John Milne
MP for Horsham · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing the debate.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Every council in England must rewrite its constitution to match it, and none has been given a say on whether to do so. As many Members have said, planning is where most people first meet democracy, and it is one of the most important reasons why they vote for a councillor in the first place.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I very much agree, and I will come on to that. Removing local scrutiny, as this scheme does, touches none of the problems I have mentioned. Where delay is real, it lies in planning departments running with about 80% of the staff they need, one in five major applications being decided on time, and fees that the Government accept do not cov…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Through these measures, which come on top of years of reduced neighbourhood control, they have killed one bird with a thousand stones. It is not as if local people had much say over things beforehand. The Liberal Democrats regret the lack of any attempt to build consent.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When something is built that nobody wants, residents will ask their councillor why, and the honest answer will be that they had no control over it whatever.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A new Horsham district local plan is passing through the system right now, but it is simply not possible for an authority in an area such as mine to require the provision of large amounts of social housing—or, indeed, any.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“I will add another name to the catalogue of water company disasters: Southern Water. In Rudgwick in my Horsham constituency, residents have complained for almost 20 years about effluent backing up into bathrooms, footpaths covered in soiled loo paper and having to keep children and pets indoors. Yet over the last decade, average Southern Water bills have shot up from £262 in 2016 to £702 today. Does my hon. Friend share my frustration that residents are paying vastly more with absolutely nothing to show for it?”
House of Commons20 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sorry for interrupting the hon. Member. Education, health and care plans are not supposed to depend on or require a formal diagnosis of ADHD but, in practice, that is how local authorities apply them. Families are far more likely to be challenged by the local authority if they do not have that diagnosis but, in my own area of West Sussex, the predicted waiting time for assessments has now risen to four and a half years, which is virtually an entire secondary education. Does the hon. Member agree that that Catch-22 situation requires urgent action from the Government?”
House of Commons20 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For the second year running, Conservative-run West Sussex county council has applied to cancel local elections, in which the Conservatives face wipeout. Their excuse is that it would be too hard to organise, but it is the seven district and borough councils that run the elections, not the county council, so will the Minister speak to the councils that have an actual democratic mandate, rather than the county administration, which is trying to cling to power long past its sell-by date?”
House of Commons19 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Food banks like those run by Horsham Matters are working towards the best result possible: making themselves unnecessary. Let us give them a helping hand.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, we can cut the cost of food without spending even a penny. Research from the London School of Economics shows that Brexit added billions to household bills—costing individual households over £200 a year on average—and saw price hikes on basic essentials such as meat, cheese and many others that Members have mentioned. The Liberal Democrats have long argued that maintaining a customs arrangement with our closest trading partners could help to reduce unnecessary costs on imported foods that end up in people’s shopping baskets, while still protecting good British farming. Finally, local action matters, too. Devolution and targeted investment in local food infrastructure can link farms with food charities and community kitchens, create jobs and build resilience without making charity a default safety net.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, we need to ensure that universal credit and other benefits are set at a level that genuinely protects people from going without essentials. Joseph Rowntree Foundation research shows that current benefits still fall short of the real cost of living by £28, with shortfalls pushing families into hardship. As previous speakers have mentioned, an essentials guarantee in our social security system would mean that no one should fall below the floor of being unable to afford food and heat. To make this lasting and fair, we need an independent process to set benefit levels that draws on evidence, including lived experience, rather than leaving them to annual discretionary decisions. Many experts and organisations are now calling for such an essentials guarantee as a sensible way to depoliticise rates and anchor them to actual costs.