Dr Ellie Chowns
MP for North Herefordshire · Green Party · United Kingdom
“Potholes are the bane of all our lives, including for my constituents, but I have a cunning plan: we could fix potholes much faster by tapping into the superpowers of bin men and women. Bin lorries travel every road every week.”
“I completely agree. To do that, we need to think long-term. We do not do well enough in this country at thinking long-term, or beyond the next election cycle. We need to think of the next generation. What sort of world do we want to bequeath to them?”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) for securing this extremely important and highly topical debate. Having had three heatwaves in less than three months, we are all more than aware of the reality of extreme heat.”
“We have to enable everybody in the country to stay healthy in the extremes of heat that we are increasingly seeing so that they do not have to go into hospital in the first place.”
“As we have seen, there is international precedent and huge levels of support across the country We also need to recognise that we must build the long-term resilience that we require. As a country, we do not yet have an adaptation plan that is fit for purpose, or the co-ordination that is needed.”
“I have heard from parents who are deeply concerned, both about school closures and about schools not closing when their kids are struggling to learn in conditions of extreme heat, and from people who are desperately concerned about our health infrastructure, social care and homes.”
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“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford, and an honour to follow the contributions by the right hon. Members for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) and for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell). I thank the former for securing this very important debate. It is shocking that we are in this position—that a Labour Government, who are supposed to share the principles of concern for the vulnerable, for equality and for solidarity, are the Government who have presided over the biggest ever single cut to the UK aid budget. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield mentioned, aid, our investment as a country in international development, has historically been a matter of cross-party consensus. That is crucial.”
“That is not just about aid; it is about engagement with the debt crisis and with our trading relationships, and it means that we need to look at new sources of funding, such as “polluter pays” taxes, to generate new streams of revenue to invest in these lifesaving and life-changing programmes. But one thing must be clear: we cannot cut aid and expect to build a more secure world. This aid cut—this shameful Labour aid cut—makes the world a less secure place for us and for the millions of people directly affected. I very much hope that the new Labour Government will reverse course.”
“That was one month after Donald Trump returned to the White House and two days before the Prime Minister went to the White House, touting this aid cut and redirection of funding into defence, as part of his strategy for sucking up to Donald Trump. Look how well that worked. It did not—it was never going to. This country has betrayed its proud record of supporting international solidarity, and for what? It is crucial that we move back towards investing in aid, because it is lifesaving, because it is the long-term investment that we need to make the world a safer and more secure place, and because international solidarity has to be part of our identity as a country.”
“We know how to build longer-term programmes, how to work better with local partners, and how to channel money in ways that are focused on outcomes rather than just on bean counting. We know all that, and we have been doing it for decades—yet what has happened? The rug has been pulled out from under aid, and for what purpose? To put the money into defence spending, which, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) pointed out, has itself too often been a black hole, with cancelled programme after cancelled programme costing billions. In the aid sector, we have focused on results and on outcomes. No other sector is so closely focused on results. Why was that done? Let us remember that this aid cut was put in place on 25 February 2025.”
“I thank the hon. Member. We know that aid works; I have seen it myself. I worked in international development for several decades before coming to this place. I have seen, in Malawi, how the provision of clean water literally saves lives. I have seen, in Burundi, how work on HIV and AIDS literally saves lives. I have seen in northern Uganda how investment in conflict resolution, conflict prevention and rehabilitation of child soldiers works to rebuild lives and livelihoods. I have seen, in the Philippines, how international aid has helped a community devastated by a tornado to rebuild lives and livelihoods. Aid works. No, it is not perfect—of course it is not. Yes, we do need to do better. Yes, we know how to do that.”
“The argument that aid is only a small part of the solution to global poverty and inequality is not a controversial one, but lower-middle income countries have not been calling for the change that the hon. Member’s Government have delivered: the biggest slash in the aid budget altogether. If he believes that aid expenditure and development investment need to be done slightly differently, let us make the argument for that, but cutting it should play no part in the sorts of changes he talks about.”
