Gideon Amos
MP for Taunton and Wellington · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He reminds me that, frankly, I struggle with the fact that such a momentous and significant policy instrument is going through Parliament without a vote.”
“Together, the existing and proposed frameworks begin to look like a greenfield-first approach. The golden rules, which would rightly require more affordable and social housing where green belt is released, are absolutely right. But the Government have consulted on allowing viability assessments to potentially undermine that.”
“Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills put across very well, the 75,000 new dwellings will come as a surprise in terms of population growth compared with what has ever been achieved in the past. Urban areas where regeneration is needed have seen their targets reduced.”
“The proposed framework comes off the back of the recent regulations and direction that mean that decisions, both small and large, are now removed from local councillors, so that they have no power or control over those decisions.”
“Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills pointed out, policy F5, paragraph 2(b)(ii), would create a new exemption from the sequential test for sites at risk of surface water flooding. As my hon.”
“The same instinct runs through proposals on the weight to be given to different policy considerations, giving the same weight to housing, economic development, and heritage and landscape, leaving Historic England to raise concerns about how those will be balanced.”
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“The Minister is being generous in giving way. As he knows, we fundamentally disagree with these proposals. He has just illustrated the point that councillors will be reduced to the same role as members of the public: they may make representations, but that is it.”
“One of the key routes into employment that youth hubs can provide is supported internships. Will the Minister congratulate Young Somerset on helping people who have been failed by the education system into secure employment through supported internships? Will someone from the ministerial team meet me and Young Somerset to discuss cuts in funding and the reduction of those supported internships?”
“Any proposals to restart fracking pose real dangers to Somerset, and constituents of Taunton and Wellington would bear all the risk: the earth tremors, the industrialisation of our rolling hills and the threat to the River Tone, while the financial gains would flow only to the oil and gas executives and to their backers. The seventh carbon budget provides the continuity of trajectory that lower bills and a stable climate depend upon, but we must go further. We must reject the dangerous alternatives from the Conservatives and Reform, and say no to fracking our wonderful countryside.”
“Near my constituency in Somerset, shale gas licences were obtained, including for Quantoxhead and around Brent Knoll, just 16 miles from a nuclear power station and not far at all from my town of Taunton. The Reform party said that it would be negligent not to frack. Under their current leader, the Conservatives have recently opened the door to fracking, saying that it will form part of the mix, just as Liz Truss did during her short period in office. Fracking in Lancashire, let us remember, triggered 200 seismic events of magnitudes up to 2.9, which were felt across the whole Fylde coast. My neighbours in Taunton and Wellington want nothing to do with fracking, and certainly not just outside our town.”
“Our essential energy guarantee would discount half of bills right now, but we need to do more. Tidal range could have been generating more than Hinkley C, had the previous Conservative Government supported that proposal when it came up. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) was absolutely right to say in her excellent speech that community energy could be playing a much bigger part. One thing that Reform and the Conservatives have not talked about today is that their alternatives do not just mean more and more burning of oil and gas, despite the global warming we are experiencing today; they also want to frack our beautiful countryside to burn even more gas.”
“I support these measures. Contrary to what some have said in the Chamber today, the UK Energy Research Centre has found that two thirds of the increase in electricity bills since 2021 has been driven by wholesale gas prices. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) was right, when he was Energy Secretary, to play his part in leading the UK to becoming the world leader in offshore wind. He was right—as, to be fair, was the Prime Minister—to oppose the reckless and illegal war in the middle east, which has driven up prices. It is crucial that we break the reliance on gas to bring down our energy bills. Our Liberal Democrat plan to halve energy bills in 10 years depends on doing just that.”
“On rural and private land, the Environment Agency in my constituency has said that there is a gap in regulation when it comes to privately owned sites that are used for one purpose initially but gradually accumulate waste and become fly-tipping destinations. The Environment Agency has no power to act against that because it is private land, and councils are also struggling to find the right approach. Does the hon. Lady consider that as a significant issue in rural constituencies such as mine?”
