Sir Desmond Swayne
MP for New Forest West · Conservative · United Kingdom
“That is the strategy of this Budget: not to do too much, but to have a few things that make it, in the estimation of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), “popular”.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“According to Bloomberg data, we have lost half the billionaire wealth since 2024, either because it has left the United Kingdom or because its exposure here has been reduced. We might ask ourselves why. Well, it comes back exactly to the issue raised by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will certainly address the hon. Gentleman’s question. This Budget is certainly not popular with me—I have interests, which are set out in the register.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The problem that we have at the centre of our economy at the moment was defined—brilliantly and very candidly, I think—by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when he said that, in all the meetings he has, the question he is asked is, “Who can we tax in order to give benefits to others?” That is essentially the issue we are having…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West). I believe that this is the cut-and-run Budget.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Nothing could be more calculated to be devastating for the prospects of our young people languishing in unemployment than to suck in European labour. So I say we have that election.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). The Government’s bloated expenditure plans have overshot by 4%, and we have this enormous, growing benefits bill. The disaster was that the Government withdrew from their attempts to provide some mild or modest restraint to the growth of that bill, and as my right hon. Friend said, we now face a bill that is running annually at £300 billion—£212 billion of which is for the economic inactivity of 4.3 million people who are under no obligation to work. That number of people is growing at a rate of 130,000 per month.”
House of Commons26 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That was most unwelcome for businesses planning investment and for anyone planning to take on workers; these interventions move some markets and make others absolutely sclerotic. It is a disaster. When I challenged the Chief Secretary to the Treasury last week with the example of Hugh Dalton, who properly resigned over a Budget leak, I was astounded that he admitted at the Dispatch Box that he had no idea what I was talking about. That is extraordinary. Against that background, there is always the chilling presence of the huge increase in trade union power that is part of the Employment Rights Bill currently before Parliament. However, the Government’s anti-growth agenda is only half the story. The other half of the problem was expounded excellently by the Father of the House, my right hon.”
House of Commons26 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As a consequence, when the Budget was delivered, we discovered that things were even worse than we had imagined. The Government then announced after that Budget that they had stabilised the economy. It was over; they were not coming back for any more. They trumpeted throughout the past year the fact that we had the highest growth rate in the G7. That is what they inherited, but as their monstrous regiment has proceeded, that growth rate has become more and more anaemic. There is no getting away from the fact that last month the economy shrank. This summer, the Government repeated the mistake. All we got throughout the summer was horror story after horror story and kites being flown about ghastly taxes that might be imposed on us.”
House of Commons26 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Notwithstanding the misgivings that I had, I cheered with gusto. Somewhat later, I found myself on a train to Oxford to defend the Government in the annual Oxford Union debate of no confidence. While on the train, I received the news that the Chancellor who I had been cheering had been sacked—not a particularly good wicket to go out to bat on. I am confident that those hon. Members who cheered today will fare no better, because the economy is still reeling from the last Budget that the Chancellor delivered, with her wholesale assault on enterprise, family undertakings, initiative and every employer in the land. In fact, business confidence had collapsed significantly before that Budget. It had collapsed in the summer, when the Government warned everyone that things were so bad that they were going to have to get very, very much worse.”
House of Commons26 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not give way; I have reached my peroration. I have always thought that the result of that would be the totalitarian hand clenched in anger. I have read “The Road to Serfdom”, and things have actually turned out very differently. It is not the totalitarian hand clenched in anger; it is the Minister’s hand, open, dishing out largesse. It has turned out to be not so much the road to serfdom as the road to penury.”
House of Commons26 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Further to your earlier observation that if hon. Members had asked shorter questions during the previous statement, so many would not have been disappointed, there was a time when if a Member read from a piece of paper when asking a question, there would be a chorus across the House of “Reading!” May I suggest that if hon. Members were required to remember their questions, they would obviously be shorter? May I ask you to discuss with Mr Speaker the possibility of returning to former habits?”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“How confident is the Secretary of State that his provisions for preventing compensation for interim custody orders will withstand challenge in the courts, and would the Government’s case be undermined in any way by their decision not to challenge the original ruling in the High Court?”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even if the Supreme Court had opined on the matter and judged it to be incompatible, that would not have changed the law. This House is not required to respond in any way to a declaration of incompatibility by a court. This House remains supreme.”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the Home Secretary struggles to find these return hubs, she should reflect on the fact that it was her Government who wasted £700 million by giving up an opportunity to Germany and the United States before we got the chance to use it.”