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“FareShare has said that it prepared millions of meals last year to support local families who face rising cost pressures. It describes the combination of high food and energy costs as making the past year “the toughest yet” for its operations. It is moving beyond simply handing out food, and it also offers advice and helps people to put themselves in stronger positions. The food bank is in a unique position to build trust with people who might otherwise slip through the cracks because they are perhaps afraid or too shy to explain their circumstances. Timely advice on finances, nutrition and cooking can help people to get themselves off the dependency culture altogether. So many people are living with no margin for error—if the washing machine goes wrong or the boiler breaks down, it is an instant crisis—so what more can we do?”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituent Rachel is a mother and a disabled woman whose partner works full time. She told me that there is often nothing left after she has paid the energy bill and fed her family. She lives on biscuits, because half the time she cannot afford to cook. She said that she feels exhausted and out of options, and she is unsurprisingly affected by depression. That has come about for her not because of poor choices but because incomes have simply not kept pace with the essentials. I pay tribute to the fantastic work being done by organisations such as Horsham District food bank and FareShare Sussex & Surrey. I was interested in what the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) said about his local food bank, and there are lots of parallels with the work happening in Horsham.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) for securing this debate. I am a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, and we have been looking at the impact of the cost of living crisis on a range of vulnerable groups. The effects are everywhere: not just in the most deprived areas of the country, but even among wealthier communities, including my constituency. In the interest of time, I will concentrate on Horsham. Local demand has surged. Horsham food bank tells me that its monthly distribution of food parcels has risen dramatically year on year. There has been a sharp rise in children requiring support, which mirrors the regional data that shows a 56% rise in food bank use across the south-east.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thankfully, neither horse nor rider was hurt. Riders are being pushed into using roads more extensively, often because there is no alternative. In Shipley, a bridleway bridge has been closed for more than two years with no clear repair timetable, forcing riders on to busy roads, simply to access legal routes. Horse riders seem to count as low priority when it comes to highways funding.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Horse riders are not a marginal group on our roads and we should stop treating them like one. They are a vital part of rural life. I want to thank Sophie from Billingshurst, a village in my constituency, who wrote to me ahead of the debate. She argues that we are facing a cultural problem. There is a fundamental lack of understanding about how to drive in close proximity to horses, whether they are being ridden or transported. She described being tailgated for miles while towing a horsebox. Eventually, the driver overtook and cut sharply in front of her, forcing an urgent and potentially dangerous stop. Anyone who understands the weight and stopping distance of a vehicle carrying live animals will recognise how serious that could have been.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can we look at weight limits and improved road services, and make it easier for communities to introduce lower speed limits, as has been done successfully in parts of Somerset, for example? In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury. I very much support the measures he suggests and I hope the Minister will listen.”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for the intervention. We must also place this debate in the wider context of changing rural road use. In Cowfold parish, the accident rate has doubled in the past five years, with three fatalities and 20 serious injuries. Traffic volumes have increased but road infrastructure has not kept pace. Although stronger regulation on speed and passing distances is welcome and necessary, it is not sufficient on its own. We need better driver education, clearer national messaging and a cultural shift in how horses are understood by other road users. We need to rethink rural road policy more broadly. Can we take action to stop HGV routeing systems sending unsuitable vehicles through villages and bridleway links?”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Gatwick is precisely the airport that I was going to raise. It jumped to £10 in very short order, over a couple of years. That is an enormous amount of money for something that takes a couple of minutes. The objective is allegedly to cover the increase of business rates and to fund airport expansion. Does the hon. Member agree that the public should not have to bear the cost of an airport’s expansion? It benefits private companies financially, but puts pressure on public services, trains and transport and means that people are parking all around the airport. Does he agree that that is unfair?”
House of Commons13 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I recently met Richard, a publican in my constituency, and he told me the trade had never been so tough. He said: “The truth of the matter is, for the first time I’m thinking I shouldn't have bothered taking the risk of going into business. I should have stayed with the big brewer, taken my salary and relied on my pension.” He is right, isn’t he?”
