Speeches by Maguire.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Ms Furniss. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this really important debate. I congratulate him on his excellent speech. I also welcome the new Safeguarding Minister to her place. I thank the hon. Member for Gravesham (Dr Sull…”

“I warmly welcome the Chief Secretary to her new role. My rural constituency does not have a regular or reliable bus service. It does not even have a single mainline train station, so my constituents are forced to rely on their cars to get to school or work and to care for relatives, not to mention the transport of good…”

“I always welcome the cutting of red tape and I await the details excitedly. My North Cornwall constituent, Hannah Willow, runs two art businesses. Prior to Brexit, around 30% of her sales were to customers in Europe, but this has now fallen to 10%. As a result of recent tariffs on trade, her exports to the US have also…”

“9. What steps his Department is taking to help small and medium-sized businesses trade with European nations.”

“I am grateful to the Minister for his statement, having applied for an urgent question alongside the leader of Plaid Cymru in Westminster, the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), and other hon. Members. One of my constituents, Katy Davidson, was on board the Global Sumud Flotilla and has bee…”

“Rocketing fuel prices are hitting rural families in constituencies like mine, but the answer can never be to play directly into Putin’s hands by weakening sanctions, just as Ukraine is finally pushing back against Russia’s war machine. Does the Minister agree that we can both stand firmly with our Ukraine allies, maint…”

“Cornwall continues to face some of the UK’s worst legal aid deserts, with rurality and lack of transport adding to the postcode lottery. According to the Law Society, a third of domestic abuse survivors were forced to represent themselves in court, as even when advice is available, eligibility criteria often stand in t…”

“Excellent. To briefly follow up, His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, in its 2025 inspection report into the police response to group-based child exploitation, mentioned that the failure by police to use the IICSA definition of grooming gangs inhibited a national understanding of the…”

“I quickly want to take you back to Robbie Moore’s question about Bradford. Using Bradford as an example, you mentioned the risk of judicial review if you announce local areas before the criteria have been established. Oldham was also mentioned and, as I understand it, Oldham wrote to the Home Secretary, and that is why…”

“Baroness Casey found in the 2025 audit that two thirds of perpetrators did not have their ethnicity recorded. One of her recommendations, which was accepted by the Government, was for mandatory data collection, including the ethnicity and nationality of the perpetrators. As part of this inquiry, you will obviously be g…”

“Broadly to start with, and then I will come back to the ethnicity point.”

“T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.”

“I thought you said the Ministry of Justice.”

“Moving away from that specifically, I am quite interested to know what your Department and, as you said before, Departments across Government, are doing to make sure there is legal aid provision for those survivors, leaving the specific cases aside.”

“Cross-departmentally though, going back to your—”

“On the point that you have raised there, Minister, it is actually up to £100,000. For lots of domestic abuse victims, if they have property of more than £100,000, that—”

“Thanks, everyone, for coming in today. Could you give us a bit of an outline of the money spent on support services for victim and survivors as part of this strategy? Then I have one more follow-up on that.”

“Great, thanks. That all sounds really good, particularly the helpline that you mentioned. Having met with various stakeholder groups—bar councils, Surviving Economic Abuse, Lawyers Who Care and many more—one of the persisting concerns that they all have is the passing reference in the strategy to legal aid. I have ment…”

“Okay. The Ministry of Justice doesn’t get a gold star?”

“Right. I guess what lots of those groups raised through me is that that is a vital support service for victims and survivors of domestic violence and domestic abuse. What are the Government doing to address that?”