Patrick Spencer
MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich · Independent · United Kingdom
“The reality is that when one serves with such an august group of gentlemen, one’s own speech gets slowly whittled down after they have made theirs.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In fact, the impact assessment shows—I assure the Committee that I am not repeating the shadow Minister’s points—that whereas more than 50,000 new houses were due to be built under the old regime, the Bill will now deliver only half that, approximately 28,000 new homes.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will answer half the hon. Lady’s question by saying that my first name is Patrick, I have blood in the Republic of Ireland and my brother was at Trinity College Dublin. I adore that country.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I can understand and accept the fundamental problem that right to buy posed to councils by making the deal too favourable to prospective buyers and tenants. Even if we take into account higher prices and higher rates of retention, councils will still be substantially short-changed under the Bill.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These are not houses that young people want to move into. I use this anecdote all the time, but in my village, which is in the middle of nowhere, we have had 30 units built on the side of the town.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We would not argue against that statement one bit. I am not trying to expunge social tenants from rural England. Suffolk is not just a load of farms and tractor driving; we have a lot of working-class towns.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Does the Minister expect the number of misconduct hearings and cases brought where teachers are subject to potential dismissal to increase considerably? I am concerned that the consequences of the Bill will be huge for many schools and that they will be burdened with a huge cost. Does he expect the numbers to go up?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the hon. Member takes a moment later today to listen to the Secretary of State’s interview on “The News Agents” podcast, Emily Maitlis said, “You can have a terrible teacher with qualified status, but a fantastic teacher who is not qualified…can’t you?” The Secretary of State’s response was, “Absolutely”. Does the hon. Member agree with her?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can my right hon. Friend answer me this question? Which is better, an English graduate, with QTS, teaching maths in a primary or secondary school, or a maths graduate, without QTS, teaching maths in a primary or secondary school?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A Policy Exchange report suggested that getting all non-QTS teachers trained was going to cost in excess of £120 million—six times the budget that the Government have allocated to solving stuck schools, and six times the budget we are going to spend on getting teachers to jump over regulatory barriers. So can the Minister confirm the estimated cost of getting teachers qualified status and whether the Department will cover that cost, or will the Government just end up burdening schools with the cost of getting over this regulatory hurdle?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not bore everyone with another rendition of the credit of non-QTS teachers. I will just say that I spent Friday at Debenham high school. When I spoke to the headteacher, he sighed in frustration at suddenly having to look down the barrel and find qualified status for his language teachers. He has a Spanish teacher who works at the high school who he will now to need to train. I know we are having an argument about immigration policy in this country, but trying to stop foreign teachers coming to this country and teaching in schools in Suffolk is not how the problem will be solved. My point is about costs.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman has just made two completely different statements. He said, “I will send my children to a school that will deliver an outstanding education that is right for them,” while simultaneously saying, “Ah, but this is about making sure that teachers have qualified status, and my expectation that they have qualified status, whether my children get a good education or not.” Failing schools that academise are three times more likely to improve an Ofsted rating than—”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will keep saying this in the Committee: academies have been proven to produce better results for children who come from a low-performing or failing state school—they have been proven to do much better for children in the long term. [ Interruption. ] They have; that is what the evidence says.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I know she will say that the Francis review has not reported, but the Government have no statutory obligation to accept its recommendations. Will Ministers please confirm that they want to keep the national curriculum focused on knowledge and core knowledge subjects? It is clear that the intention is for all schools to teach the national curriculum. Can the Minister assure me, and thousands of teachers who want to do the best for their students, that the curriculum will be kept broad to allow them to teach as they see fit, in the best interests of their students? Again, the Government do not have to follow the guidance from the Becky Francis review. What has been proven over time is that the current framework works for academies.”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I had a long speech prepared, but it does not include Keats, Semmelweis or Callaghan, so I will cut it short. Teachers want to be trusted to teach, to read their class and to choose what to teach, when to teach and how to teach it. My concern is that the Government are bringing all schools under the same framework and that that will allow them to fundamentally change what is taught in schools. We have all read the news about the Becky Francis review trying to broaden the curriculum, dumb it down, dilute it and move it away from a knowledge-rich focus. Will the Minister confirm the Government’s intention to retain the national curriculum’s focus on knowledge, and the attainment of knowledge, as opposed to skills?”