House of Commons13 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We keep hearing that disability spending, and welfare spending in general, is spiralling out of control, but the truth is that, as a percentage of GDP, it has barely moved since the mid-1980s, under Margaret Thatcher—that famous supporter of welfare. Does the hon. Member agree that if we are going to reform welfare, we should at least start from the right place, with the right figures?”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have talked a lot about the BBC’s news output today because clearly that is what is going to interest a room full of politicians most. However, I am glad that we are now focusing a little on the creative output. We have a fantastic creative and cultural industry, which is a major export and one of the jewels of this country. Taking away the BBC, which is part of the ecosystem, would smash it. This is not just about the news.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Access to the grid for new energy suppliers is patchy across the country, and it leads to an overconcentration of solar farm and battery energy farm applications in unexpected places, such as the village of Cowfold in my constituency. What action will the Government take to ensure a fair distribution of renewable energy developments?”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This Government have bent over backwards to not criticise President Trump directly, but that only makes him think he can get away with more and more. If President Trump really does invade Greenland, it is the end of NATO and the end of the special relationship, so will the Foreign Secretary accept that the best way for us to protect Greenland today is to explicitly say that President Trump is indeed acting outside international law?”
House of Commons5 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T3. Merry Christmas to you and your team, Mr Speaker. In just its first year, biodiversity net gain has helped restore the equivalent of 7,300 football pitches of habitat, leveraged over £320 million of private investment and supported more than 4,400 jobs. However, the Government’s intention to exempt developments under 0.2 hectares risks killing off this new industry just as it is beginning to thrive. This is a major Government U-turn, and the consequences for environmental projects in my constituency will be severe. Will the Minister reconsider?”
House of Commons18 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This feels like some kind of unholy Labour-Conservative alliance to avoid electoral humiliation. At West Sussex county council, the dysfunctional Conservative administration will surely grab the chance to cling on to power for yet another year past its sell-by date. To make sure that any decision to delay is taken for the right reasons, will the Minister agree to require that any council seeking to cancel elections will also be required to see out the rest of its term under a cross-party rainbow coalition comprised of existing councillors?”
House of Commons18 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To his credit, the current Minister understands the situation perfectly well. We still do not have a solution, however. That is very disappointing because a solution would be easy to implement and could be done without compromising the Government’s overall housing ambitions. In fact, I believe it would deliver the Minster’s intentions more completely. The Minister has already kindly agreed to meet me in the new year. I hope we can have a satisfactory conversation and find a solution to this problem, which is grossly unfair to the people of Horsham. There has to be a way forward.”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Because the Government have thus far refused to help Horsham out of its unique problem, we have a chaotic situation of planning by appeal. The whole strategic logic of plan-led development is in jeopardy in my area. There is no present way for Horsham district council to argue the impact of cumulative housing development, because there is always a presumption in favour of development for almost anything that comes forward, as previous speakers have mentioned. In the worst case scenario, it could be several years before Horsham has an approved local plan, by which time untold damage will have been done to our strategic planning and countryside. Under the previous Government, Ministers seemed to confuse water neutrality with nutrient neutrality and nothing was done.”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Horsham has now been left exposed to almost unlimited speculative development because we are so very far from being able to show a five-year land supply—it is probably under one year now. The immediate major consequence has been the approval at appeal for 800 houses at a site known as Horsham golf and fitness village. That development was not included in the emerging local plan, because it was judged to fatally undermine the green gap between Horsham and Southwater. It has no school or clinic and is on the wrong side of a dual carriageway. It is also barely half a mile from a much larger potential site for 1,200 homes, known as West of Southwater. The Southwater site is in the local plan and does have the relevant facilities. That is the site that should be built on.”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For a four-year period, Horsham district council was not allowed to approve any new development at all if it increased water consumption by so much as a single litre. Needless to say, that was a stiff challenge to meet. As a result, the council slipped from being one of the best in class for housing delivery to one of the worst today. Extraordinarily, throughout this whole period, planning inspectors continued to assess HDC against its centrally mandated house building target of a little more than 900 a year. They took no account at all of the reason why the houses could not be built. It was literally against the law for Horsham to obey the law, and that was a gross injustice that remains uncorrected. A few weeks ago, just as abruptly as the water neutrality was imposed, it was lifted.”