as a DOGE.”
“The 255 once connected Hawkhurst to Lamberhurst to Tunbridge Wells, but its removal now cuts communities off from rail, shops, pharmacies, GPs and each other. There is no bus at all to Ashurst, a village five miles from Tunbridge Wells, the nearest shopping and rail centre. Parents drop children to neighbouring villages to catch the bus to school, but still pay £500 for the privilege. My constituents are waiting for buses that never come, or watching their routes disappear. Over 25% of passengers in Kent are dissatisfied with their bus service and 27% of buses are either late or cancelled. That is why I welcome the provisions in the Bill to empower local authorities to protect socially necessary routes—those that get people to school, healthcare or work.”
“In Tunbridge Wells, the 289 no longer runs on weekends, isolating residents from Southborough to Showfields. People can commute to work, they might be able to squeeze in a shop on a Tuesday and perhaps they could meet some friends for a drink on a Friday, but if they want to go out on Saturday, they are stuck. There is no bus and no connection—nowhere to go. For those who do not have time to shop or socialise during the week, it is tough luck. In Paddock Wood, a town of 7,500 people, there is no direct service to Pembury hospital on a Sunday. What message does that send to NHS workers and patients without cars? The lack of weekend service is a constituency-wide issue that disproportionately affects the elderly, disabled people and low-income families. It is not just inconvenient—it is unfair. Rural villages have seen services slashed.”