House of Commons4 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is no doubt that the cut to the winter fuel payment has hit Suffolk hard. NHS Suffolk reported that 97% of beds were occupied over the Christmas period due to a spike in cold, flu and pneumonia-like symptoms. Kesgrave community centre has set up warm rooms for impacted pensioners. The only good news is that the Suffolk Community Foundation has managed to raise £100,000 to support pensioners across our community who are impacted by the cut. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to the Suffolk Community Foundation for being there for the most vulnerable people in our society when his Government were not?”
House of Commons3 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has the Department conducted any analysis differentiating those students who are disadvantaged and on free school meals, or considered disadvantaged, and those who are not? The Government are applying a blanket policy across all students of primary school. The Minister makes an eloquent point that some of those children are very needy, but others are not. Has the Department conducted an analysis of the impact across different groups?”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I was a governor of a primary school, I found that an unintended consequence of underfunded breakfast clubs was parents accruing ludicrous amounts of debt. There are no circumstances in which the school would have turned away the child, but that does not bode well for a policy that is about supporting parents who are hard up. If parents are forced to pay for the breakfast club and accrue huge amounts of debt, we know that is very bad for their mental health and for their general wellbeing. I do not know whether the Minister has anything to say on that point, but I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Suffolk has a huge flooding problem. Part of the problem has been driven by overdevelopment in low-lying rural areas. In her steps to reform the planning system—as well as building more houses, which I totally accept we need to do—can the Secretary of State promise to force councils and developers to properly account for flood risk, ensure that developers are held accountable to residents when developments are badly impacted by floods, and ensure that housing targets favour homes built in dense urban areas?”
House of Commons20 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have heard that the Minister is the future, but all he wants to talk about is the past. The fact of the matter is that, today, borrowing costs are up, business confidence is down and growth is going nowhere. Is it not time to admit that this lefty economic experiment is not working? It is time to cut taxes and cut spending.”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is all very well spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, but we have to spend it on the right kit. Over the weekend I noted a story about our NATO allies being frustrated with Britain for not investing in appropriate missile defence systems. As the Secretary of State meets his 2.5% commitment, will he commit to investing in surface-to-air missiles, precision and hypersonic missile systems, DragonFire laser systems and counter-drone blocking technology to ensure that the British Army is the most advanced and able in the western world?”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are loads of landowners in Suffolk who want to take steps to mitigate flooding. The problem is they need a flood risk assessment permit, but FRAPs are expensive and hard to come by, so what can the Department do to make them easier to access and cheaper? That would make a real difference.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making an interesting point about the reality of policing in a rural area. My constituency has one of the most consistently underfunded police forces in the country. Two misconceptions are that there is no crime in rural areas, and that if it does exist, it does not require the same manpower as other areas. Both those assumptions are absolutely wrong. The reality is that crime in rural areas is down to county lines, trafficking, cyber-crime and organised crime. Can my hon. Friend attest to the changing nature of crime in Cambridgeshire that we experience in Suffolk, and to the fact that rural crime is not easy to police?”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As we have just had a debate on child sexual exploitation, it is worth mentioning that we are seeing the nature of crime in rural areas change very quickly, and that the challenge faced by police forces five or 10 years ago is not the challenge that they face today. In Suffolk, the reality is that we have a massive problem with trafficking and a massive problem with prostitution. We have problems that were just not there 10 years ago. It is all very well for Labour Members to say, “What did you do about it?”, but we are debating how to meet the challenges of today, not yesterday. Will my hon. Friend speak to that for a moment?”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think it is quite challenging to do that in the Bill, because you get into a space where you start adding more complexity by identifying regions or locations in national legislation. Actually, what we often see is that there are more differences within a region than there are between regions. I agree with the principle of what you are saying, but perhaps the existing powers of local authorities to do that are better, but they probably need support and trust from the Government to allow them to administer it well.”
