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 ↗
The complete record
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“Will the Minister deprecate those public appointees who, notwithstanding the clear proportionate advice of the chief scientific adviser, have been on the airwaves telling people that they should not socialise, to the huge detriment of people’s wellbeing and of an industry struggling to recover from earlier lockdowns?”
House of Commons30 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are about to have another pingdemic as we approach Christmas, to the huge disadvantage of enterprises across the country. It fundamentally undermines the other main effort of the Government, which is to increase vaccinations. One of the advantages of being vaccinated is not having to self-isolate if in the company of someone who is infected. If that is taken away, one of the incentives—the principal incentive—to get vaccinated is removed.”
House of Commons30 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Over the last few months there has been a useful control experiment on face coverings, given the different policies pursued in Scotland and England. What estimate has the Secretary of State made of the result? It is mumbo-jumbo, isn’t it?”
House of Commons29 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That prompts the question of what proposals the Minister may have to enable leaseholders to enforce the purchase of freeholds from such companies. Does he have plans for that?”
House of Commons29 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As I do! It would be quite unlawful for the capital cost of the communal areas in a retirement living community to be paid for through an administration charge, so we come back to the question whether it is in the interests of the purchaser to pay a ground rent or to pay the up-front cost in the purchase price. For a category of elderly people, it may well be in their interests to pay the former.”
House of Commons29 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My proposal seeks to avoid the confusion and difficulty that would arise with two different types of tenures in the same development. That seems a not unreasonable thing to ask Ministers to consider in Committee and on Report.”
House of Commons29 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The industry’s estimate is that some 4,000 apartments will remain unsold in part-sold developments. If someone was to complete on one of those properties on 1 April, they would be paying all the capital costs up front, whereas someone who had completed on 31 March would be expecting to pay a ground rent for the remainder of their tenure. That creates a huge legal confusion and a sense of injustice among the tenants in those properties. So I put a solution to the Minister: a technical amendment to the Bill to enable part-sold developments to continue to sell the unsold properties with a ground rent, provided those properties were built when it was lawful to charge a ground rent. That strikes me as proportionate. We are dealing not with a huge problem or a huge number of properties, but with some 4,000.”
House of Commons29 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have had the nub of my argument with my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), but it comes down to this: the retirement living industry’s business model funds the capital requirement for the communal areas through a flow of future ground rents from the outset. The Minister said that he has given the industry time to change its business model. My answer to that is: if there was a problem with an escalating ground rent, it would be perfectly appropriate to have dealt in a measure such as this with that specific problem, rather than telling the industry to change its entire model. Nevertheless, this is where we are. The business model must therefore have changed by 1 April 2023. The difficulty is with the time it takes to sell properties in the retirement living sector.”
House of Commons29 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The case for an amendment—I thank the Minister for his guidance in that respect—on the retirement sector is that it was clearly given an exemption and was assured throughout last year that that exemption would hold, but that exemption was suddenly withdrawn in January this year. Given the time that it takes to change the model and to sell such properties, this is crying out for amendment.”
House of Commons29 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When Geoff Hoon announced an exponential increase in the roles for females in the armed forces, I welcomed it from the Opposition Benches, but praying in aid St Bernard of Clairvaux, I pointed out that there would be an administrative overhead to be paid. For that I was rewarded with an early-day motion concerning the disgraceful behaviour of the Member for New Forest West, but given the way things have turned out, my words were prophetic. I have another prophecy I would like to share with the Minister for the Armed Forces, if he will indulge me with a short meeting.”
House of Commons25 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is there a danger that we raise expectations with the Nationality and Borders Bill unless there is an iron will on the part of Ministers to use the powers once they get them? And can my right hon. Friend not just tell the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) to make his own way to Calais?”
House of Commons22 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Notwithstanding the reason that the Minister has just given for the raising of the threat level, both the incidents to which he has referred involved, effectively, lone wolves. Is he in a position to share with us some of the rationale for raising the threat level nationally?”
House of Commons16 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If a member of NHS staff has previously had an episode of myocarditis and is anxious about its recurrence, would that be sufficient ground for an exemption from vaccination?”
House of Commons15 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is precisely the case when we serve on a Special Standing Committee for a private Bill: Members are required to be present because it is a quasi-judicial process.”
House of Commons3 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I take the right hon. Gentleman back to those halcyon days when he enjoyed lectures on monetarism and remind him that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon? There is no such thing as cost-push inflation.”
House of Commons27 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are two sides to this coin. The first is the Government broadcasting without first letting us know. The other is the information that they are trying to keep from us. Why was the leaked information on the substantial costs of winter plan B marked “Not for publication”? What are the Government trying to hide? Why are they frightened of our scrutiny?”
House of Commons26 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When we are increasingly concerned about mental health, the mask the Minister was wearing only moments ago denies us the fellowship and reassurance of her friendly facial expression, but the material of which it is composed has gaps that are 5,000 times bigger than the virus, does it not?”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On the hon. Gentleman’s stricture about the mask mandate— the requirement on which he wishes us to follow Scotland—the wearing of masks does not seem to have reduced the rate of infection in Scotland, which is somewhat higher than it is in England, does it?”
