Mr Joshua Reynolds
MP for Maidenhead · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“The Act is now law and the House has still not been told how any of this is going to end, so I have three questions for the Minister. First, Jingye has said it has started the process to seek compensation from the Government for nationalisation; will the Minister confirm what compensation Jingye is asking for, the Government’s assessment…”
“I am particularly glad that the Government accepted many Liberal Democrat amendments to the steel industry Bill, even if they did not accept them in this place and they had to be tabled in the other place instead.”
“We have a duty to stand by our steel sector, especially as it navigates unprecedented challenges such as President Trump’s unfair steel tariffs, China’s anti-competitive state aid practices, and the transition to environmentally sustainable production methods.”
“Over the last year, Royal Mail delivered just 75% of first-class post the next day, against a target of 93%. Ofcom has fined it nearly £40 million across three years and has opened a fourth investigation. Constituents in Maidenhead are still missing hospital appointments and other important business because letters do not arrive.”
“The Liberal Democrats want a closer, more sensible relationship with our European friends and neighbours, so there is plenty to welcome here. I congratulate the Minister and his team on being able to secure some of the things we see today.”
“I know the Minister agrees: when he was in front of the Select Committee recently, he told colleagues that if he had the choice, he would rejoin the European Union.”
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“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade if he will make a statement on the nationalisation of British Steel.”
“Finally, what process has been arranged for new private co-investors to come in to help to modernise the sites? Without them, the taxpayer is not the rescuer of British Steel but ends up being its permanent owner.”
“The Act is now law and the House has still not been told how any of this is going to end, so I have three questions for the Minister. First, Jingye has said it has started the process to seek compensation from the Government for nationalisation; will the Minister confirm what compensation Jingye is asking for, the Government’s assessment of the amount, and how the House will be able to scrutinise any compensation paid? Secondly, precision-engineering firms throughout the country have confirmed that they cannot buy the specialist grades of steel they need from the approved domestic supply list because they are not manufactured in the UK. Owning a steel company is not the same as having steel capability. What plan is there to widen the range of grades that British Steel can produce to support British industry?”
“I am particularly glad that the Government accepted many Liberal Democrat amendments to the steel industry Bill, even if they did not accept them in this place and they had to be tabled in the other place instead. Our amendments require the Secretary of State to have regard to the costs of nationalisation and to come back to this House for approval before tabling regulations. Furthermore, our amendments require the consideration of environmental liabilities in any valuation because, as we all know, public ownership without public accountability is not a plan. The changes we secured strengthened the legislation and direct the Act and the Government’s broader steel strategy towards a truly sustainable footing in the long term, while giving taxpayers true value for money.”
“We have a duty to stand by our steel sector, especially as it navigates unprecedented challenges such as President Trump’s unfair steel tariffs, China’s anti-competitive state aid practices, and the transition to environmentally sustainable production methods. If we are to foster a thriving steel economy, we cannot allow more producers to collapse, we cannot allow more jobs to be lost and we cannot risk our last blast furnaces going cold. That is why the Liberal Democrats welcomed the steel industry legislation as a temporary, emergency and targeted step specifically aimed at turning around British Steel before it can be returned to the private sector.”
“Over the last year, Royal Mail delivered just 75% of first-class post the next day, against a target of 93%. Ofcom has fined it nearly £40 million across three years and has opened a fourth investigation. Constituents in Maidenhead are still missing hospital appointments and other important business because letters do not arrive. The posties are doing their best, but the system is set up to fail. Will the Leader of the House allocate time for a debate on Royal Mail’s performance, so that the new Prime Minister’s Government can tell all our constituents when their post will actually get delivered?”
“We welcome the news about the changes to e-gates but, given the serious risk of disruption with the entry and exit systems, will he tell the House when our constituents can expect the same clarity and certainty for airports across the European Union, so that we can really make a positive change?”
“I know the Minister agrees: when he was in front of the Select Committee recently, he told colleagues that if he had the choice, he would rejoin the European Union. It is disappointing that the Government have not moved more on the European Union and followed the Liberal Democrats’ plan for a defence and growth partnership, cutting the red tape and barriers that British businesses face. According to TheCityUK, exports of financial services have declined by 5.9% since 2019, at least in part due to Brexit frictions. I would like to ask the Minister a specific question in relation to e-gates.”