“A high proportion of my constituents proudly serve in our armed forces or are veterans. They want to know that the investment in the DIP is being spent cost-effectively. Given that more than half the capital budget is to be spent on the Defence Nuclear Enterprise—more than on every other bit of technology, equipment and kit for the entire armed forces put together—can the Secretary of State assure me that value for money analysis has been undertaken in line with the Treasury Green Book, and will he improve parliamentary scrutiny?”
“I welcome that the Government have accepted all of the Rycroft review’s recommendations, but as Rycroft himself noted, his terms of reference did not enable him to look at all sources of distortion in our democracy. It does not just come from abroad. In a democracy, every voter’s voice should count equally, but it is clear that billionaires are buying influence. Why will the Minister not set a cap on all donations, so that we can eliminate the corrosive and corrupting influence of big money in our politics?”
“Small rural businesses in villages such as Pembridge in my constituency tell me that the combination of high business and VAT rates and rising national insurance contributions means they are facing a struggle for survival. Small rural businesses face greater pressure than their urban counterparts, with lower footfall and seasonal fluctuations in trade, so they operate with very tight margins. Does the Minister recognise the additional pressures faced by such businesses and that existing support schemes simply are not enough, and what more will he do to support businesses in constituencies such as mine?”
“Our constituents’ needs for us to serve and represent them absolutely can fill every moment available, and more. It is utterly shocking to me that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)—and yes, I notified him that I would be naming him in this debate—has apparently raked in £2 million over his past two years of “service” as a Member of Parliament. Just yesterday we heard that he was paid £270,000 for 12 hours of work. It is frankly obscene—”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for securing this very important debate. Serving as a Member of Parliament is a huge honour and a privilege. It is more than a full-time job—and it should be, because it is a job that is about public service. That should be the only reason that anybody puts themselves forward for election to this place, and it should be the only reason that anybody has the privilege of serving in this place. One hundred per cent of our available time, energy and skill should be focused on serving our constituents—that and absolutely nothing else. It is really very simple: there should be no time available in an MP’s day for doing a second job, still less 16 second jobs.”
“Otherwise, there is a total conflict of interest: are we serving ourselves or serving the public? We must be here to serve the public. I call on the Minister and the next Prime Minister to finally end this outrageous, obscene anachronism. We must not count on the individual conscience of every Member, given that we can clearly see, unfortunately, that a tiny handful do not share a commitment to public service. Let us ensure that the baseline and benchmark is that nobody has a second job, and that everybody who has the honour of being here is 100% focused on serving our constituents.”
“Let us call a spade a spade. If somebody is doing this sort of “work”, for these sorts of sums, there can be only one motivation: personal enrichment and greed. That has no place in a public servant, still less a public servant who has the honour of serving as one of just 650 MPs in this House, the mother of Parliaments. We must stop it. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Leeds East: we need a full ban on second jobs. Yes, we hope that Members will bring outside experience into Parliament, but let us achieve that by electing a far more diverse range of people, from all walks of life, to have the honour of serving here, and let us take steps in our parties to ensure that we do so. But once we are here, 100% of our time, energy and effort should be focused on serving our constituents.”
“And, indeed, immoral that somebody is earning more in a couple of hours than the average person—well, more than the average person; nurses, teachers and others who dedicate their lives to public service—will in a year. It is extraordinary that in this day and age, this is still allowed. I agree with the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) that it is a hangover from centuries past. It is totally inappropriate for a modern Parliament. One hundred per cent of our time and energy should be focused on serving our constituents. Why is it that this total anachronism endures and that those who do not have the interests of public service at heart are able to waft about doing all sorts of other things that do not contribute to the public interest whatsoever, but are motivated solely by what is simply personal greed?”
“It is, however, worth nothing if he does not follow up with action and use every lever in this Government’s power to follow through, to put pressure on the Israeli Government and to ensure that the rights of Palestinians are upheld.”
