Neil Duncan-Jordan
MP for Poole · Labour · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) on securing this timely debate. My constituency does not have a university, but many of my constituents study and work at the two nearby universities in Bournemouth.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We saw that decline greatly during covid, when I was working as a trade union official, and it has not yet been able to come back. Coupled with changes to visa restrictions, international students are being put off from coming to the UK.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government cannot secure the future of the HE sector simply through further fee increases for students. I believe we need an immediate cap on student numbers for each institution, rather than allowing the larger institutions to hoover up all the available students in an area.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The financial risks, however, are not evenly spread across the sector. Institutions with smaller reserves, limited international recruitment and weaker balance sheets are particularly exposed. The most invidious result of these financial pressures is the move to make staff pay for the failure of the system.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to present a petition signed by hundreds of my constituents, which calls for urgent action to ease the cost of living pressures that many families face and for greater support for the many local businesses that make Poole the place it is.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to implement a strategy for coastal communities that supports affordable housing, coastal economies, lower household energy costs, cleaner waterways and stronger representation for coastal communities within Government.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“The Government cannot secure the future of the HE sector simply through further fee increases for students. I believe we need an immediate cap on student numbers for each institution, rather than allowing the larger institutions to hoover up all the available students in an area. We need financial support for those universities facing immediate financial pressure, and we need to put a halt to the redundancies and wholesale course closures that are taking place across many of those institutions. The Prime Minister has made it clear that his growth agenda is based on a triple helix model of business, Government and universities working together. For that to succeed, we need a healthy HE sector, and to achieve that, we need greater Government intervention and support.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The financial risks, however, are not evenly spread across the sector. Institutions with smaller reserves, limited international recruitment and weaker balance sheets are particularly exposed. The most invidious result of these financial pressures is the move to make staff pay for the failure of the system. At a number of universities, including those with whom I used to negotiate, we are seeing the creation of subsidiary companies to transfer staff out of direct university employment. That removes them from either the local government pension scheme or the teachers’ pension scheme. Staff who refuse to transfer often face the threat of redundancy. Despite the Government’s best efforts, this looks remarkably to me like fire and rehire.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We saw that decline greatly during covid, when I was working as a trade union official, and it has not yet been able to come back. Coupled with changes to visa restrictions, international students are being put off from coming to the UK. There are also rising operational costs—energy costs, pensions and national insurance rises; those have all had an impact on large campuses—and a tuition fee funding model that has failed to keep pace with those rising costs, but the real reason for the state of HE funding is the marketisation of the sector. Pitching one university against another to compete for students has driven an arms race to build the shiniest buildings they can, often at the expense of the teaching and student experience. At any time, many of our campuses look more like a building site than a university.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) on securing this timely debate. My constituency does not have a university, but many of my constituents study and work at the two nearby universities in Bournemouth. However, my interest in this subject comes from the fact that when I was a regional official for Unison, I was head of the HE section in the south-east. That experience taught me a lot about the way in which the sector is financed. Today, a growing number of institutions are forecasting deficits, and many have introduced or will soon be introducing the cost-cutting measures that hon. Members have mentioned, including redundancies among academic and support staff. For years, there has been a financial over-reliance on international students.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to implement a strategy for coastal communities that supports affordable housing, coastal economies, lower household energy costs, cleaner waterways and stronger representation for coastal communities within Government. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003254]”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The petitioners therefore request “that the House of Commons urges the Government to implement a strategy for coastal communities that supports affordable housing, coastal economies, lower household energy costs, cleaner waterways and stronger representation for coastal communities within Government.” Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the United Kingdom, Declares that a budget for coastal communities would address their unique challenges, boost living standards, and support local economies; recognises that in Poole, above average housing costs collide with low wages while seasonal work leaves services stretched in summer and workers and businesses struggling through the winter; that families need immediate action to control rents and a long-term plan to deliver affordable housing, alongside supporting small businesses with a funded strategy for domestic tourism; that action is needed to cushion rising energy costs caused by Trump’s war with Iran together with sustained investment in renewables; that public ownership of failing water firms is essential cleaning up the water that defines coastal areas; and that a dedicated Minister for Coastal Communities should be appointed to coordinate this plan.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to present a petition signed by hundreds of my constituents, which calls for urgent action to ease the cost of living pressures that many families face and for greater support for the many local businesses that make Poole the place it is. Ahead of the Budget, I shared these proposals directly with the Chancellor, because I believe we need to recognise the distinct challenges facing coastal areas.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Just 1% of properties in Poole are affordable to rent at the local rate of housing benefit. The freeze on local housing allowance is making rents unaffordable; it needs to be uprated urgently. Also, we need a system of rent controls, as a step towards easing the housing crisis while the building gets started .”