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Most local planning authorities, like Horsham, are obliged to choose from whatever sites private developers promote to them. As a result, we are plagued with edge-of-town suburban developments that cost too much when they are built, and take up too much land in the process. Relying on private developers to bring down house prices always was a grossly over-optimistic strategy. And guess what? It is not working. In Horsham, we have also been faced with a unique additional circumstance called water neutrality. This started with a ruling by Natural England that came out of the blue, prohibiting any increase in water abstraction from our main source in the Arun valley, in case it compromised a rare wetland habitat.”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Far from solving the housing crisis, the standard method is the direct reason why we now have 1.4 million unbuilt permissions—wrong permissions in the wrong places at unsaleable prices. The more we load further badly allocated permissions on to what is already there, the worse it will get. My constituency of Horsham will be granting new fantasy permissions on the edges of estates that do not exist yet and may not do so for decades to come. Multiple new estates will be attempting to attract customers within a few miles of each other. Of course, each new estate slows down the build-out rate for what is already there, so the net gain in housing delivery is questionable. It is also the most wasteful way to use land that one could possibly come up with.”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for bringing attention to this important issue. As far as local planning authorities are concerned, what matters is not the national target for housing but the local target as set by the standard method. At heart, the standard method compares local house prices with local wages. With a little jiggery pokery, that produces a number allegedly related to local needs. Unfortunately, the standard method is an especially bad way to devise a housing strategy. It was bad when the Conservatives invented it, and it is no better now under Labour, now that the numbers have been tweaked to produce even higher results.”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the lack of infrastructure provision and with his previous comments on the failure to prioritise brownfield, but does he recognise that all those errors were inherent in the previous system under the Conservative Government? The problem is that they have not been corrected. They were always there, and that is why MPs across the country have been complaining.”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituent Steve is currently being denied access to justice because he cannot afford to take action against a publicly funded body under Competition and Markets Authority legislation. His only other option is to proceed on a no win, no fee basis. Will the relevant Minister agree to meet me and Steve to discuss possible solutions?”
House of Commons16 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In 2023, the Prime Minister told the National Farmers Union that “losing a farm is not like losing any other business”. He has also said, “If somebody makes powerful representations, then my instinct is to consider what’s being said. Getting it right is more important than ploughing on with a package which doesn’t necessarily achieve the desired outcome.” Is it not time that the Prime Minister followed his instincts and abandoned the family farm tax?”
House of Commons16 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Fully one fifth of the water that enters the system is lost before it reaches even a single property because of leaky pipes. River abstraction now accounts for 61% of all environmental water abstraction, up from around 40% in the early 2000s. This is clearly contributing to severe pressure on our waterways, especially chalk streams, one of Britain’s most unique ecosystems.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In October—yes, October—my home county of Sussex was placed under drought measures, as Ardingly reservoir fell below 30% capacity, compared with the seasonal average of 76%, and there are greater challenges to come. By 2050, the UK population is forecast to rise by 10 million. Further demand from data centres, renewable energy infrastructure and new industry is also rising quickly, but is yet to be factored in to demand. The National Infrastructure Commission projects a national supply-demand deficit approaching 5 billion litres a day by 2050 unless action is taken. That is a gap equivalent to the daily water use of more than 30 million people, and that does not even include commercial demands, such as farming, manufacturing, horticulture or business activity. For something that has become so precious, we are remarkably careless about it.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered water scarcity. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. In a country where we always complain about the rain, we have somehow contrived to have a water shortage. I am reminded of the words of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Water, water, everywhere But not a drop to drink” But the honest truth is that it really does not rain like it used to. This year, the UK experienced the hottest and driest spring on record. Farmers endured a devastatingly poor harvest and lost £800 million to drought. Over the long term, the prediction is for ever greater weather volatility.