House of Commons11 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Edward Woodall: I certainly think there should be provision of support for rural businesses, particularly those that are the last ones serving a community. They deliver essential services to those communities, and there is a cost to that community if they have to travel elsewhere. Whether it is possible to do that through the legislation is an interesting question. This was picked up in some of the previous evidence that you heard this morning, but there are measures within local authorities’ existing powers to issue discretionary relief to support those locations. That was previously called rural rate relief but it has been taken over by small business rate relief. The challenge is whether local authorities have the funding to administer that relief.”
House of Commons11 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q Thank you very much, Mr Woodall. I was struck by what you said about rural convenience stores and the importance of supporting them, and I could not agree with you more. I represent a rural constituency and in the next-door village there is a shop that has been there for years. I am terrified every year that it will go under, yet it is very resilient. Do you think this Bill should make provision for convenience stores that stand alone within rural areas and villages, where they are the only shop left that sells milk, eggs and newspapers? Do you think it is not just about small and microbusinesses, but those that are the only ones left? Do you think there should be a provision in the Bill for them?”
House of Commons11 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q Sorry, Professor Green, can we just go back? You said that you would expect 10,000 to 20,000 students to transition out of independent schools and into the state system— Professor Green: Somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000, and that would be over a five-year period.”
House of Commons11 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is that as a consequence of everything that is going on in this context, or just the business rate changes? Do the parameters of that analysis include VAT? Professor Green: That is the VAT estimate, so I am saying that, if that is the VAT estimate, the business rate relief change is one tenth of that.”
House of Commons11 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome what this Government are doing to increase prison capacity, but what will the Secretary of State do on tougher sentencing? If she goes to my constituency of Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, she will be met with a tough, gruff East Anglian accent that says, “What’s the point of building prison places if you are not going to use them?””
House of Commons10 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman talks about shared responsibility, and how it is the responsibility of us all to protect each other. As a former police officer, is he not worried about a degree of vigilantism, with untrained people taking the law into their own hands and doing things that perhaps, as a police officer, he thinks police officers would be best placed to do?”
House of Commons9 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will my hon. Friend speak for a moment about the situation facing small football clubs? They often have many people turning up week after week to watch their team play and are on a tiny budget with tiny margins, no money to spare and no money available for training. In such circumstances, surely those clubs will be really hard done by under some of the provisions in the Bill.”
House of Commons9 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I serve on the Education Committee with the hon. Gentleman, and I wonder what he will say to people who work in the education sector, many of whom are low paid and running schools that support teaching assistants to work with children with special educational needs and disabilities. They now face a bigger wage bill because of the measures the Government are introducing. Will the hon. Gentleman address those points?”
House of Commons3 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the hon. Member not think that the fact the Labour party went into the last general election promising not to raise taxes on working people might be part of the problem?”
House of Commons3 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many other countries favour this approach over pylons and, here in the UK, National Grid itself has favoured it in Lincolnshire, concluding that it is cheaper, quicker and less risky than overhead lines. Relying on old-fashioned technology is increasingly a fool’s errand. We see it in defence, social policy and now in energy. Secondly, can we allow for a moment the notion that preserving our national heritage is a fundamental part of meeting our net zero commitments? After all, we do that in other parts of policy. We demand—sorry, I have lost my place. Can I take a moment?”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I and many Conservatives hope and aspire for a clean energy future, but I wish to make three points that the Government and the House should consider when contemplating the upgrade of our electricity grid. First, similar to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), are we basing our decisions on the expedient technology of today or on the ideal technology of the future? High voltage direct current is increasingly used around the world. It means only six cables instead of 18, and there are no heat issues, which means they can be closely spaced.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I put on the record my apologies for fluffing my speech a moment ago? One of the points I wanted to make is that we take into account our natural environment when we look at housing and planning policy. The reality is that when we want to build a development on the side of a village, put an extension on a house or expand our housing stock, planning authorities demand that we take into account the natural environment. That importantly includes the aesthetic, which we talk about a lot, as well as the preservation of our landscapes.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Government choose to solve the housing crisis by taking into account our environment, why can we not do that with energy policy as well?”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman talks about speed and the need to do the transition quickly. May I draw his attention to the work of Bent Flyvbjerg? He wrote a book last year called “How Big Things Get Done”, in which he noted, having looked at infrastructure projects across the world, that less than one in 10 are delivered on time and on budget. Part of the problem is making bad decisions in the planning process and not making the right decisions. If we want to get things done, we should take our time now and get the planning right.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is talking from personal experience about an important part of our education system. He talks a lot about teachers and the previous Government’s failed education policy, but will he take a moment to recognise the vast improvements in our performance in international league tables and the fall in the disadvantage gap in the years leading up to covid-19? Will he at least give some credits to the outputs, not just the inputs?”
