Speeches by Newbury.

“My constituents are sick to the back teeth of people getting away with working illegally while they play by the rules. The previous Government, despite the incredible hindsight the Conservatives now seem to have about their time in office, utterly failed to put in place a robust system of right-to-work checks, which wa…”

“I know that many people want to get a debate in the Chamber—we would all love that—but my feeling is that a 90-minute Westminster Hall debate would enable us to discuss a lot of the issues that need to be heard. Even if we could not go into immense detail on it, we could cover the most important points for the Minister…”

“Yes—I picked that up when I looked at it earlier. As far as I am aware, he has not defected. I am sure we would love to have him, but I would not want that to be on his record.”

“Ehlers-Danlos Awareness Month is not until June. We debated whether to wait until that point, but we felt that, given that I had raised it in September, had a meeting with the Minister in November, and then had the drop-in in December, we wanted to try to keep the momentum going, and then possibly have a roundtable in …”

“Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the Committee for your time. As you said, Chair, I am applying for a Westminster Hall debate on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and craniocervical instability, which is quite a mouthful. Obviously the Department of Health and Social Care would respond, if we secured it. We are hoping to get a …”

“Absolutely. I could not agree more. Knocking on doors during the general election campaign I was struck by my constituents who, contrary to what we might think when we see opinion polls that, particularly these days, waver quite dramatically, really wanted us to knuckle down and focus on tackling in a four or five-year…”

“It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I am very much an advocate of these e-petition debates, because they enable our constituents to set the agenda here in Westminster Hall. I thank the Petitions Committee for its hard work, as always. E-petition debates are an excellent example of our democracy…”

“The hon. Lady rightly refers to the steaming piles of rubbish that this Government were left, but many of us believe that the rot really set in in 2010, when the austerity programme was initiated with her party’s involvement. How many of those steaming piles of rubbish does she lay at her own party’s door?”

“I very much welcome this strategy, and the Minister’s commitment to making the changes necessary to bring down the tragic and avoidable loss of life on our roads. I have launched a survey for Road Safety Week, and I have already heard from many constituents across Cannock Chase who do not feel safe on our roads, with s…”

“After the chaos of their former leader being exposed as a fan of white supremacy, and with DOGE still nowhere in sight, Reform UK on Staffordshire county council are so desperate for savings that they are cutting £1 million from concessionary travel in their first budget. Does the Leader of the House agree that concess…”

“I could not agree more with my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour. I would add that Rugeley Trent Valley also does not have disabled access, which is a big issue. The two of us are campaigning hard on that, and I hope to see some progress on it this year. Following the shameful revelation that Reform chose a suppor…”

“I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I must confess that I am a little envious of her, because she has the Mayor of West Yorkshire backing up the Labour Government and using that investment wisely—and, I hope, making use of the powers introduced by that Act—whereas the Conservatives on Staffordshire county council to…”

“We have had a bitterly cold start to 2026, but as always, farmers up and down the country have been out in all weathers, and at all hours, to help their neighbours and clear vital routes. I am delighted that just a fortnight ago we had the news that the threshold for agricultural property relief and business property r…”

“Thank you, Marcus, for your time this morning and this afternoon, and thank you for your candour in your responses. Your evidence is genuinely going to be very useful to us. As you said, against a backdrop of a sector with a lot of problems, the quality of public drinking water has remained consistently high over the y…”

“You are right. In an age when there is more publicly available information, as you said, on things like storm overflows, as well as more misinformation on social media, there is a question for us all as to how we can leverage social media to get the positive story out there: that we have very safe, world-leading tap wa…”

“If you wrote to us with it, that would be great.”

“Can I pick up one final point? It is something that you mentioned then, Marcus. I can tell that you are a man who deals in facts and data, but we know that perception can often be just as important, and public perception of the safety of our drinking water is on a downward trend. Perhaps it is a symptom of declining tr…”

“Absolutely. It is great to hear that we have some of the best minds holding the water companies to account and keeping them honest. It is concerning that, whether through incompetence or a lack of transparency, you are uncovering, even with a small team, instances in which things are not being done and the rigour is no…”

“What would those tools be? What would help you get best practice out to companies that are not performing well?”

“Do you think those messages are getting through to the water companies? You just told us that South East Water, certainly, carried out risk assessments that were not reflective of the reality.”