“Frankly, I despair. I have lost count of the number of times that I and others across this entire House have come here to press the Minister to put in place a full ban on settlement trade and the number of times he has prevaricated. I have lost count of the number of times that he has wrung his hands, made statements of concern, expressed worry and condemnation and yet refused to do what he claims he will do, because he has talked about acting with alacrity and using all the leverage we have, and yet he does not. If E1 goes ahead, that will be the death knell for the prospect of the Palestinian state that he, all Labour MPs and so many of us are so proud of this Government for recognising last year.”
“Will he commit to coming back to the Chamber, reporting and holding himself to account on changing those racial disparities and ensuring true equity in healthcare?”
“I welcome Baroness Amos’s investigation, which has shone a light on the fact that these failings in maternity services are not isolated to one hospital or another, but exist across the piece. The Secretary of State rightly identifies that culture is at the centre of this issue, and that we must listen to the voices of women and of whistleblowers. That applies not just to maternity services, but across the NHS and, indeed, in public life more widely. The Secretary of State has spoken about accountability starting from the top, but I noticed that he swerved the question about whether he would come back to the House to report on progress against the goals he has set himself. It is shocking and shameful that black women are three times more likely than white women to die in maternity.”
“What matters is not just how much we spend on defence, but what we spend it on and whether the Government’s choices offer good value for money. I am therefore deeply concerned that more than half the capital budget is for the nuclear programme. More will be spent on a handful of submarines and unusable warheads than on every single other bit of kit and technology for all the armed forces. Does the Secretary of State not recognise the glaring inconsistency between his rhetoric about a flexible, agile, future-focused armed forces and the reality of pouring billions of good money after bad into the black hole of cold war technology, instead of investing in true security?”
“A couple of weeks ago, I spent time with the London ambulance service, which told me that the May heatwave saw its highest number of ambulance call-outs, even including covid, and that terrible record was exceeded last week. We have to recognise the reality of the effects on human life and livelihoods and the effects on our national security and resilience caused by these issues. This is not just about the health effects. I spoke to numerous constituents over the weekend about the effects that the appalling temperatures faced by our students are having on schools. Clearly, we need urgently to put in place maximum temperatures for schools and workplaces and take action to ensure that that is followed through.”
“It is not just the environmentalists but the ambulance workers who say that, and the Joint Intelligence and Security Committee’s national security assessment itself says that ecosystem breakdown poses a clear threat to national security. The Committee on Climate Change has pointed out that we are woefully ill-prepared as a country for the effects of climate breakdown. We urgently need to take more action to avoid causing climate change. Equally, we urgently need to take far more action to recognise the threat to our national security and resilience posed by the effects of climate breakdown. That was brought home to us in hugely clear terms last week, as we faced the second major heatwave of the last month or so. That heatwave led to record call-outs for the ambulance service—even more than under covid.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for introducing the debate so well. He makes many excellent points, including that we face a wide range of threats to our security and resilience. Clearly, we face threats from hostile actors and not just through conventional means: he talked about cyber-warfare and the threat of disinformation. He briefly touched on the effects of the pandemic on our country. The covid pandemic, which killed nearly a quarter of a million people, was the greatest threat to human health for many decades. Recognising pandemic preparedness as hugely important within the security and resilience framework is key. Another key threat to our country’s security and resilience, which does not receive nearly enough attention, is climate breakdown.”
“We need to strengthen our transport infrastructure, energy infrastructure and water infrastructure. Last week, we heard about nuclear power stations going offline in France. Train companies were saying that nobody should travel unless it was a matter of life and death. Water shortages are becoming more and more frequent. The collective, long-term and strategic approach to tackling climate resilience must be a core plank of national security. Tackling climate breakdown is not just an environmental issue but a central plank of security and national resilience. The costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of taking action now. Will the Minister commit to putting in place a national strategy? Will there be an individual identified in the Cabinet Office who leads on it? Does she recognise that we must invest now or pay far worse costs later?”