House of Commons25 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I met with National Grid yesterday and communicated my concerns about the Norwich to Tilbury line but we remained constructive and talked about community benefit schemes. Unfortunately, it told me that the Government were dragging their feet on defining community benefit schemes. Can the Minister update the House on when they will bring forward guidance, and can he promise that a community benefit scheme is a real, positive economic benefit for my residents who are impacted by the pylons?”
House of Commons12 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Child poverty is a scourge in British society, and I am grateful that the Secretary of State is bringing forward a child poverty strategy. Has she decided how to measure child poverty? May I warn her against using the much discredited relative measure, which, as we know, shows poverty decreasing during times of economic decline and increasing during times of economic growth? I implore her to use an absolute measure, which has a much better record of showing deprivation and long-term increases and improvements in living standards.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is no way the Government will raise enough money to support public services, as various Members have said today. The only viable reason that I can understand for the Government introducing APR on small farm holdings is because they want to release land for development. If we continue to concrete over fertile farmland, of any soil type, we will increase that risk.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) to sort this out. I want to talk about something else that I believe is a real reason that flood risk has increased, and to remind the House that we have the option of reducing it in future. One of the reasons that flooding has worsened in recent years is the development of vast numbers of housing units in areas of high flood risk. Each development not only puts more homeowners at risk of flooding, but compounds that by increasing the risk of surface water run-off. I know deep down that the decision to reform APR and increase the inheritance tax liability for small farms is fundamentally about releasing land in rural areas so that developers can build more houses on it. There is no justification whatsoever for it from an economic point of view.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We must take preparedness seriously, which is why Suffolk county council, the Environment Agency and community groups have undertaken to clear rivers, improve water flow through pipes and guttering, dig trenches and develop overflow areas in case of higher than average rainfall. I am more critical than many people of Suffolk county council and the Environment Agency for dragging their feet at times. I am working with residents of Earl Soham who are trying to get the highways agency to clear pipes and drainage. Suffolk county council is just not reacting quickly enough to that. I recognise that the funding is not there when it should be. The funding from the centre is not adequate, and responsibility over who should take control of the situation is confusing, which is why I support the private Member’s Bill by my hon.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One month’s rainfall fell between 11 and 13 October, then 80 mm in the 24-hour period of 18 October. People were stranded in villages and cars were stuck on driveways. People living in Wickham Market, Needham Market, Framsden and Charsfield were forced out of their homes. Some are not yet back in. People were traumatised, exhausted and facing financial oblivion after insurance companies used small print to stop paying out on the damage caused by the flooding. We do not want to see that again, but the reality is that our climate is getting more volatile and the risk of flooding is as high as ever.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This debate has been about APR, but I will talk about flood risk. Suffolk is, by its nature, a county at high risk of flooding. Large parts of my constituency are covered by rivers: we have the Rivers Deben, Orwell and Alde. We have tributaries that filter across low-lying land and clay soil, which apparently is not particularly permeable—I learned that during the general election campaign. That means that whenever there is heavy rainfall, streams and rivers become overburdened very quickly, creating bogs, waterlogged fields and eventually flooding across our fields. The water has nowhere to go. Roads are overwhelmed, as are irrigation and sewerage systems, and whole villages can find themselves under a foot or two of water after one night. One year ago, Storm Babet did exactly that. We experienced an incredibly wet October.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The people who will bear the brunt of the Labour party’s tax policies are small farms—family farms—that do not have a huge amount of capital. When we try to tax and demand liquidity from an illiquid source, we force people to fire sale their capital. It will not work. We have to understand the economics. The risks are real. In Needham Market, Hopkins Homes built the St George estate at the base of a hill in an old disused quarry close to sea level, and right next to an area considered at high risk of flooding.