House of Commons17 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is not the principal difficulty that so many housing developments have now become unprofitable, and that is why they are not being proceeded with? It is the costs that have been loaded on builders in the last 15 months.”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is education in the clouds when contrasted with the reality of a war against elitism, which is so often actually a war against excel-ism on the ground, is it not?”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will call only Sir Ashley Fox and the Minister to make speeches. There will not be an opportunity for Sir Ashley to sum up after the debate.”
House of Commons4 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Growth, increased turnover and increased profits for microbusinesses should be a cause for celebration, but the reality is that crossing the reduced VAT threshold can be a disaster. So many suppliers of small businesses are themselves small businesses; there is no VAT that they can reclaim, so it can be dreadful.”
House of Commons4 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady referred to the trade deals—so many more than were achieved under the Conservative Government, she says—but the reality is that those trade deals could not have been made had we not had the Brexit deal that we achieved when in government. What is more, the Labour party opposed that deal. We could not do those trade deals before 2016.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am still smarting from my hon. Friend’s reluctance to squash the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake), who alleged that there had been no leasehold reform. Such was the extent of leasehold reform under Conservative Governments that the Duke of Westminster resigned from the party in indignation.”
House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“None of it makes sense—not the collapsed trial, Chagos or the embassy—but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) says, it all makes sense if the Government have prioritised a strategic relationship with communist China, does it not?”
House of Commons23 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The active management of the prison service at those levels of occupation was of course hard work, but that hard work was absolutely necessary, and far preferable to simply taking a view that we will not have all those criminals in prison at all. The reality is that what we are doing now is much worse.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The importance of the sunset clause is that it relieves the monstrous contradiction we have had from the Government. They have presented this legislation as an emergency measure because the prisons are too full, yet at the same time they boast about their great, expansive prison-building programme. Clearly the two are at odds with one another. Who will be put in these prisons if this legislation persists? That is why my right hon. Friend’s sunset clause is so important.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Like the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State should stop using the phrase, “The legislation was struck down by the courts.” The courts have no such power. As Jack Straw made clear from the Dispatch Box, a declaration of incompatibility is no more than a declaration; it places no obligation or expectation on Parliament. But may I thank the Secretary of State for at least listening to my representations in delaying the repeal of sections 46 and 47 of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 until the new legislation is in place? Of course, he is doing so because they are effective. Otherwise, there would be no point in delaying their repeal, would there?”
House of Commons14 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have some advice for the hon. Member for Rugby: those that lick the feet of the unworthy gain for themselves nothing but a dirty tongue. [ Laughter. ]”
House of Commons16 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is. Am I mistaken in my belief that there is a convention in the House that when the Leader of the Opposition puts their hand on the Dispatch Box and seeks to intervene, the Minister gives way?”
House of Commons16 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me take the Secretary of State back to zero-hours contracts. The seasonality of the hospitality industry and, indeed, boat building down in my constituency, where large numbers of students are taken on, means that scheduling for guaranteed hours is very difficult, particularly when those students benefit from the provision, because they want to partake in races and other seasonal activities of a leisure nature.”
House of Commons15 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What can the Secretary of State say to those in the boatbuilding industry who have made representations to me about protection from day one? When someone takes on a craftsman, it can take quite a long time to establish whether he is any good and up to the job.”
House of Commons15 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One reason that so many of those cases do not end up in a tribunal is that businesses, cognisant of the loss of management time and £15,000 to £20,000 in fees, simply pay up rather than contest.”
House of Commons15 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will call Joani Reid to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of the mover of the motion and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the mover of the motion to sum up afterwards.”
House of Commons2 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the red carpet treatment afforded to Putin, will the Secretary of State remind our principal ally that it is our co-signatory to the Budapest memorandum?”
House of Commons1 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q2. Jack Straw told us that the Human Rights Act 1998 places on us no expectation that we will remedy a declaration of incompatibility issued by a court, so the Prime Minister is wrong to say that the legacy Act is struck down. His own proposals, which open the door to compensation to Gerry Adams and place in jeopardy our own servicemen, present enormous difficulty to those of us who have served—that is increasingly the case on the Prime Minister’s own Benches. Will he consider that?”
House of Commons16 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When Jack Straw introduced the Bill that became the Human Rights Act 1998, he made it clear from the Dispatch Box, in terms, that Parliament was not under any obligation, in any way, to introduce a remedial order after a declaration of incompatibility by a court. There is no need to win another court case. Parliament is supreme. The Act stands.”
