April 2026

I agree with my hon. Friend’s point about sales commission charges. Given that we had a consultation into park home sales commission charges in 2022, which concluded that there was no good justification for them, does he agree that what we now need from the Government is not another a consultation, but a fixed timeline so that we can understand when real action will be taken on behalf of our constituents in park homes?

I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. May I thank Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service for its response to the fire at Newell House in Sherborne the other night? I am in awe of the bravery of its firefighters, who were on the scene within eight minutes. The hon. Member talks about the particular issues that his local fire service faces. Dorset faces an increase in its population of nearly 50% during the summer months, as well as the issues caused by rurality and being a coast

Twenty-eight-year-old Benedict Solly was killed on the A37, near Cerne Abbas, at a notorious accident hotspot. Local residents had been calling for interventions to make that junction safe, but part of the problem is that the decision on whether to make an intervention at the junction is based on historical data, which is only recording actual collisions—not near misses, accidents avoided or all those other things. Does the right hon. Member agree that we need a wider dataset in order to inform

Hundreds of small family businesses across Cornwall will soon be subject to a significant increase in their property costs as a result of the Valuation Office Agency’s decision to reclassify serviced offices, business centres and co-working spaces. Will the Chancellor arrange for me to meet Treasury officials and the VOA to discuss how the impacts of that reclassification may be mitigated?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I, too, have been contacted by many of my constituents, throughout my six and a half years as the MP for South West Hertfordshire, with a wide range of complaints and concerns about park homes, particularly from residents of Long Pightle Park, Highview and Newlands Park. This debate is the result of excellent work by the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign, which is of course supported by several hon. Members in attendance at this debate

If the increase in fuel prices rather than the Chancellor’s two disastrous Budgets is to blame for the stagnating economy, why does the Chancellor believe that raising fuel duty further in September will help to reduce the cost of living when in fact it will harm the economy more, and will deliver another direct hit to the pockets of my constituents?

7. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of fuel duty on the cost of living.

I am well-versed with the Minister through our work on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Will he consider looking at reducing the threshold from six individuals to four? I am finding in Three Rivers that several of the homes are probably inappropriate for six distinct individuals but may be appropriate for four. Unless the evidence threshold is there for an article 4 direction, I have communities that will be impacted significantly, unless we are able to change something h

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that local authorities like the Liberal Democrat-controlled Three Rivers district council in my constituency should be issuing, for instance, article 4 directions to protect our areas from a proliferation of HMOs?

In my constituency, 44.4% of children are living in poverty, according to the latest Government figures. Yet Oxfam reports that just 56 billionaires in the UK now hold more wealth than 27 million people combined in our country, and their wealth rose on average by more than £230 million each last year. Does the Chancellor accept that child poverty is not inevitable but the result of political choices about who this Government want to protect? Can she explain how the child poverty taskforce can su

11. What steps her Department is taking through the child poverty taskforce to help reduce levels of relative poverty.

I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their speeches, which I think have very fully answered the comments that I tried to make in opening the debate. I also thank colleagues across the House for their contribution to this important subject. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that she will chair the national road safety board. I very much hope that she will use that opportunity to help drive the more comprehensive approach to this matter that I set out in my opening remarks. In par

I think I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says, except that I would not wish to make an exceptional case for the countryside. This issue affects all part of our country. As he will know, the royal town of Sutton Coldfield is an ancient town and is therefore not part of the countryside as such, although within the royal town of Sutton Coldfield we have the biggest municipal park in Europe, so we at least doff our caps to the issue of rurality. I was listing the number of clear principles that

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point, and he adds that particular tragedy to the tragedies that I have already mentioned. Of course he is right that, with modern technology racing ahead in so many ways, our data should be better and more effective at informing the decisions that are made. He made that point with great eloquence. What is currently lacking is a clear, coherent and sustained national strategy to bring these efforts together. At present, responsibility for accident preve

As the hon. Member will see as I develop my speech, I very much agree with him. In Birmingham, we have the seventh highest number of accidental deaths in England. Each year, more than 550 families in our city lose a loved one due to a preventable accident. That is more than one death every day. Across the west midlands, more than 2,000 people annually die due to accidents, the equivalent of wiping out a small village year after year. Nationally, there has been an 8% rise in accidental death rate

I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of a national accident prevention strategy. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. Today, I want to draw the House’s attention to what can only be described as a silent and spiralling crisis in our country: the devastating human cost of preventable accidents. This is not a new issue, but it is getting worse and, crucially, it is still not given the level of sustained national attention that its scale demands

In my constituency of Horsham, Chess Dynamics, which is part of Cohort, is a world-leading developer of counter-drone and air defence technology—exactly the capabilities that we need. Yet Chess, like much of the defence industry, has been kept on hold since last year, awaiting clarity on the defence investment plan. Without it, it cannot commission new air defence systems, leaving the next generation of Royal Navy frigates potentially exposed. It needs to know now. Will the Minister agree to mee

4. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on the effectiveness of the defence industrial strategy.

What consideration has my right hon. Friend given to joining the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank to make sure that we are really pushing the investment that we need to see in defence in the current world situation?

The waiting list for gynae care was north of 600,000 when we took office. Today that figure is finally moving in the right direction, but we cannot make as much progress as we would like because the system simply was not designed with women in mind… Women’s health pathways are being prioritised in NHS Online, and menopause and menstrual health services will be among the first to go live when it becomes operational this year. [Official Report, 16 April 2026; Vol. 783, c. 1049.] Written correction