“This is not a siloed issue and cannot be dealt with in one single Department; it needs a cross-Government approach. We need a comprehensive strategy to prepare the NHS for new public health challenges. We need to invest in flood protection, because we face not just extreme heat but flooding incidents of increasing frequency and severity. We have all seen what a disastrous effect that has on the economy as well as on lives and livelihoods. We need to develop a comprehensive extreme heat strategy, a national drought plan and a farmer-led transition to climate-resilient food production. Our farmers are crying out for that support, and they too are on the frontline of the security and resilience challenges that the reality of climate breakdown places on us.”
“Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) made that point previously in relation to other security challenges, and it applies with knobs on to tackling the challenge of climate breakdown. Twenty years ago, Professor Nick Stern set out clearly that the costs of inaction far outweigh—many times over—the costs of action to address these risks. After 20 years of our heads collectively being in the sand as a country, we are reaping the whirlwind of that inaction. I call on the Government and the Cabinet Office to recognise the reality that tackling climate resilience must be a central plank of any strategy to protect national security and resilience. We need a Minister in the Cabinet Office whose responsibility it is to put in place that work and to take a cross-Government approach.”
“I honestly do not recognise the caricature that the right hon. Gentleman paints. Technology exists to provide both heating and cooling in ecologically friendly ways, and that is absolutely what we need going forward. We need far better building standards so that we build buildings that adapt and are suitable, and we need homes that are fit for the future. That is essential. The Committee on Climate Change—the Government’s independent adviser—has set out repeatedly that these solutions are available and has set out the things that we need to put forward. The Committee has also set out repeatedly, as have any number of people over any number of years, the fact that the costs of inaction far exceed those of action. The hon.”
“One of the key points that I tried to get across in my speech is that this has to be a whole-of-Government effort. DEFRA cannot put in place a strategy to adapt the health service to the reality of climate change. It cannot put in place a strategy to adapt our schools, our transport infrastructure or our energy infrastructure to the reality of climate change. Does the Minister not recognise that this has to be a whole-of-Government effort, and that it is not something that DEFRA can hold? That is precisely why we need a Cabinet Office Minister to lead on climate resilience.”
“I thank the hon. Member for securing this really important debate. One of my constituents, who is a DES daughter, came to see me, and she reported that her mother’s health records were lost when her GP moved back in the 1970s. Does the hon. Member share my concern that a key issue here is that the lack of effective recordkeeping and the loss or destruction of records over time make it harder and harder to trace causal effects? Does she agree that we want to hear from the Minister what allowances will be made for this record-keeping issue in addressing the long-term impacts of DES on those daughters and grandchildren?”
“Her words—that there is more that unites us than divides us—should be a lodestar for all of us in politics, reminding us that we need to work to seek the common ground, emphasise where we can work together, and not be constantly putting ourselves in binary opposition to one another, creating polarisation and deepening our difficulties. We can change our political culture by adopting proportional representation. It is not a silver bullet to transform every part of our politics, but it will certainly make a key difference.”
“All that is why proportional representation offers the solution. It is the antithesis to first past the post. Where first past the post is unfair, proportional representation is fair, because every vote counts equally. Where first past the post is unpopular, proportional representation is popular, because people recognise that it will ensure that their voices are heard. And it is effective, which is why it has been adopted across the vast majority of OECD countries. This country is an outlier in sticking with tired, old and broken first past the post. Proportional representation yields politics, a political culture and governance that require people to talk to and listen to each other, and that require us to seek the common ground. Just last week, the House was celebrating the memory of Jo Cox.”
“A majority across all five parties is a degree of political consensus that we as politicians should listen to. The next reason why first past the post does not work is that it does not work on its own terms. Back in the day, decades ago, it was argued that first past the post leads to stable government and stability in policy making, but that is completely belied by the experience of our politics, which we have seen year after year, week after week, day after day—indeed, this week. We must recognise that first past the post does not work in a multi-party political system. And we are in a multi-party political system: we are no longer in the old two-party system, and there is no going back to that. We need to recognise that, respond to what voters and the public want, and move forward.”