House of Commons14 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yesterday on “Farming Today” at 5.45 am, it was put to a shellfish farmer that it was going to become much easier for her to export her produce to the European Union. Her response was, “Yes, but we are told that the changes will be two or perhaps four years away, if they happen at all.” Given what we have negotiated away, can those changes be expedited?”
House of Commons10 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A number of Members this morning have lobbied for expenditure to repair their churches, and the hon. Lady has told them to lobby the Government—the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—for that money. At the same time, the Church has already spent £5 million on this project, with the aspiration of taking it to £1 billion, when the Charity Commission has yet to deliver its verdict on whether that is within the charitable objectives allowable. How has that been allowed to happen?”
House of Commons3 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had Borstals and approved schools, neither of which were particularly successful at reforming those who were in custody in them. Is the Minister confident that this new architecture, this new arrangement, will be more successful?”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To describe it as fair and equal to treat people with identical conditions differently purely on the basis of whether they are an existing recipient of benefits is Orwellian newspeak on stilts, isn’t it?”
House of Commons30 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I remind hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
House of Commons25 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It was proper and lawful to send HMS Spey through the Taiwan strait in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China sea, was it not, and can we see more like it?”
House of Commons24 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At the lobby last week by the food banks, a number of people expressed the wish to have greater facilities to educate their clients with respect to shopping and preparing meals more effectively. They make a fair point, don’t they?”
House of Commons23 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is a difference of principle on the question of human rights, because there are two lives involved in these decisions. That is the fundamental problem.”
House of Commons17 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Studied ambiguity of what and when has had no impact on Israeli policy. We want to know, and Israel needs to know, precisely what the Government mean by “further steps”.”
House of Commons4 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Respect for justice is diminished by the fiction of the judge announcing a sentence and those in the know then calculating on the back of a fag packet the fraction that it actually represents. Has this statement not reinforced that system with bells on?”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“1. If he will take steps to ensure that compensation is not paid to people detained using interim custody orders during the troubles in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Secretary of State withhold the remedial order until he is certain that he can deliver the Prime Minister’s pledge to prevent Gerry Adams from receiving compensation?”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I tell my hon. Friend why I think the hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) is wrong? Since the very inception of our negotiations to join what was then the common market—now the European Union—it has attached huge importance to fishing. We have just handed over the enormous leverage of an annual negotiation, and for what? Absolutely nothing.”
House of Commons21 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Secretary of State delay putting before the House the remedial order until he is certain that the Government have a way of delivering the Prime Minister’s commitment to preventing Gerry Adams from claiming compensation?”
House of Commons19 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill does allow applicants to shop around for doctors, and it strikes me that there is a danger that some doctors, who might have an ideological view of the Bill, will specialise in the provision of that service, which would give it rather greater scope than the hon. Lady intends.”
House of Commons16 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many domestic abusers will, given their nature, welcome the opportunity to give another twist of the knife at the cost of a mere 28 days. Has the Minister just presented them with a practical opportunity?”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is important to remember the history here. There was no common fisheries policy until the prospect of Britain’s joining the common market arose, and then those countries created one simply so that they could rip us off.”
House of Commons13 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister has made the Government’s position crystal clear that the Israeli plan is unacceptable. How will British Government policy towards Israel change as that plan is implemented?”
House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Arrangements at the border are disadvantaging companies on both sides of the channel, so there are mutual advantages to be had in negotiations without feeling the need to make any major concessions, aren’t there?”
House of Commons1 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A vital ingredient of any net zero policy is an understanding of the word “net”. Ultimately, we are going to have to grapple with technology that we have had for over a century to remove carbon directly from the air, aren’t we?”
House of Commons1 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May we have a statement next week from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in which he can set out his compelling reasons for proceeding with the Henry VIII power of a remedial order to amend the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 when the Government have already made it clear that they plan to repeal and replace the Act?”
House of Commons1 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Strangford mentioned, be they imprisoned for advocating for human rights, for their insistence on freedom of expression, or because of their adherence to a minority faith, and whether they be imprisoned in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, North Korea, Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, Venezuela or wheresoever. I share a belief with my hon. Friend that there will be a day of liberation, when the prisoners will be freed. But that day of rapture will also be a day of wrath and judgment for their oppressors. We ought all to shrink from that judgment, because we share in the guilt of their tormentors through our inaction and by our silence.”
House of Commons1 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