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) on securing this important debate. In Poole, we have one of the widest gaps between average wages and private rents in the country, and we suffer from a distinct lack of truly affordable housing for local people, with house prices that are 16% higher than the national figure sitting alongside rents far higher than rents in other parts of the south-west. In 2024-25, my local council built just 89 affordable homes, out of a total of 988 new properties. What we do have is a proliferation of luxury seafront apartments that local people cannot afford. It is no wonder that housing is the biggest issue raised by my constituents.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What better use of that money could there be than redirecting it into council housing? Let us be more ambitious in our growth agenda. Let us see a council house building programme as a key part of that ambition. Let us remove the historical debt from councils’ housing revenue accounts, which other Members have mentioned. Let us unlock low-cost financing for council house building, enable councils to buy land at the right price to build social rent homes, and bring empty properties back to life. Let us give future generations the hope that was there after 1945, with a real housing revolution that offers everyone a place they can call home.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes. Obviously, there is an issue about viability and the way developers use that to renege on their earlier commitments to local authorities. There is also the key point that if we want the public sector and public services of the future, the workers who provide those services need to be able to afford to live in the area, so it is a circular argument that we need to keep making with the Government. Building a new generation of council houses is essential to ending the housing crisis. The £39 billion social and affordable homes programme is welcome, but does not go far enough. The Government need to be more creative when it comes to longer term financing of the sector. Currently, £88 billion-worth of UK pension funds is invested in fossil fuel companies.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Today’s decision feels like a backwards step in our efforts to reduce carbon emissions and our reliance on fossil fuels, but one of our biggest challenges is the £88 billion-worth of UK pensions that are invested in this dying market—some 10 times what those funds invest in clean energy sources. What pressure is the Minister bringing to bear to wean our pension funds off those damaging fossil fuel investments?”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are environmental consequences caused by the emergence of data centres. There are also overblown claims as to their ability to create large numbers of jobs. The biggest concern, however, is in whose interests they will operate. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that AI works for the people, not just for big tech companies?”
House of Commons15 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the Government’s move towards a national care service because, as the Minister said in her statement, everybody knows that we will not fix the NHS until we fix social care. But tens of thousands of care workers currently face a change to their immigration status. We should not be changing the rules for those who are already here and making a valuable contribution to both the care sector and our wider society. Does the Minister agree?”
House of Commons15 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We should be clear that setting future indexation to a proportion of average earnings means that, over time, the state pension will be lower than under the current system. Given that future generations will increasingly rely on the state pension, it seems like we are going in the wrong direction, but the real concern is that this policy is asking pensioners to pay for the care of other pensioners. Can I ask the Secretary of State why we are not sharing the cost of a new national care service among us all?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In conclusion, I hope that the new Prime Minister will consider appointing a Minister for coastal communities to address these very important and pressing issues.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One in four children in Poole is living in relative poverty after housing costs, which shows the impact of high rents and their effect on the cost of living. Towns such as Poole are also desperate for good-quality, affordable and secure council housing for local families, rather than the developer-led luxury waterside apartments that have sprung up in recent years. Such apartments are either unsuitable for young families or out of reach for many locals. We know that poor housing can lead to poor health outcomes. Life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy are all lower in coastal areas, and the gap between more affluent areas and poorer areas continues to widen.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) on securing this important debate. Like all hon. Members who represent a coastal constituency, I am lucky to represent such a beautiful area. However, one of the first issues we face is that of perception. My constituency has some of the most expensive land in the country, which sits just 20 minutes away from areas that fall within the most deprived 10% of places in England. Such extremes of wealth can often mask what is really happening in a town. Average gross median weekly full-time earnings in Poole are £764, but monthly rent is around £1,400.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had 23 reviews into social care since 1997, but no agreement on how care should be funded. Does the Minister agree that the way we fund cancer care should also be the way that we fund care of those with dementia?”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ban political donors from receiving public contracts with Governments of political parties they have donated to. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003226]”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The petitioners “therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ban political donors from receiving public contracts with Governments of political parties” to which they have donated, “And the petitioners remain, etc.” Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the United Kingdom, Declares that companies which donate to political parties have gone on to receive billions of pounds in public contracts; and further declares that this creates a perception that political decisions are shaped by cosy relationships with super-rich donors, instead of a sole focus on delivering better living standards and services for millions of people.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to present a petition, alongside a corresponding online petition, which has been signed by more than 4,000 UK residents, calling for a ban on political donors getting contracts from Governments they helped to fund. Big money donors do not give out of kindness; they pay for access and influence. The evidence shows that it is a smart investment, because the firms have landed billions in Government contracts. If we want to build a better country, we need a better kind of politics, and tackling the corrosive influence of big money is the first step to rebuilding public trust.”