“They want a politics in which people with differing ideas sit around a table, have a decent, grown-up conversation, put all the good ideas into the pot and work out what is best for the country—a politics in which policies are motivated by the public interest, not by party political interests, and certainly not by the choices that so many seem to be forced into in our current system, in which policies are put forward on the basis that they will appeal to a certain small proportion of voters in a certain small proportion of seats at the next general election. Such short-termism poisons and undermines our politics, which is why voters themselves recognise that it is time for change. A majority of people who support every single one of the five main parties in the UK now say that it is time to shift to proportional representation.”
“It is because they perceive how the system is poisoning our politics—how this binary, polarised, winner-takes-all politics means that we do not have the politics that people want. Time after time voters say to me on the doorstep that they do not want the bear-pit politics they see at Prime Minister’s questions.”
“Member for Richmond Park set out, it can generate a 100% majority on just half of the vote. That clearly leaves far too many voters unrepresented, in the sense that their voices are not heard by the people who are elected to hold power and who have influence. That is something we can and must fix, because what principle could be more basic in a democracy than the principle that everybody’s vote counts equally? If we believe in that fundamental principle, we have to recognise the urgency of moving to proportional representation. First past the post is not just unfair because it leads to completely skewed results; it is also unpopular. According to the latest British social attitudes survey, only just over a third of voters now want to retain the system. Why is that?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important debate and the hon. Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) for setting out so clearly that this is not an issue that sits on party lines. It is about the fundamental quality of our democracy and the fundamental question: are voters being adequately represented by our system? It is clear that the first-past-the-post system is broken. We have a problem with political trust in this country, and the voting system is part of that. Why is first past the post broken? It is clearly fundamentally unfair. In general elections, it has generated a two-thirds majority on just one third of the vote; in some local elections, as the hon.”
“As a Green, I would like there to be no more elections under first past the post in the UK, but it would be hugely dangerous to go into the next general election under that system, because we face the very real prospect of a Government being elected with a huge majority of MPs and a small minority of votes. That should concentrate the minds of everyone in this Chamber.”
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman that changing the voting system will not in itself transform our political culture. We need to do many other things, including get big money and disinformation out of politics, but changing our voting system is a key plank of that. I recognise that, as the hon. Member for Falkirk mentioned, the Labour party does not feel that it currently has a manifesto mandate to implement proportional representation—I am deeply saddened by that—but it has a manifesto mandate to take strong action to tackle the breakdown of trust in our politics.”
“I have campaigned for it for many years, and I welcome the fact that so many in Labour and other parties campaign for it, too. But there are specific things that this Government can do right now. There is a cross-party call for a national commission on electoral reform, which the Government could take forward today. That would enable us to have a national conversation about how to make our democracy genuinely work for everybody, involving citizens’ voices and the voices of those with expertise, who can bring ideas from international counterparts. We must have that conversation. We cannot stay asleep at the wheel, drifting into ever-more polarised politics, ever-less representation and ever-poorer electoral systems that do not serve the fundamental principle of democracy that we should all hold dear: every vote should count equally.”
“All the arguments I have made in the last five minutes have been about the systemic, principled reasons for change; they are not views about one particular party. I will be absolutely clear that I hugely fear the prospect of a Reform Government, and I will do everything I can to stop that. It would be hugely dangerous for this country. But the argument for proportional representation is about the representation of everybody, including people with whose views I completely disagree. If they have a degree of support in the country, they should be represented in proportion to that. The point is that under a proportional system, those of us who want to work together for the common good of the country would be able to do so. The principle of proportional representation is core to the Green party’s DNA.”
“It is disappointing that the Government sadly got off on the wrong foot with farmers, but I hope today marks something of a turning point. We need two things from the Government. First, we need regulation that works for farmers, with a level playing field. That means consistently applied regulation across the country and internationally. We cannot have our farmers undercut by imports produced to lower standards. Secondly, we need investment in farming, to enable farmers to transition to more nature-friendly and river-friendly methods, and to support the security and sustainability of farming in the UK.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I will be brief. It is wonderful that we are having this debate, and indeed that we had today’s statement, although sadly I was not able to be in the Chamber to hear it. We need to recognise that farmers are central to our health, wellbeing and security as a nation, for three reasons. The first is good food: we need to produce as much of our food as possible as locally as possible. The second is good land: we need to care for our land; after all, it is the soil on which everything that farmers produce depends. The third is good livelihoods: rural farming communities, such as mine in North Herefordshire, are entirely interlinked with health, wellbeing, and financial and ecological sustainability.”