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Water is not an optional extra; it is the foundation of a functioning country. I hope that we can agree that what Britain needs is not just investment and regulation, but a national plan under coherent leadership. We need a commitment that water security will not be an afterthought, but will continue to be the backbone of our infrastructure system.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We should bring water resource management plans, drainage strategies and price reviews into a single co-ordinated process. We should launch a national water literacy campaign to put water efficiency on the same footing as net zero, and we should give one agency clear responsibility for delivering long-term water resilience, ensuring that all future demands are met. If we get this right, the benefits are enormous: a resilient rural economy that can grow and innovate; ecosystems that are healthier, more diverse and no longer pushed to collapse by over-abstraction; chalk streams that remain a part of our national heritage; secure food production; reliable water for homes, industry, data and energy; and a housing sector that can actually deliver the homes we need. It is a simple choice: action now or crisis later.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We should recognise essential food infrastructure as nationally important, while also recognising the role that water storage plays in food infrastructure. At the national level, we urgently need joined-up oversight. Britain remains without a single national strategy for water security. Responsibilities are spread across the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency, Ofwat, local authorities and water companies. The National Audit Office has warned repeatedly that this confused accountability leads to strategic inertia. Funding decisions are fragmented, planning cycles are misaligned and essential investment—nearly £20 billion in resilience infrastructure identified by the National Infrastructure Commission—remains unfunded.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need retrofit incentives for existing housing stock, because old homes are where the real efficiency lies, and there are many more of them. For the rural economy, we should introduce new permitted development rights for small and medium reservoirs. The current rules effectively block most farms or nurseries from qualifying. We should create more flexible abstraction rules for winter refill. It is not fair to ask farmers to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds building reservoirs, without the certainty that their licences will be renewed. We should support nature-friendly farming and soil health. Healthy soil can hold up to 350,000 litres of water per hectare, which reduces the risk of both drought and flood.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Ben from Tates of Sussex garden centres says: “A few days without irrigation can mean tens of thousands of pounds of plant losses…and rising water costs are becoming a limiting factor on our entire business.” The rural economy has the potential to contribute an additional £19 billion a year to the UK, but only if it has access to the water infrastructure it needs. What should we do? For housing, we need to be more water-smart. That means construction guidelines for new homes and usage standards for white goods. What it should not mean is overly restrictive rules enforcing hyper-low-pressure devices. Push too far in that direction and people simply respond by taking longer showers and double-flushing the toilet. Instead, we need practical, efficient, enforceable standards.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The horticulture industry employs more than 770,000 people, contributes nearly £40 billion to the economy and more than £8 billion in tax revenue. This year, the driest spring since 1983, followed by among the hottest summers, has pushed many growers to the limits. Although hosepipe bans have become routine these days, the impact on business profits is anything but. One nursery reported to the Horticultural Trades Association that footfall fell by 20%, and it lost £300,000 the last time drought measures were imposed in their region. An abstraction threshold of 20 cubic metres per day forces many growers to fall back on using treated drinking water, which is costly, inefficient and environmentally absurd. In Horsham, local growers tell me that water scarcity is now one of the biggest constraints on their investment.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The second area I want to turn to is the rural economy. Farmers, vineyards, garden centres and nurseries rely heavily on access to water. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for rural business and the rural powerhouse, I hear regularly from farmers who have faced ruinous losses during drought periods. In 2025 alone, arable farmers have lost £800 million to drought. Increased water capture and storage is the obvious solution, but farmers face obstacles everywhere: historical abstraction limits no longer fit for purpose, complex planning rules and grant schemes not open to smaller enterprises. The Government have recently confirmed that they intend to reform permitted development rights for farm reservoirs. If the Minister could confirm a timetable for that to happen, I am sure hon. Members would be grateful.