“The Liberal Democrats want a closer, more sensible relationship with our European friends and neighbours, so there is plenty to welcome here. I congratulate the Minister and his team on being able to secure some of the things we see today. Scrapping mobile roaming charges—charges that had to be changed when we left the European Union—will significantly boost support for consumers and the small businesses who trade across Europe. The Minister is aware that the European Union is our biggest single trading partner in services. Some 37% of our services trade is with the EU, so repairing our relationship with the EU is the biggest single thing we can do to boost trade in our financial and professional services.”
“Business energy costs are a significant barrier, holding British business back from being competitive on the world stage. Has the Secretary of State done any analysis of the potential GDP growth from reducing business energy costs and getting British businesses moving?”
“According to reports, domestic production has fallen from about 2 billion bricks not many years ago, to 1.3 billion in 2024. That is a 32% reduction in just a few years. The sector supports thousands of skilled jobs and is worth more than £1 billion. We have seen some brick factories closing already, and if more follow, we must make sure that we do not simply import bricks, adding risk to the supply chain and transport emissions while hollowing out our British industry. That, unfortunately, is being made harder, not easier, for British manufacturers. The UK is already the single largest importer of Indian bricks, and the trade agreement that the Government have signed with India will take away the remaining protected tariffs on those bricks imported to zero.”
“That concerns the first point I want to make to the Minister. A recent report published by Create Streets set out a serious issue about how we measure carbon in new homes. The standard assessment assumes that the building will last only 60 years. As we know, bricks do not last 60 years. Assess a brick over a realistic lifespan—120 years or more—and they perform significantly better on whole-life carbon. By baking in a 60-year assumption, the standard systematically makes bricks look higher carbon than they are and favours materials that look low carbon on day one but may need significantly more maintenance, replacement or even demolition early in the planning process. The short-termism of that standard is penalising one of the most durable, repairable materials that we have. This cost is being placed on factories.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the petitioner on securing 109,000 signatures, as well as the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) on introducing it. I thought that when I had written a speech about bricks, I would be the only Member to talk about them, but then I noticed that the hon. Members for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) were present and realised that I would definitely not be. Bricks are the nation’s favourite building material. They are durable, beautiful and woven into every constituency across the United Kingdom. In any of our constituencies, we can walk past beautiful brick-built homes and terraces built to last—many of them more than a century old, still standing, loved and lived in.”
“Bricks are not relics; they are well used, beautiful, durable, repairable and genuinely part of what makes Britain great. We should be building more homes and neighbourhoods that last for our children and our grandchildren, and stop penalising the material that does exactly that.”
“First, will he work with colleagues across Government to review the 60-year reference period for whole life carbon assessments and adopt a longer, more realistic lifespan so that we do not by accident create a de facto ban on bricks? Secondly, will the Government commit that sustainability standards will not rule out quality, durable, repairable materials that people love? Thirdly, will the Minister support cleaner brick production here at home rather than importing bricks from overseas, which sends the jobs and the emissions abroad? Fourthly, will the gas-intensive brick and ceramics industry finally be given the proper support that it needs via the Government’s supercharger scheme, so that its firms can compete on a level playing field?”
“That is very clear across age, gender, religion and political affiliation. We are trying to build more homes, but pushing developers away from building with the material that the majority of the British public want to live in. Brickmakers are caught in the same energy trap as all the ceramics sector. Firing clay takes enormous heat, and that heat comes from gas, but because the Government’s flagship energy relief policy is designed around electricity, gas-intensive makers are largely excluded. The same industry is squeezed from multiple directions: a penalising carbon standard is undervaluing its products, we are shutting out suppliers in the United Kingdom and favouring suppliers overseas, and then there is the energy-intensive issue. I have four questions for the Minister.”
“The hon. Gentleman is correct about the social impact, with modern slavery used in bricks coming from outside the United Kingdom. The Business and Trade Committee recently heard about how, although the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was a good start and had the full support of the House, the declaration requirements within it are not strong enough. A company can import things potentially made by modern slaves and satisfy the requirements, so we need to see a new piece of legislation to ensure that companies cannot import items that they know or feel have been made using slavery. We must also ask what the British public actually want to see in buildings. In visual preference research, bricks were preferred by 60% of the population when asked to compare two proposed buildings: one made out of bricks and one not.”
“Does the Secretary of State accept that long delays in publishing the defence investment plan and the instability at the top of his Department have sapped confidence from the industry and our allies, at the very moment when the Russian threat demands more certainty from us?”