“Will the Minister say a little more about the kinds of landlords that the draft regulations will apply to, which he said will come out in due course? Is the metric to do with the scale of the landlord or a type of landlord? It would be helpful to know a little more on that front. Otherwise, we are willing to support the statutory instrument.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. On the parent Act to this instrument, the Liberal Democrats campaigned in favour of ending no-fault evictions, and we were pleased to support the Bill to bring that about and bring those to an end. We support the principle of the landlord redress scheme, although we did push for the Government to go further on protecting renters and on the private rental database, including more records of landlords, on rent smoothing and so on. We believe that the redress system should extend to providing redress against excessive rent increases above and beyond the pertaining Bank of England rate of interest. That is in our rent-smoothing proposals. None the less, we support the draft enabling regulations for the redress scheme.”
“Can this House have a debate on the proposed new national planning policy framework, which is more far-reaching than the recent Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025?”
“In Taunton and Wellington, people recognise the need for new homes, and indeed have supported thousands of new homes. Taunton is the town that has grown most in the south-west—its population growth is 2% ahead of the national average. However, we do not accept the blinkered idea that that cannot go hand in hand with protecting our most precious green spaces, although the proposed new national planning policy framework will make that so much harder. The longest established environmental development charity in the world, the Town and Country Planning Association, has called the framework an unprecedented change. The public are debating it, and the Government are consulting on it.”
“Landlords who repeatedly offend should lose their premises for at least two years; the premises should be handed over to the local council to be let out at reduced rents to genuine local businesses that play by the rules. The changes that the Home Secretary recently announced cannot come soon enough, but the Government should be much bolder. The Liberal Democrats want to see more police on our streets to restore proper community policing; swifter closure orders and notices, lasting up to seven days, with an end to the burden of paperwork that they currently generate, which slows our police officers down; and penalties for landlords who repeatedly turn a blind eye to whom they are renting their properties. These criminal gangs must be given no quarter in Taunton and Wellington or any other town centre in the country.”
“Our changes would mean that officers are able to close premises quickly and easily, reducing the criminal scope for phoenixing—setting up premises quickly under a different company—and constraining the ability to set up nearby alternative premises. The current law allowing closure notices—section 76 of the 2014 Act—restricts the grounds to nuisance and disorder. Criminal activity is not mentioned, so a new law would correct that omission. Measures need to be taken against landlords who repeatedly rent their units to dodgy companies carrying out illegal activity. My Somerset councillor colleagues, supported by trading standards, have called for civil penalties against landlords who knowingly let their premises be used for illegal trading. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute has also made that point.”
“The Liberal Democrats propose giving officers the power to close down premises using closure notices for seven days, not just 72 hours. More importantly, they would not have to apply to the courts for an order, as is currently required under section 80 of the 2014 Act, safeguarded by the requirement that the superintendent must have evidence of more than one instance of illegal activity and by right of appeal to the courts. Police officers would then not have the onerous task of preparing an application to the court every time they encounter illegal trading and want to halt it, as they are currently required to do under section 80.”
“The Liberal Democrats welcome those changes, but we want the Government to go further. Under Liberal Democrat plans, councils would be given the power to issue closure orders to more swiftly shut down any shops engaging in criminality. Those powers would be expanded to ensure that repeat offenders’ premises are closed down permanently, and those whose ownership is under question would remain shut until the owner comes forward and faces up to the law. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a return to proper community policing, which must mean giving the bobby on the ground more powers to deal with this menace more easily and, crucially, with less paperwork. Officers currently spend almost half their shift on paperwork, but we all want them out and about in our communities.”
“Polling commissioned by the Liberal Democrats found that three in five Brits want to see more power to control the number of vape shops on their high streets. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute has pointed out that we need properly resourced trading standards services, which means tackling the local government funding crisis—particularly the social care funding crisis, which is a burden under which councils such as Somerset are struggling. Through the Crime and Policing Act 2026, the Government increased the duration of temporary closure notices from 48 hours to 72 hours by amending the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and they have recently said that they will extend closure orders from six months to 12 months to give investigators more time to pursue prosecutions.”