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me take a moment—Members throughout the House have an opportunity to watch—to address that exact case. The Labour party wants to tackle big landowners like James Dyson and the Grosvenor Group; I have two points. First, take for a moment the incredible work done by Dyson Farming on food technology, which is increasing the productivity of our land and the standard of food production on his farms. Think of what the Grosvenor Group has done in the moorlands and peatlands of the north-west—it is a protector of our environment and has supported our natural environment and increased the ecosystem. Secondly, do the Government think for a moment that either of those two people are going to go to bed worried about the IHT change? No, they are not. They will dodge it, much like many of the well-heeled business people always do with taxes.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not, because I do not have long. In Framlingham, developments either side of Station road have increased the risk of surface flow in an area that is, again, at high risk of flooding. All these places were hugely impacted by Storm Babet, and I believe the impact was made exponentially worse by huge housing developments cluttering our countryside. Between 2001 and 2021, Framlingham’s population increased by 1,200, which is nearly 50%. The population in Debenham increased by 16%. Great Blakenham has more than doubled in size. If we continue to use the Suffolk countryside to solve our housing crisis, the consequences will be disastrous.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is it any surprise that many people in the farming industry feel stressed and under pressure, considering the policies introduced by this Government?”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate and for giving way. Just last Friday, I visited a farm in my constituency. It is a family farm: David runs the construction side of the business, Robert runs the farm, and their sister Sharon runs the books. By any measure, it is a successful farm. That family has owned the property for a long period of time, but when they spoke to me, they talked—as my hon. Friend has said—about high energy costs, high interest rates, tougher international competition, tougher regulations on pesticides and the use of chemicals, and a volatile climate. Then, to raise the issue that was the subject of our last debate, they talked about the new rules on inheritance tax.”
House of Commons11 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Everyone knows that a knowledge-rich curriculum is the reason why the English education system improved dramatically under the last Government. The embedding of academic rigour produced phenomenal results in PISA —the programme for international student assessment. With that in mind, will the Minister confirm that she has no intention of diluting the curriculum or any focus on academic rigour?”
House of Commons4 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In preparing for this speech I came across a quote from Sally, the manager of The Duke in Ipswich, who said: “All the landlords and ladies I know are in the business to make a living, not a killing!” So, please let’s not push more of them over the edge.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is not just important in terms of economic value and taxes—it supports our critical tourism industry, and within that 11,000 full-time jobs and £700 million in economic value. But there is social value as well—let us not forget the many old people who do not have people to go to at home, who use the pub to speak and have a natter with people in their local community. It also provides an opportunity for young people to get jobs—their first chance to get on the job ladder. So, why oh why would we take the opportunity to hammer an industry that has been so badly impacted by covid-19, the smoking ban, rates relief, VAT, national insurance contributions, and inhibitive employment rules and regulations, all of which are mad and bad?”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you for calling me, Ms Vaz. It is a pleasure and a privilege to serve under your chairmanship. I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this important debate—important because, like many people who have come before me, I have a constituency with a rich tradition in the world of food and drink. I will save everybody the verbal tour of my constituency and all the pubs, bars and clubs we have all frequented there, but I will say that in the east of England the hospitality and pub scene supports about 250,000 jobs, creates about £2.5 billion of economic value and pays £1.2 billion to the Exchequer every year.”
House of Commons22 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