“Having some transparency and clarity from the Minister would be beneficial. The Government must set out a clear and binding timetable for when the LLP reporting requirements will be reinstated, and ensure that Companies House receives the investment that it needs to deliver the reforms that Parliament has already passed. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Efford. Tackling economic crime and financial secrecy is vital for our economic and national security. The registration of overseas entities is an important step in improving ownership transparency, and we welcome any measures that make it work better in practice. However, I note with concern the temporary removal of the LLP address reporting requirements. The Government have stated that the reason is that Companies House systems are not yet equipped to receive and process that information, but that raises broader questions about pace and resourcing in Companies House more generally. We have known for a significant period of time that it has been underperforming, under-resourced and not doing what it should be in the appropriate manner.”
“Q12. Yesterday the Prime Minister visited Maidenhead to announce his new defence investment plan. However, we now know that he is leaving it to his successor to decide how to fund the majority of it. We cannot fund our armed forces without growth, and we cannot get growth in Britain without dismantling the red tape that businesses face and trading closer with our closest neighbours. Does the Prime Minister agree we can properly fund our forces with a new growth and defence partnership with Europe, and will he urge his successor to drop Labour’s red lines to get it done?”
“Magistrates are a humongous volunteer force, which the Magistrates’ Association says are close to breaking point. With the Government aiming to increase the number of magistrates to almost 21,000, what will the Secretary of State do to attract more young people and working-age people in full-time roles to that challenging volunteer role, for which they might have to give up some of their paid employment?”
“Will he help support the Liberal Democrats’ campaign to ditch the Government’s red lines and have a new, bespoke UK-EU customs union, along with joining the single market for our new growth and defence partnership with the EU, to help protect British companies and help get Britain growing again?”
“Businesses across Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom are concerned that from tomorrow they may face tariffs on the steel that they are importing even if that steel is not manufactured in the United Kingdom in the quantities or grades they need. The Under-Secretary has requested that we write to him with specific examples, and I did so on 19 June on behalf of Hewland Engineering in my constituency, but it is concerned that it has not heard back yet and 1 July is coming quickly. The Minister mentioned in his response to the urgent question that he was working hard to ensure a single market in this area between us and the European Union. The Liberal Democrats are really grateful to hear that, because we have long argued that this friction is an inevitable result of our leaving the European Union and the single market.”
“Over recent weeks, one of the most frequent adverts served to me and many others on X is an AI-generated fake image of a Member of this House fighting with the Governor of the Bank of England. When half of adults cite social media as one of the sources from which they get their news, can the Secretary of State confirm what conversations she has had with colleagues in DSIT to make sure that these fake-news social media adverts do not become our news?”
“I am worried that, if the Government do not listen to them, swathes of organisations and businesses in my constituency and others will just fold overnight.”
“If we are suggesting that this will happen on 1 July, writing to a Minister on 17 June to ask for some thoughts when we know it will take several weeks to get a response—probably beyond 1 July—will not be of any benefit. This is not a steel strategy; it is a steel tax on domestic business. We will not support the regulations today, but if the Government intend to press ahead with them, I have some questions for the Minister. Will he consider delaying or tapering start dates to agree some mitigations with industry, removing categories with no realistic domestic capability, particularly in categories 14 and 27, and committing to exemptions for specialist steel that cannot be made at scale in the United Kingdom? Those businesses are crying out and sounding the horn to say that they are at risk of going under.”
“It therefore should not have this 50% tariff applied to it. Who bears the cost of the 50% tariff that the Government are proposing? All the downstream industries that put steel into engines and aircraft parts. They employ around 300,000 people across the country, but this blanket tariff, which is meant to protect, risks weakening that workforce and making it smaller. The Government know that there is a problem here—that is why Ministers have been meeting industries about this issue for a long time—but it feels as if they are just ignoring these sectors entirely. In an urgent question today, I asked the Industry Minister about this. He said that if I wrote to him, he would help with the quotas and set out the proposals.”
“It employs more than 120 people and turns over £15 million. It sells precision drivetrains for aerospace, defence and motorsport across the UK, Europe and Japan. The Government’s answer to Hewland and many other businesses is to buy British, but Hewland has looked at the list of approved domestic suppliers, and not a single one meets the grades or certifications that its customers require. This is not a company that is choosing to buy foreign steel over British steel. There is no domestic option, and yet from 1 July, Hewland faces a 50% tariff on the specialist steel that it needs. That is the central flaw in the Government’s proposals: non-domestic availability. The specialist steel that is required for aerospace, defence and other sectors is not made here at the volumes that we need.”