“Thanks to a local publican in my constituency, who came forward with vital information back in 2024, I raised illegal trading in Taunton and Wellington with Somerset trading standards and local police. I pay tribute to police officers such as Andy, the trading standards officers and my Lib Dem Somerset councillor colleagues, who oversaw the work that led to a number of high-profile closures in Taunton. Taunton Market, Mr Taunton and Top Market have rightly been closed down, as has the Danya Store in Wellington only last week, following just the kind of crackdown that was needed and that I have supported. It cannot be said too often to anyone flouting these laws in Taunton and Wellington or anywhere across the country: illegal trading is not welcome—you will be closed down and you will be prosecuted. But we need to go further.”
“The hollowing-out of our police force by the previous Government has allowed organised crime gangs to gain far too much of a foothold in our communities, with local communities paying the price. Let us make no mistake: organised crime sits behind and at the top of all this, either employing or—quite often—exploiting migrants as suits their purposes and to do their dirty work. A recent BBC investigation found someone trying to sell a shop to its undercover reporter for £18,000; a Facebook group listing dozens of mini-marts, barbers, car washes and takeaways for sale; ghost directors charging illegal workers up to £300 a month to register mini-marts in their names; and people working 14-hour shifts in mini-marts for only £4 an hour.”
“Members for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) and for Halesowen also pointed out that landlords need to be tackled; I will return to that later, as I will to the point made by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders) about the burdensome need to go to court to follow through with these orders. High streets are the heart of our communities, and we cannot allow them to become sites of decline. Both Taunton and Wellington have a fabulous range of independent traders, shopkeepers and publicans, who are making ends meet in a financial climate made much harder by recent tax increases. Footfall in Taunton, however, is up by 4.6% in large part due to their efforts. The Government must be on their side, and we must be clear that criminality on our high streets will not be tolerated.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) on securing this important debate and the constructive manner in which he introduced the subject, which is important for many Members across the House. I thank many hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) highlighted the securing of action against illegal trading in Honiton High Street. I took note of the comments made by the hon. Members for Thurrock (Jen Craft) and for Carlisle (Ms Minns) about planning controls, screening windows and changes of use in planning conditions; I am supportive of those approaches. The hon.”
“I am very grateful. I just want to clarify one point about planning controls. Key points were made about whether shops are actually shops if their windows are completely covered. If planning guidance was changed, that might open the way for enforcement under the existing system. Will the Minister get that message through to MHCLG?”
“Although we support the spirit of there being spatial development strategies for strategic authorities, we are unable to support the regulations, given the huge extra burden on county councils and unitary authorities, as we raised during the passage of the Bill. In addition, we do not feel that the regulations have a sufficiently “brownfield first” approach. During the passage of the Bill, we also highlighted the lack of any statutory right to be heard in the plan-making process. The SDS gives us further cause for concern about the implementation of that aspect of the Planning and Infrastructure Act.”
“It is not reasonable to, at the same time, expect county councils or unitary authorities, acting on their own, to begin work on a spatial development strategy. I understand that in the regulations there is a provision for authorities to combine to achieve that—indeed, Somerset council is trying to combine. It is part of the Wessex partnership, but the partnership’s bid for mayoral status was pushed back by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, so it is unable to form a mayoral strategic authority. Therefore, Somerset council, like many other county councils and unitary authorities around the country, will be expected to undertake the work.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. It is not the first time I have done so as part of a Committee to discuss planning regulations—I am sure, Ms Jardine, that you look forward to debating these as much as I do. The Liberal Democrats are sympathetic to the need for strategic planning and welcome its being rolled out for strategic authorities; we made that point during the passage of the Bill. However, we also made the point that we should not load this requirement on to hard-pressed unitary authorities. For example, my local authority in Somerset is struggling to begin an enormous and expensive local plan exercise, under which it would be required to find a 46% increase in the number of housing plots in Somerset, which is 75,000 plots all together.”