House of Commons14 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Similarly, the digital infrastructure that facilitates our work and public services is now an essential layer of the economy, but that gives oligarchs like Elon Musk enormous power to distort public discourse. We have effectively subcontracted our right to information to a handful of big tech gatekeepers.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Around six in 10 people expect the gains to flow to wealthy investors and big corporations, while just 7% think they will be shared fairly across our society. Understandably, seven in 10 workers are worried about the impact of AI on their jobs. Even the Foreign Secretary said recently that AI poses a Hiroshima-style threat to humanity unless global rules are put in place. In today’s digital age, a cartel of technology giants—Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple—wield extraordinarily influence over our lives online. These platforms have become so embedded in daily life that meaningful participation in society depends on using their services.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Government policy on AI and its impact on society. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I think we all agree that AI is a transformational technology with the potential to bring many benefits to our society, but to fully realise them we will require the Government to look at radical changes to taxation, welfare and our industrial strategy. Everyone in the UK needs to benefit from a managed AI transition that puts workers and human dignity at its heart. It must make the world fairer, not more unequal, and it should give UK citizens a meaningful say in decisions that will affect their lives. Evidence from the New Contract, a pro-worker AI campaign organisation, reveals that the public are deeply suspicious about AI.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention; I will deal with AI sovereignty a bit later in my speech. We should ensure that, like a socialist Government’s approach to energy or water, the public have a stake in the development of AI technology, to ensure that the value it creates is captured and shared for the good of society as a whole. Previous waves of technological change have brought with them huge economic disruptions, but the human and social costs that followed were not inevitable. They were the product of political choices, as Governments left workers and communities to absorb the shocks alone.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about no place being left behind as a result of the AI revolution. I will develop that point a later. We can already see the first signs of AI impacting on work here. We have record numbers of young people not in employment, education or training because many entry-level jobs have disappeared.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The AI and big tech corporations in the US stand shortly to become some of the wealthiest and most powerful private actors in history. Their wealth has been built on public research and public investment, as well as all our shared written inheritance, which has trained the models they use. The fact that our tax system taxes income from work far more heavily than income from capital gives firms a direct tax incentive to automate a worker out of a job rather than employing them, and could see AI facilitate a further shift of national income away from labour and towards capital, eroding the tax base that funds the public services that we all need and want.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know that if it is left to the market, firms will often reach for the crudest form of automation, stripping out roles and degrading the work that remains. The alternative is that we start to advance the case for dignified work, and recognise that that will mean having meaningful worker involvement in every step of the process. The involvement of workers in adoption is often what turns a promising tool into a productive one. That is why I agree with the TUC that the Government should strengthen the Employment Rights Act 2025 to give workers a real say in decisions. There should be a duty on employers to disclose their use of AI, and a right for the workforce to be consulted and negotiate over how AI is introduced. One of the biggest challenges of AI is to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of the gains.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, young people and their employment prospects are intrinsically linked to the debate about the future of AI. The hon. Gentleman is right that we have to get that right for those people to have a future. We also need the Government to introduce a raft of measures to manage AI-driven changes to work. Those measures should include an employment levy on companies that replace large numbers of workers with AI, training subsidies for displaced workers, redeployment programmes to move workers into sectors with skills shortages, and a job subsidy scheme for workers and companies at the sharp end of industrial change, along with, of course, stronger social security support for those who face unemployment.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A progressive sovereign AI programme should involve an industrial strategy that seeks to expand public investment in the sector and impose strict conditions on private access to public assets, alongside active support for models such as co-operatives, public interest companies and other democratic ownership models, so that the gains of AI can be captured and shared throughout the UK. At the heart of this debate is the role of the public. Big decisions about AI, such as where data centres are built and how AI is deployed in public services, are being taken with little democratic input.