Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for the question, and for the representation she has provided for her constituents and, through her work on the loan charge and taxpayer fairness all-party parliamentary group, for many across the country who have been affected by the loan charge. At the Budget, we made the decision to write off £5,000 from the liabilities of everyone who has been affected by the loan charge, so about a third of those affected will have their liabilities written off entirely. I look forward to continuing to engage with her and Members across the House on this important issue.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

Following on from that last question, the loan charge and taxpayer fairness APPG, which I co-chair, wrote to Ministers on 1 July, 22 September and 25 November last year, with questions about the 2005 preferential deal with the large banks. Does the Minister feel that it is acceptable that we have not had a reply to those letters? When will we get one?

[Dan Tomlinson]

The letters that were sent will receive a reply very shortly. A decision was made that in the run-up to the announcement of the independent loan charge review, it would not be appropriate for the Government to set out in detail their views on a live issue that an independent reviewer was looking at. That review was published alongside the Budget. I apologise for the fact that the response has not come in the weeks since; it will be with the hon. Member and the APPG very shortly.

Spring Forecast

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

It was a real honour for me to be able to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and see the Type 31 frigates being built there. This Government are investing in defence, and in the skills of our young people so that they can get the jobs in these expanding sectors—unlike the SNP Government in Scotland, who are not investing in our young people. Too many defence companies are having to bring in labour from abroad because of the SNP’s dislike of defence spending.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

For all the Chancellor’s words about forecasts, reality bites when the real unemployment figures are examined. The figure today is 5.2%, the highest since the pandemic, and youth unemployment is at a considerable high. Instead of relying on forecasts that are never, ever right, should we not be asking how many more people need to lose their jobs, and how many more young people need to go without one, before the Chancellor accepts that it is her policies that are not working?

[Rachel Reeves]

The previous Government presided over a 113,000 increase in the number of young people not in education, employment or training, and the number of youth apprenticeships was cut by 40%. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that unemployment among young people is a challenge? It is because of the decisions that the previous Government made. That is why we are putting more than £800 million into a youth guarantee, it is why we are putting more money into further education—which his Government failed to do—and it is why we are expanding the number of youth apprenticeships. We recognise there is a challenge. The difference between our Government and the hon. Gentleman’s is that we are doing something about it, and they never did.

Road Safety

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

First and foremost, I thank Members from across the House for taking part in this debate, and I particularly pay tribute to all those mentioned who tragically lost their lives or faced life changing injuries in road accidents. It is right that we do all we can to stop such terrible incidents occurring again in the future.

The ability to travel in our cars and on the roads is integral to the vast majority of people’s everyday lives. Not only is it the most popular form of transport, but it is a lifeline for many people, so all motorists and every other road user, whether they are lorry drivers, motorcyclists, pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders or others, deserve safe journeys.

In considering the Government’s road safety announcements, the Opposition support and welcome some elements of the strategy, while the effectiveness of other measures remains in question. We strongly support measures such as stronger fines for those who commit egregious offences and action to combat ghost number plates. However, the overwhelming sentiment, which I hope the Minister adopts when putting into practice the policies set out in the strategy, is about enforcement. One of the worst things to hear when there has been an accident is that it involved people breaking existing laws, putting themselves and others in danger.

Unfortunately, since the Government released the strategy, we have seen further decreases in police officer numbers, with a decrease of more than 1,300 officers between September 2024 and September 2025 and further decreases occurring before that date. How can we expect the Government to enforce our wide range of existing road laws, let alone new ones, if there are insufficient police officers? It would be useful to know what discussions the Department has had with the Home Office to ensure that sufficient officers will be allocated to police our existing road laws and any additional ones the Government might bring forward. Also, I understand that the Government’s police performance framework says that there is a target to “decrease” the number of

“People killed or seriously injured in road traffic collision”,

but does not actually say what that target will be.