“It risks protecting one part of British industry by punishing another. Two of those categories make the point very sharply: category 14, which covers stainless bars and light sections, and category 27, which covers cold-finished bars. Those are not commodity steel products bought by the tonne; they are long precision products on which aerospace, defence and motorsport rely, machined to fine tolerances and certified to exacting grades. Those are also categories in which Britain has little or no production at the volume that we need. A 50% tariff here will not redirect demand to British mills, because there are no British mills to redirect that demand to; it simply lands a 50% tax on those British businesses that need those products. Hewland Engineering in my constituency is a fine example.”
“Steel matters for our national security, for our defence and for our critical infrastructure, and it sustains jobs in every single part of the United Kingdom. British Steel supports thousands of jobs and more than £1 billion-worth of economic activity through its own operation and supply chain, as well as underpinning hundreds of thousands of jobs and several more billion pounds-worth of activity across the industries that depend on it. This is an industry that is worth defending. It has been battered by President Trump’s trade war and by years of unfair practices from China. But supporting the goal is not the same as supporting the method, and the method before us today—a flat 50% tariff, sweeping away the preferential rates across 20 categories of steel—gets the balance badly wrong.”
“Firms such as Hewland Engineering in Maidenhead face a 50% tariff on their specialist steel, but there is no approved British supplier to make the grades they need. That is not a steel strategy, but a tax on British manufacturing. I know the Minister understands their concerns, so will he go further and exempt categories for which there is no realistic British manufacturing or supply?”
“Bus companies and local authorities are rightly being encouraged to buy electric buses. However, half of new buses in the United Kingdom are bought from China, which does not support our great British bus industry. Will the Minister elaborate on whether the current procurement rules for electric buses are suitable for encouraging bus companies to buy British?”
“Early intervention saves lives, yet far too often support arrives only at the point of crisis, especially for young people in our education system. Will the Minister support the Liberal Democrats’ calls for a dedicated mental health professional in every primary and secondary school as well as mental health hubs in our communities, so that fewer young people reach that point of crisis?”
“On a £300,000 park home, that is £30,000, but many park homes in my Maidenhead constituency go for upwards of £500,000, £550,000 or £600,000. That is a massive amount of money. It could pay for a lot of years of social care, but it is being taken out of the system—being paid for now by our local authorities—because of that 10%. That can determine whether someone dies in dignity or experiences difficulty at a time that should be secure. I have at various times called the 10% commission unfair and illogical, and I stand by that. It singles out one group of home owners for a deduction. No leaseholder, freeholder or shared owner would ever tolerate that.”
“When people come to sell their park home, the law steps in and takes 10% of the sale price—not the gain or profit, but the price. That is handed straight over to the site owner. That is not for services rendered at the point of sale, for an obligation that has been discharged, or for anything that we as Members can quantify and put our fingers on—or that the industry itself can explain—but just because they are selling their park home. For most park home owners, selling is not a choice, but a last resort: they are downsizing and moving closer to relatives, or, in quite a lot of cases, they are going to pay for care costs that age has made unavoidable. At the precise moment when every single penny matters most, the system reaches into their pockets and takes a 10% slice.”
“They choose this way of life, in park homes, because it is settled, affordable and within reach, when so much of the rest of the housing market is not. They pay their site fees and maintenance charges, and keep their homes in good order, often for decades. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) talked about the issues with the agreements— eight months or 12 months—when people buy their homes. One reason for those issues is that when people buy their park homes, they are often told, “Don’t worry about conveyancing or solicitors. You don’t need that. It’s not important.” They would never have been told that if they bought another property, but that is okay when it comes to park homes. That is where quite a lot of the issues, including those faced by the hon. Lady’s constituent, come from.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing the debate. We have discussed these issues multiple times on the all-party parliamentary group on park homes, of which he is also a member. Park home residents are often the forgotten home owners in our housing system. In this place we rightly discuss leaseholders, renters and first-time buyers, but we almost never talk about the 160,000 people who own park homes in England, four in five of whom are over 65. The quiet injustice that they have faced for many years is overwhelming. These people are overwhelmingly older residents, and most of the time are on fixed incomes.”