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The UK is growing increasingly dependent on US tech, and owns little of the data infrastructure and AI models on which the future economy will increasingly rely. This repeats the pattern of recent decades in other sectors, whereby essential national infrastructure has passed into overseas ownership and money has flowed offshore, leaving British people with less and less control over the essentials of a good life. That dependence not only creates security risks, as has been mentioned, but prevents the UK from capturing and distributing any AI windfall. We need to give UK companies a meaningful chance to compete. The Competition and Markets Authority could use existing powers to take on the concentration in the cloud market, which underpins the AI companies’ business models.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his second intervention—let us see whether he can make it a hat trick before I finish. The reality is that AI is here now. We have to deal with how it impacts on today’s workers and future workers as well. This is not one generation against another, and I know the hon. Gentleman understands that. The Government could seek to equalise tax treatment, actively explore widening the digital services tax to include AI companies, which it currently excludes, and raise the level of the tax from 2% to the European average. We cannot allow the use of machines to be made artificially cheaper than employing people. It is important to look at AI sovereignty, which the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) mentioned earlier.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Only public investment can support AI that prioritises social and environmental challenges. We need an “AI for the people” strategy—one that starts to recognise the challenges we face and has the ideas to meet those challenges head on.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One data centre, even a modest one, uses the same amount of electricity as 100,000 homes. The bigger the data centre, the more electricity it uses. Very few of them run off renewables, so that is another issue we need to address. The communities that host the infrastructure see the costs, in water, energy and land, without getting any of the benefits that we have discussed. These big debates are why the Government must embed ongoing public and democratic oversight of the AI transition and legislate for community benefit where infrastructure is built, including a share of the value created locally. We must ensure that the AI revolution does not lead to more power being in the hands of a few who can determine our future. Governments must build independent, publicly funded alternatives to ensure that AI is developed for the common good.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Finally, the protections we will need must ensure that the next industrial revolution, which is already here in effect, benefits everyone and not just a few. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank all Members for their contributions to an excellent debate that showed we need to have more of this discussion. I will make some very quick points. First, we need to act with speed, as I think was accepted by a number of Members. As the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) mentioned, we cannot wait 25 years. We also need clear democratic oversight of what is happening. We cannot allow people we do not know and do not control to make our futures for us. We have to be in control of our own destinies. That is very important and will require global regulation. We will have to work with other authorities across the globe to come to the necessary arrangements.”
House of Commons8 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is nearly two years since the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful. Does the Minister believe that it is morally or legally justifiable for British bases to continue to be used to transfer weapons to Israel as part of this ongoing conflict?”
House of Commons6 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Abandoning the cut would make it clear that this Government are here to help people get on, not punish them for the barriers they may face. The protection offered by our social security system should be there to ensure that no one in need falls through the gaps. That is the mark of a compassionate society and something we should be proud to advance.”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why we need to acknowledge the importance of the triple lock, which has been key to raising the incomes of some of our poorest pensioners, and why we need to see it continue. I cannot talk about pensions without calling again for those women born in the 1950s who were unaware of the changes to their state pension age to receive some form of compensation. Much has been said about the need to get young people into work, but the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper proposed removing eligibility for work-related disability benefits, known as the universal credit health element, from disabled people who are under 22. We know that 94% of households with a young person claiming UC health would be in poverty if that support were cut.”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our social security system acts as the bedrock of our welfare state, but for years, the safety net it was meant to provide has developed more and more holes through which some of our most vulnerable citizens have fallen. For our older generation, the state pension is absolutely the foundation on which a decent retirement can be built. The interim report of the new Pensions Commission explains that 50% of working age adults are under-saving, that pensioner poverty is persistent and that the state pension represents three quarters of income in retirement for the lowest income groups, and that is set to grow. The fact is that if someone is low paid when they are at work, they will have an inadequate pension in retirement.”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Pensions Minister knows that there is no retirement on a dead planet, so will he commit to writing to the 50 largest UK pension funds to ask them to set out their timetable for divesting from fossil fuels?”