“As the National Trust launches its Nature equals Future campaign, will the Government allow this House to debate and vote on the proposed new national planning policy framework, which according to the Town and Country Planning Association signifies an “unprecedentedly permissive planning regime”?”
“What many people see as the Government’s developer-led planning approach is draining local communities’ trust in the planning system. The new national planning policy framework proposes the most centralising changes in planning in my lifetime. It will mandate granting permissions under wider than ever presumptions in favour of sustainable development, which for the first time will overrule local plans. With no statutory protection available to them, even the most precious green spaces—not just national landscapes, not just land around railway stations—and the nature they support are under threat, including land at the Wellington monument in my constituency.”
“People will have heard the Secretary of State referring to people wanting to protect the most precious green spaces as nimbys. They are not nimbys; they are trying to protect the most important nature in our country. If the Government will not allow a debate on the NPPF in relation to green spaces, will they allow a debate on the NPPF in relation to the expected 430,000 mortgage prisoners that the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association has identified from houses that will be at risk of flooding under new NPPF policies? If they will not allow a debate, will the Government meet the Association of British Insurers, which wants to discuss its objections to the NPPF?”
“Friend and me, and many others, we can confirm the news from NHS Somerset, published today, that 10,000 more units of dental activity were delivered last year in the county than in 2024-25. Let us hope for more improvement as this financial year progresses. In addition, I had the privilege of cutting the ribbon at Wellington’s new NHS dental practice in October. I thank the Minister for the work he does. His commitment to this issue is genuine. I thank the Dentistry For You team and all those in the NHS locally, because they are achieving these things against a background of limited resources and a broken funding system.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), my constituency neighbour, on securing this important debate and on all his campaigning. I began my campaign in my part of Somerset’s dentistry desert in 2021, when I was not an MP. My survey found that just under half had access to an NHS dentist. When I surveyed 2,000 people last year, things had got worse and only 35% of children in Taunton and Wellington could access an NHS dentist. The House of Commons Library has pointed out that from 2015, the last Government cut funding for NHS dental services by a sixth in real terms. I start by welcoming some good news. Thanks to the campaigning by my hon.”
“I congratulate them on enabling yet another primary school—alongside Holy Trinity Church of England primary school in Taunton—to find a partner in a local dental practice, Todays Dental, led by Rob Paxman. I also thank Charlie MacEwan and the WPA Benevolent Foundation. Beginning with prevention where it works—with children—is exactly what we need to do. The Liberal Democrats are clear about what is needed: the scrapping of UDAs, reform of the dental contract, a fair share of the £29 billion for NHS dentistry, and a proper workforce plan. Until then, charities will continue to have to pick up the pieces.”
“In a cost of living crisis, that is clearly unacceptable. Increasingly, I and they believe that we should be prioritising children for NHS appointments, and I urge the Government to consider that in their reforms. It is the contract that is at fault, as Eddie Crouch and all the brilliant work he does with the British Dental Association have shown. In the longer term, the key to resolving this issue is prevention. In April I became an ambassador for The Magic Dentist, a charity that brings together local primary schools and local dental practices. The charity is trying to roll out that model across the country, and I want to pay credit to its hard work, including that of its founder Nicki Rowland and the trustee Councillor George Western.”
“My hon. Friend and near neighbour is, as so often, exactly right. I completely agree that urgency is needed in the training of new dentists and in the contract changes, which I will come to. One sentence in NHS Somerset’s recent announcement stands out: “There is currently insufficient funding to provide NHS dental care for the entire population and…available resources can only support around half of the county’s residents.” That means that 64,000 children in the county did not see a dentist at all last year, putting Somerset in the worst-hit 5%. In Taunton and Wellington, it is even worse than the average. Hard-pressed parents responded to my survey to record that they are paying £100 a year per child because they cannot access NHS dentists. That grosses up to £4 million spent by parents in my constituency in the last five years.”