“Does the hon. Member not recognise: first, that correlation is not causation; and secondly, that there was a financial crisis caused by outrageous speculation and a lack of control of the financial markets, and that is at the core of the problems we face today?”
“Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise the reality that the main factor that has driven up energy costs in the last few years has been Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine? Policy costs are a small proportion of energy prices and gas determines the electricity price, which is the—”
“The G7 summit took place in a country in the grip of an extreme heatwave—a heatwave that is now hitting the UK this week—yet climate change was not on the agenda, despite the fact that the climate crisis has huge impacts on human health and economic security. Why are the G7 asleep at the wheel with their heads buried in the sand? Could it possibly be that they were appeasing one Donald J. Trump, and have we not already learned that appeasing Trump never works? Will the Deputy Prime Minister assure me that, whoever the next Prime Minister is, the UK will show the leadership needed here in the UK and on the global stage to tackle the climate crisis?”
“It is strongly called for by British citizens, who care—people in this country really care about the standards under which our goods and services are produced. We see that in the strong outcry about the continued import of goods and services from stolen land in Israeli settlements in the west bank; in the outcry over the import of goods that are produced under slave labour conditions by Uyghurs in China; and in the outcry over the import of goods and services that result in deforestation, environmental devastation and climate damage. It is time for the Government to act, and I very much hope that the Minister will assure us that they will do so soon.”
“The Good Business Matters pledge has secured cross-party support from over 80 MPs and peers from eight different political parties. We also have public support: 145,000 citizens have signed a petition calling for such legislation, and a YouGov survey indicates that three quarters of the British population support stronger legislation in this area. In summary, introducing mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation is not only the right thing to do to protect the environment and human rights around the world and to be consistent; it is good for our economy. We miss out on opportunities by not adopting such legislation. It is called for urgently by major businesses that want the Government to support them in showing leadership in this area.”
“As we have also heard, over 160 businesses and investors representing trillions of pounds of investment are calling for the failure to prevent liability model. That failure to prevent model is what underpins the Bribery Act 2010. We already have the legal model in UK legislation that we can adopt in the same way. We do not have to reinvent the wheel; it is simply about applying the wheel more consistently. Three parliamentary Committees have already recommended this. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has specifically recommended legislation modelled on the failure to prevent framework of the Bribery Act 2010. We have business calling for that legislation. We have parliamentary Committees and parliamentarians calling for it.”
“A clear majority of businesses surveyed by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law believe that current UK laws do not provide clarity or sufficient legal certainty on human rights obligations. Nearly three quarters of UK businesses believe that additional regulation would provide benefits, including greater legal certainty and a level playing field. Indeed, I met with people from a large business in my own constituency just a couple of weeks ago who made exactly that point. A level playing field is needed. Business is calling for it. As has already been reflected, major businesses including the British Retail Consortium, John Lewis Partnership, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Twinings are all calling for new mandatory due diligence laws on human rights and the environment.”
“The EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive will apply, of course, to UK companies that generate significant turnover in EU markets, meaning that UK businesses will face mandatory due diligence obligations abroad without equivalent domestic standards at home. That does not make sense. The UK would be better able to produce and sell goods and services in the EU single market, as well as continue to position itself strongly as a global leader on human rights, if we had our own mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence legislation. It is not just campaigners who are calling for that; business is calling for a new law.”
“Single-issue measures such as robust legislation to prevent and address modern slavery, including through import and export restrictions of goods and services that involve forced labour, are useful but not in themselves sufficient to address the full range of human rights and environmental risks and harms. In particular, if they require companies only to report, rather than to take action, they do not have the force that we need. The UK risks falling behind its international partners. The UK was once a frontrunner on environmental and human rights legislation, but progress has stalled.”