“My hon. Friend is completely right. Park home residents have had consultation after consultation over many years. Site owners will respond to the current Government consultation, because they have lawyers to back them up and support them in putting in their thoughts, but the park home owners I have spoken to worry that there is no point in submitting responses to yet another consultation when, as they see it, nothing is going to happen. I worry that far fewer park home owners will respond to this consultation, and we will therefore end up with a one-sided consultation.”
“There is a consultation on the table, but lots of residents have been consulted before. I ask the Minister for a clear timeline for when we will see action, when we will have a conclusion with published responses, and when the 160,000 residents will get the fair deal that has been promised for so long but postponed for much longer.”
“We need to think about where the 10% commission came from. It has not always been 10%: it was 15% a number of years ago, so it is an arbitrary number. I pay tribute to Sonia McColl OBE and the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign. Over decades, she and the campaign have done what many in this place only wish we had been able to do. They secured two legislative changes: ending sale blocking, and shifting pitch fees from RPI to CPI, which the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) spoke about. Sonia and the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign have driven lots of the work that is happening here. Another petition is going to Downing Street later today. I was lucky to be able to present one to Downing Street last year, and I know that many of us are willing to submit them in future. We need to be honest about what we are going to do.”
“I thank my constituency neighbour for that point. It is incredibly important that everybody responds to the consultation, so we must encourage more people to do so. The financial cost of the 10% commission is only part of the story. We have heard time and again about unscrupulous site owners who have used intimidation to drive residents off their pitches. There are fewer bad actors who own sites than there were a number of years ago, but some still know that if they intimidate residents and force a sale, they will get a 10% commission. We see that time and again. In my constituency, one owner bought a site for £200,000. They then intimidated countless park home residents, who sold their properties, and made that £200,000 back within less than 12 months. That is the business model of unscrupulous site owners.”
“Many park home residents in Maidenhead have told me that complete swathes of the consultation are not relevant to residents but are to site owners. Can the Minister clarify which questions he expects residents to be able to respond to, because many feel that those questions are just not relevant to them?”
“What assurances can the Minister give that, in using the enforcement powers, we will not penalise young shopworkers, who are simply doing their job as directed and who have no power, if they are doing something that is later found not to be compliant because of what their managers or retailers are doing?”
“The Minister knows we spoke at length about this subject in Committee stage of the 2026 Act, and I seek confirmation on a few points that we made back then. We spoke quite a lot in the Public Bill Committee about enforcement action, which will obviously be a key element. We discussed who would face enforcement action if they were selling products that were not licensed and did not have the correct stamps on them. “The seller” was mentioned as the person responsible, against whom enforcement action would be taken. Can the Minister explain who is meant by “the seller”? Is it the shop owner? Is it the brand? Is it the potentially 18 or 19-year-old shop assistant behind the till, who is just doing the job they are told to do?”
“On the Business and Trade Committee, we have heard time and again that if we want to transform the economic health of small and medium-sized enterprises, we need to direct a greater share of public procurement towards them. However, the British Chambers of Commerce has said that we are “stuck in a rut” at 20% of spending going to SMEs. What is the Minister doing to join up the approach across Whitehall to ensure that a greater amount of spending goes to SMEs?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office was asked several times about trade union requirements in public procurement contracts, yet Hansard records him as saying on 4 December that “The Government’s social value model provides opportunities to reward suppliers that recognise a trade union”. —[ Official Report , 4 December 2025; Vol. 776, c. 1144.] Could I seek your guidance as to how I could ask the Minister to confirm those two points together?”
“Capita has failed time and again, yet it is constantly awarded more contracts. Sally, one of my constituents, had been told multiple times that her lump sum payment was coming or had already been paid, but it was not paid. She and other civil servants would have been worried to hear in March that Capita is to be awarded a £700 million contract for the civil service payroll. Is that not just another example of how when Capita fails, the Government award it yet more of our money?”
“The Prime Minister once promised to end the chaos, and to restore honesty and integrity to Government. Does he think that appointing a man who called a convicted child sex offender his “best pal”, and whose connections with Epstein were already well known, is consistent with that promise? If it is not, will he step aside and let someone else end his chaos and restore honesty and integrity to Government?”
“The Minister is using words such as “may”. What she has outlined is incredibly important, but Lords amendment 342 obviously goes further than “may”—it insists that diversion orders will involve those necessary consultations. Will the Minister commit today to making sure that the police will have all these statutory duties, not just that they may have them, and that the consultation will be required?”