House of Commons29 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Without robust regulation, we risk steering society towards an unpredictable and turbulent future that does not work for the public. I have already raised with the Government the prospect of considering some form of employment levy, for example, on companies that replace large-scale workforces with AI. Tax is crucial to this debate, and I want to finish on it. Complicated corporate structures, offshore schemes and favourable tax systems allow companies such as Amazon and Apple to boost their bottom line. Given the lack of transparency about where companies make their money and pay their taxes, it is difficult to get an accurate picture of what is going on. Big tech is here to stay, but how we regulate it, tax it and control it are the big questions that our Government and society as a whole need to face.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The platforms have become so embedded in daily life that meaningful participation in society often depends on using their services. That gives them enormous power to influence public discourse and to curate the information that we receive. We have in effect subcontracted our right to information to a handful of big tech gatekeepers. Nowhere is the danger posed to society greater than on the issue of AI. Without doubt, AI is a transformational technology that will bring many benefits to our society, but in order to realise those benefits fully, it is important to put up safeguards to ensure that those technologies are developed and deployed appropriately and in the interests of society as a whole, rather than simply as a vehicle by which large tech companies can make even greater profits.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this timely debate and on his interesting and balanced speech. In today’s digital age, a small group of technology giants wield extraordinary influence over the infrastructure, services and processes that shape our online lives. Although not all their market positions constitute illegal monopolies, their collective market power enables them to set the terms of digital engagement for billions of people worldwide. That concentration of power has profound implications for the rights to privacy, non-discrimination and access to information. It also has the power to undermine our democratic processes fundamentally, which is one of the points that the right hon. Member made in his opening remarks.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister will know that coastal towns, such as Poole, which I represent, rely on small businesses. Poole would not be Poole without its restaurants or ice cream parlours. Polling this week shows strong public support for higher levies on big tech. Could this be a way to raise revenue to cut business rates and support the bricks-and-mortar shops that give life to our high streets?”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend will know that Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service has received an 11.8% increase in core spending power. Despite that, there are plans to merge Hamworthy fire station with the one in Poole. Not only will this increase response times, but it fails to take account of specific challenges in the area, such as flooding, heathland fires and seasonal increases in traffic. Will the Minister consider what more can be done to keep Hamworthy fire station open?”
House of Commons15 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They have highlighted ongoing problems of traffic congestion, a lack of youth services and, of course, the lack of affordable housing. Average gross median weekly full-time earnings in Poole are £764, but monthly rent is around £1,400, meaning that half of someone’s wages immediately goes on housing costs, not to mention council tax, energy bills and food. Nearly one in four children in Poole are living in relative poverty after housing costs, further suggesting the impact that high rents are having on the cost of living crisis.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is good to know that I have not lost the ability to lose the room, Madam Deputy Speaker. Like all hon. Members who represent a coastal constituency, I have a huge pride and privilege in representing Poole. When I get off the train at our local station after spending time in Westminster, the smell of the sea reminds me how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place; it has the world’s second largest harbour, some of the best blue flag beaches in the country and a surrounding coastline that is simply stunning. We cannot eat scenery, however; like other coastal communities, Poole faces a number of key issues that need Government attention. Since becoming MP for the area, I have been running a project called Positive About Poole, asking local residents for their ideas on how we can make our town an even better place to live.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes; I agree with my hon. Friend’s point and I will develop it further. Like my hon. Friend’s constituency, towns such as Poole are desperate for good quality, affordable and secure housing—I would argue council housing—for local families, rather than the developer-led luxury waterside apartments that have sprung up.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