“The No. 1 priority for me and my Liberal Democrat colleagues during the passage of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 was a decent homes standard for military families, and I was delighted that the Government subsequently enacted that provision. We also welcome the £9 billion for service family and military accommodation that the Minister has referred to. Does the Minister agree that a poorly housed and unhealthy fighting force is not what this country needs and, similarly, that an unhealthy and poorly housed population is not what we need in this country? Can he confirm that the DIP will not be funded by raiding either the military housing budget or the affordable homes budget?”
“Dr Alasttal in my constituency is doing vital medical work. In normal circumstances, his wife would be allowed to visit him on the appropriate visa, but because she is in Gaza and would have to travel to Israel or to other cities to give biometric information, she cannot visit or join him here. Will the Government change the rules in the way they did for Chevening scholars, so that people in Gaza can give biometric details in other ways?”
“I have been contacted by Coker Engineering in my constituency, which supplies Rolls-Royce, Leonardo and other defence companies. It can only use steels from certified electric arc mills of certain types and is worried about facing 50% tariffs after 1 July, once tariff-free goods have been used up. Will the Minister similarly look at its concerns and consider exemptions for steels that cannot be sourced in the UK?”
“Wellington is a textbook case of a town where housing growth is outrunning the provision of infrastructure. Essential services should be built in from the start, not promised after the fact, and definitely not reduced by half—from four pharmacies to two. Since 2017, England has lost 1,200 pharmacies. We Liberal Democrats would require developers to fund GP surgeries as a priority from the outset: “No doctors? No development.” The same must go for ensuring adequate provision of pharmacies and dentists if the Government’s housing plans are really to work for local people.”
“As I say, due to huge pressure, the situation was eventually turned around, but it should not be a matter of communities having to rise up against the challenges and rules of the NHS to get or restore pharmacy provision in a town of this size. Allied Pharmacies was granted a licence to open in Luson House, the former premises of Jhoots, which was a fantastic win for the community and came as a result of sustained community pressure. A fourth pharmacy at Westpark has also been approved, subject to appeal. However, the job is not done. The action group says that a further pharmacy is likely to be needed as the town grows, with tens of thousands of new homes under the Government’s new planning rules and national planning policy framework.”
“I challenged the decision of the NHS to refuse to support the opening of another pharmacy. I pay tribute to the Wellington Pharmacy Action Group. Its dossier, which was sent to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, was a 17-page challenge to NHS Somerset, which, alongside all the pressure brought to bear by myself and others, eventually changed the position. The pharmaceutical needs assessment seems to be fundamentally flawed. How could it be prepared at a time when the town had four pharmacies, but also apparently demonstrate that two pharmacies were enough and no more needed to be opened?”
“Yesterday’s debate on Second Reading of the NHS modernisation Bill included much talk about an NHS that works for people, but in Wellington, in my constituency, communities have had to scale the heights of bureaucracy in a system where patients have to work to the tune of the NHS, not the other way around. Wellington went from having four pharmacies to having just two. The Boots pharmacy in the medical centre closed, followed by Jhoots in September, leaving its staff in the parlous state that my hon. Friend referred to earlier. That left only two pharmacies—Superdrug and Boots—for a town of 17,000 residents. Queues that were 15 people deep formed, Boots completely failed to scale up to meet the challenge, medicines were not ordered in time and patients became anxious.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I thank and congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour), on her resolute advocacy for pharmacy provision in her constituency. She is right to mention Norton Fitzwarren, which is in my constituency but serves many of her constituents. I pay tribute to Councillor Andy Sully for all his long-term campaigning, which eventually saw a pharmacy return to the village, and I thank Mo Idris, the pharmacist who took the plunge and opened the facility.”
“Defence SMEs are key supporters and indeed organisers of Somerset Armed Forces Day, but the day will not be a success if the glitches in the application software are not resolved, and volunteer veterans have to shoulder tens of thousands of pounds of debt, given the way the funding works. Is the Minister willing to meet me and the organisers to resolve those challenges so that Somerset Armed Forces Day can go ahead?”