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is a result of a unique requirement, known as water neutrality, by which no new houses could be built if they increased demand on water supply by as much as a single litre. That was ordered by Natural England to protect a rare river habitat in the Arun valley, threatened with over-abstraction. It was a daft rule imposed overnight and now it has been removed—again, overnight. Both decisions are wrong. Those wild policy U-turns at a national level have left Horsham without a five-year land supply, turning Horsham district council into a wild west for speculative developers. Creating water headroom for new housing requires the Government to create new supplies, not simply fiddle with the figures. Looking at how Horsham has been treated, it is hard to have confidence in the Government’s bona fides on the environment.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Over the course of this Parliament alone, more than 60,000 homes could become undeliverable due to water constraints, with more than £25 billion in lost value. Research suggests that in some areas nearly 40% of the Government’s new housing target cannot be delivered under current water supply conditions. Developers cannot invest when they cannot guarantee water. Local businesses cannot expand without commercial space. Communities cannot grow when basic infrastructure cannot be secured. Therefore, water scarcity is fast becoming a major handbrake on economic ambition, and in some of the UK’s highest growth potential regions. In my constituency of Horsham, West Sussex, we have been fighting our own version of water wars for the past four years.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Water underpins everything—our environment, our economy, our wellbeing and, of course, our national food supply—and right now the evidence is clear: we are not on a path that will guarantee water security for future generations. The situation is not helped by poor management performance and under-investment from many of our privatised water companies, which has additionally resulted in a crisis of water quality as well as scarcity. That is the national picture, but there are two sectors where the consequences are being felt most acutely: housing and the rural economy. The Government have set a target of 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament, but it is not going to happen without solving the water crisis. In Cambridgeshire, water stress has already delayed 9,000 homes and 300,000 square metres of commercial development.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; I very much agree. We need to look at every measure to utilise water that is already there, in addition to reservoirs, which take up lots of space. When it comes to our groundwater bodies, 40% are already classed as over-extracted, and only 16% of England’s surface waters are judged to be in good ecological status. The National Audit Office warns that, as of today, 12 million people already live in water-stressed areas. Seven water company regions are expected to hit critical status by 2030, and the number rises to 12 by 2040. Meanwhile, average water use per person is surprisingly rising, completely contrary to policy. It is now at around 140 to 150 litres a day, despite a Government target of just 110 litres by 2050.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have taken water for granted and we simply cannot afford to keep doing so. I hope this debate will contribute to there being a greater focus on this very important issue. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered water scarcity.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for her response. I guess it is quite a challenge being a water Minister at a time when we seem to have endless droughts, but there we go—I will not blame her personally. This issue is a great big challenge for Government, because we are discussing changes that need to be made 20 or 30 years in advance. Let’s face it—Governments of all kinds have not been the best at that kind of long-term thinking. I very much appreciate her words today. I also thank hon. Members for all their contributions today. If there is one thing that this debate has shown us, it is how diverse water stress is; it is creating different problems locally, everywhere. However, we need there to be national attention on it. My simple message at the end of this debate would be that we have neglected this issue for far too long.”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Later today I will chair a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for rural business and the rural powerhouse, which focuses on generating rural growth. If we could push rural productivity closer to western European averages, it would fix the Government’s budgetary black hole all by itself. Will the Minister agree to set a measurable target for increasing rural productivity so that we can hold the Government to account on progress?”
House of Commons9 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions recently stated that “millions are getting benefits for anxiety or ADHD along with a free Motability car.” That is clearly nonsense, because only 200,000 claimants—at most—would be eligible to apply in the first place, and many of them also have a physical disability, which is the real reason for the car. Does the Minister agree that this must rank as one of the least accurate claims ever made by a politician, despite the strong competition?”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government rightly say that they want people to be independent, financially resilient and able to pay their own way, but that cannot happen if entire groups—women, ethnic minorities and disabled people—are destined to retire on a fraction of what others are provided with. There is a lot to like in this Bill, but legislative opportunities come up only once in a blue moon, and a lot more could be done here. I ask the Government to support new clauses 8 and 13.”
House of Commons3 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