House of Commons19 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I recall the pervasive disapproval that attached to my family when my children were at school and it became apparent that my wife was refusing to use the powerful chemical solution for the control of nits. When we come to schools being collectively vaccinated, the decision of some parents or children not to be vaccinated will undoubtedly be a matter of common knowledge—there is certainly the danger of that. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that it will be difficult to prevent that general disapproval and all that may flow from it from being attached to parents or children who have decided not to be vaccinated?”
House of Commons21 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am inundated every week by employers who simply cannot get workers. Should we not be seeking to raise the sights of many working people to get another, better-paid job? They are out there.”
House of Commons15 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Spending £6 billion handing an uplift to all recipients of universal credit, irrespective of their circumstances, was never a targeted way of affecting those people who are most in need. That is why it was temporary. When the Secretary of State comes to the longer term, will she consider the taper and the way that childcare costs are met?”
House of Commons15 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These are all important questions, but, notwithstanding the bravery of 70,000 Afghans who gave their lives over recent years and against the background of the howl of the loss of rights, opportunities and futures for women and everyone, is not the burning question about the failure of strategic policy and how, in the recent conflict, the Taliban walked into Kabul without having to fight for it? We must answer the question of why that happened.”
House of Commons15 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State retains all the powers of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, which were used to take away our liberties without prior parliamentary authority. Will he undertake to review that and to give us a new public health Act?”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have received a brace of emails asking me to be here on Thursday to vote against covid passports. Is the Leader of the House sure there is something he has not told us?”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Were the Government of this kingdom to be overthrown by a wicked and brutal regime, I venture that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would want a leading role in the resistance. He would not be queuing at the airport, would he?”
House of Commons18 August 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister will appreciate that the provisions before us extend well beyond the care home staff. With respect to the 1% of those staff of whom she spoke, in the absence of the impact assessment, if their failure to be vaccinated results in dismissal, who will be responsible for the compensation?”
House of Commons13 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Am I to assume from the motion that the Leader of the House does not have an answer to the West Lothian question? Or does he take the view that it does not deserve one and that it was impertinent of the late Tam Dalyell of the Binns to have asked it in the first place?”
House of Commons13 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Enterprises are having to shut because key members of staff, despite having been vaccinated twice, are having to isolate as contacts. As infections increase, so will contacts who have to isolate and there is every possibility that the economy will grind to a halt. Will the Secretary of State review the need to self-isolate for those who are twice vaccinated and showing a negative test?”
House of Commons12 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will it be possible—will it be in order—to question the Leader of the House about this matter, as he is about to make a statement about tomorrow’s business?”
House of Commons12 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is there anything that Ministers can do to ensure that small builders get access to building materials that are increasingly in short supply?”
House of Commons6 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We will never again sacrifice free enterprise, freedom of association and freedom of worship in order to manage hospital admissions, will we?”
House of Commons5 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The fact is that once the consequences of this virus in terms of their financial and health impacts have long been addressed, the moral impact will remain. The Government have set a disastrous precedent in terms of the future of liberty on these islands. I could understand it if we were a communist party, but this is the party that inherited the true wisdom of the Whig tradition. This is the party of Margaret Thatcher, who said that liberty was indivisible. This is the party that only recently elected a leader whom we believed was a libertarian. There is much on which we are going to have to reflect.”
House of Commons16 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I never believed that it was proportionate, even from the outset, for Ministers to take such liberties with our liberty. I always thought that it was wrong for them to take our freedoms, even though they believed that they were acting in our best interests in an emergency, but by any measure that emergency has now passed and yet freedoms are still withheld and the Government will not allow us to assess for ourselves the risks that we are prepared to encounter in our ordinary, everyday lives. The Government do not trust the people whom they govern. Many members of SAGE—a misnomer if ever there was one—have been out busily undermining public morale. One of them even shared her dystopian vision that we must all remain masked and distanced in perpetuity—a shocking, horrible prospect.”
House of Commons16 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some of us will be viscerally opposed to the use of covid passports in the domestic economy. When will the Government set out their proposals in some detail?”
House of Commons25 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on enabling UK nationals imprisoned in the US to serve their sentences in the UK.”
House of Commons18 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the particular circumstance, and given the powerful case I have made in correspondence, can the Minister fix it for my constituent to commence his sentence in the UK?”
House of Commons18 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When families are fined thousands of pounds for staying over together at Easter, we will know that it was because this House willed it so. Those people, those hon. Members, wishing for these measures to pass tonight should reflect clearly on exactly what it is they wish for.”