“As a member of a family in my constituency recently hit by that disease told me, “I am a recently retired doctor and I do not believe the statistics that have been published, with the emphasis being placed on over-investigating patients and the distress this causes. This pales into insignificance compared to a missed diagnosis.” Finally, more should be done to reform the dental contract. Unless the Bill leads to more NHS dentists, social care reform and better prevention—”
“Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), when challenged on BBC Radio Somerset only a month ago, promised that he would speed up the Musgrove Park hospital project if he could. I hope the new Secretary of State will honour his predecessor’s promise to meet me to discuss that. The Bill is based, at least in part, on the mission to move from treatment to prevention, which is of course the right ambition. Because of its major teaching hospital status, Taunton has a big medical community who know a thing or two about prevention, and I will highlight two areas in which this Bill should be going further on prevention. On prostate cancer, I hope the Government do not decide to hold back from widespread screening, as a recommendation to do so is before them.”
“The lack of air conditioning meant that temperatures there exceeded 30°C over the past week—no wonder medical staff have fainted in the heat while looking after mothers and children who are baking in single-storey flat-roof buildings—buildings that were put up for the United States army as a temporary measure during the second world war and never replaced. As Jeff put it, “Walking down the corridor of the old building is an embarrassment. There are literally sheets of plastic attached to the leaking ceilings running into guttering in the corridor”. I do not need my architectural training to know that guttering should be on the outside of the building, not the inside. It is therefore unsurprising that the previous Secretary of State, the right hon.”
“My constituent, whose family member was brutally murdered, is rightly horrified that victims’ NHS records were shared unlawfully online with NHS workers—she called it “repugnant voyeurism”, and she was right to do so. I hope the Minister will echo the apology of the trust and condemn that kind of behaviour. However, none of the reforms in the Bill will have a positive impact on patients or staff in Taunton and Wellington who use the maternity and paediatric department until and unless the promised new unit is brought forward. One of my constituents, Jeff, told me of their grandson Ryan, who was admitted to the ward a couple of weeks ago.”
“This Bill contains welcome elements, such as creating a single patient record and enabling integrated care boards to become commissioners across a wider area. However, I cannot support the weakening of patient voices, nor removing local authorities from oversight of health trusts. I pay tribute to Gill Keniston-Goble and her team at Somerset Healthwatch for all the fantastic work they have done. In moving to a single patient record, we need to prioritise privacy and rethink putting the American firm Palantir in charge of our data, with its founders such as Thiel opposing democracy and denigrating our NHS as part of a “Stockholm syndrome”.”
“In the south-west where I come from, 96,000 jobs relate to defence, so it is a huge sector. In my town, SMEs are key to those jobs. Despite welcome changes, with the Defence Office for Small Business Growth from the MOD, portals are still unnavigable for many small businesses. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the MOD should do more to make contracts available for our small businesses and SMEs?”
“I am sure we all share the objectives of the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000, but they are having the effect of denying access to public service vehicles for any child who buys a place on a council school bus. Can we have a debate in Government time on the implementation of those regulations and the support that local authorities need, so that children in my constituency and across Somerset are not being denied places on buses that have not yet met the accessibility regulations?”
“Depending on what lies behind the original mistake or inaccurate charge, councils simply cannot wipe away the charge, as the Court has determined.”
“Gentleman: Waverley borough council’s CIL charging schedule, which sets all the rules for the charging of CIL, all the forms and all the processes were put in place by the Conservative council administration a few years ago. The Liberal Democrat authority is doing its best to manage the system that was put in place by its predecessors. His party had ample time in government to fix the issue and, as we have heard, did not do so. On the question of the discretion available to councils, the position is fairly clear. In December 2025, the High Court handed down a judgment in Luck v. Bracknell Forest borough council, and was unequivocal that once a valid CIL charge has fallen due, councils cannot lawfully cancel it. Councils find themselves with no alternative.”