House of Commons25 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Now, those of us who can spot the trajectory will have seen yesterday that, after months of denial, people will now indeed have to provide their vaccination bona fides when they go to the pub. Those who are teetotal and imagine that they might be spared such intrusion and inconvenience can dream on: this will undoubtedly be extended to restaurants, theatres, sporting venues, and so proceed to total social control. Did it ever occur to Ministers that they might actually incentivise vaccination—carrot, not stick? Undoubtedly it did not, because they cannot kick the habit. They are wedded to the stick. Let there be no wringing of hands by Members of Parliament who vote for oppressive legislation and then wail with indignation when the police actually enforce it.”
House of Commons25 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The habit of inhumane policy soon trickles down to the servants of the state. This morning, a constituent of mine undergoing a miscarriage was denied the company of her husband. I have sent the details to the Secretary of State. Tyranny is a habit, and the motions on the Order Paper this evening show that we have not quite kicked it. The powers that touched our personal choices and came at such a huge cost remain. We were told that they were there purely temporarily to deal with the emergency. Well, by any measure the emergency is over and the hugely successful vaccination campaign is the guarantee against its return. Yet on the Order Paper tonight the Government seek to retain those powers to control aspects of our lives, together with the punishment regime for those who disobey.”
House of Commons25 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In order that we get and keep herd immunity, is my right hon. Friend planning any hard-hitting public information campaigns to ensure that younger adults take up the vaccine with the level of enthusiasm that my relatively elderly constituents have done?”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Prime Minister raised the possibility of new variants having an impact on the plan. Ordinarily, the laws of natural selection will favour more benign variants. However, lockdown reverses that, favouring the more potent. Therefore, in addition to an urgency on the basis of the economic and social costs of lockdown, there is indeed also a scientific urgency to lift it, isn’t there?”
House of Commons22 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister has mentioned the unpredictability of the disease. We just heard a dissertation on that from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford). In the ordinary course of events, a virus that is successful becomes more benign. The new variants—the ones that succeed—do not send their sufferers to bed. They keep them up and about, spreading it, but a lockdown reverses the terms of trade. The successful variant is the one that can get through the social distancing, is more potent and will get its sufferer into hospital, where there are much greater opportunities for spread. Anyone who is concerned about new variants should join us who are conscious of the need for urgency with respect to the huge economic and social costs of this lockdown, and join us because of the scientific urgency of getting the lockdown lifted as well.”
House of Commons22 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We craved a measure of urgency and what we got was caution. We have been told that the plan is to be driven by data. What data? From the very start, we were informed that the main effort—the aim—was to deliver the saving of lives by protecting the NHS, so the key data must be a level of hospital admissions with which the NHS can cope efficiently and effectively. But since then, we have seen mission creep to a level of daily infections, and the number of 1,000 a day has been touted. Given the level of testing and the ambition for even greater testing, were covid-19 to disappear tonight off the face of the earth, we would still have more positive test results tomorrow, as a consequence of even the most conservative estimate of false positives, that would prevent us from lifting the restrictions on that day.”
House of Commons22 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Secretary of State maintain his war aim of protecting the NHS and eschew those siren voices calling for a desired level of infection in the community? If we depart from a level of hospitalisation with which the NHS can cope effectively, we will lose the proper sense of urgency to lift restrictions that are so devastating and costly to us all.”
House of Commons9 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To lift lockdown, will my right hon. Friend focus exclusively on the progress of vaccinations of those who are most likely to be hospitalised if infected? Is it not the case that mission creep beyond hospitalisations would inevitably lead to the diminution of our sense of urgency to lift the restrictions?”
House of Commons27 January 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Pubs cannot compete with supermarkets for off-sales. Even within a household, people cannot play tennis or golf. Notwithstanding the assault on liberty and livelihoods, why are the regulations pervaded by a pettifogging malice?”
House of Commons6 January 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To those colleagues who are contemplating voting for these measures this evening, buoyed up by opinion pollsters telling them that, actually, the voters are in favour of them and, indeed, that they crave even tighter restraints on their liberty, I would point out that when the devastating economic consequences of this policy come home to roost, and we see double-dip recession and years of slow growth as firms cannot take up new opportunities because they are saddled with debt, those same voters, who were so enthusiastic, will abandon them, and those colleagues will be back to point a finger of blame—and, on that occasion at least, they will be right.”
House of Commons6 January 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is a situation of state capture. The Government are completely in thrall to a lobby driving a policy that has manifestly failed—it has failed, or we would not be here yet again. It is a complete failure, yet we go through increasing iterations of it, with ever-tighter controls and restrictions, in the hope that it might finally work. And, then, when there is a possibility of change, as a consequence of the arrival of the vaccines, the crazed lobby has already begun to signal that the social control will not be over and that some restrictions will remain; indeed, the chiefs have pointed out that they might have to be reimposed all over again next winter.”
House of Commons6 January 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given that the main effort is the protection of the NHS, surely, the moment we start to get a reduction in hospital admissions, we can start lifting the restrictions.”
House of Commons30 December 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was always rather jealous of Poole, Christchurch and Bournemouth, because our infection rate in the New Forest was substantially lower than theirs, but they turned out to be in tier 2 and we were in tier 3. Now we are all together in tier 4.”
House of Commons30 December 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