To improve enforcement, we must have a targeted response to problem drivers, who put everyone on the road at risk. One issue that demands an even greater focus is drug driving. The Government’s consultation acknowledges that some police forces are arresting more drug drivers than drink drivers, and that there has been a steady increase in the number of people convicted. Although that represents some progress, I would call on the Government to go further. Data shows that, in 2023, 22% of deceased drivers tested positive for impairment drugs, an increase from 11% in 2014. Among the youngest cohort of drivers—those most likely to get into terrible accidents—the vast majority of cases involved illegal drugs only. While there are sensible proposals within this strategy about testing and looking at further fines, the Minister must work with the police to ensure they are doing more to target drug driving and not relying on tests after the fact.

In addition, I hope the Government strongly consider any further measures that stop those committing these terrible crimes on our roads from being able to avoid punishment, whether that be due to testing or statutory limits, which, in particular cases, have enabled those who have committed the worst crimes on our roads to avoid the full weight of the law.

To conclude, for road safety measures, I believe that the Government must bring drivers with them in any changes and measures that they take. Where drivers do not feel that those road safety measures actually help them—such as with 20 mph limits—they will not take them seriously. This is a strategy that must be delivered, and delivered well, but with drivers, not just against them.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Minister, who I am told is aware of how much pressure there is on timing.

Women’s Safety: Walking, Wheeling, Cycling and Running

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) not just on securing this important debate, but on the powerful way in which she opened it. It can be described only as a sobering debate that requires the Government’s full attention, and that must come not just from the Department for Transport but, as others said, from other Departments, too.

I thank the hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) and for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) for sharing their personal experiences. It is completely unacceptable that anyone should have to face what they described on the streets of this country.

I equally agree with the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) that so-called low-level offences should be stamped down on incredibly forcibly. He is right—I have long argued along similar lines—that it is essential because so-called low-level crimes lead to more serious and potentially fatal crimes in the future. It is therefore absolutely essential that they are clamped down upon incredibly hard.

The method by which anyone, and particularly women, chooses to travel should not be dictated by how safe they feel. Everyone should feel safe walking, running, cycling, wheeling, driving or riding a horse—we had a good debate about horse riding last week, and it should have been added to the title of this debate, because it is incredibly important in rural communities such as mine.

It is clear that the challenges of securing women’s safety are an obstacle to an array of activities that women might want to do, but feel unable to do so. It is incredibly concerning that, according to Cycling UK, 23% of women cite harassment or intimidation as a reason not to cycle. The data on running is even starker. Research published in 2023 found that almost three quarters of women in the United Kingdom change their outdoor activity routines during winter, with many doing so because they feel unsafe.

Separately, survey data from SportsShoes.com, which is not a website I was particularly familiar with until I began my research for this debate, found that 48% of women had felt unsafe while running, compared with 36% of men. Similarly, 70% of women had experienced an intimidating incident while running, including 22% saying that they had been followed and 21% reporting that they had been beeped at by someone in a car. Such behaviour on the streets of this country is deeply unacceptable.

Even though it is challenging to point to a single source, data from a variety of organisations highlight that a considerable number of women experience behaviour that is not acceptable—indeed, it is clearly despicable—in our society. The idea that someone who is merely trying to run or cycle should be followed or harassed is clearly wrong and must be stopped.

Therefore, to address both the safety of women while cycling, wheeling, walking or running, and concerns about harassment, we must make sure that we embed enforcement as the underlying principle of safety strategies. That must involve having sufficient numbers of police officers located in the areas where women feel most unsafe. That is a challenge, given that we are currently seeing a reduction in the number of police officers on our streets. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) gave a particularly stark example. The thought that a park such as Richmond Park, which is so suited for walking, running, cycling and all sorts of activities, is no longer to be policed should horrify all of us in this House, no matter what political party we belong to.

Improving the safety of women should also involve following up on incidents properly. For example, a small minority of drivers demonstrate truly unsafe behaviour and put women at risk. We have strong rules about what constitutes dangerous driving, and those rules must be enforced where people have broken the law. However, the rules for dangerous driving must apply equally to those who behave in an unacceptable way by verbally abusing people, beeping their horn or whatever it might be.

To do that, we need effective funding for our police forces, which is why my party has specifically said that we would provide £800 million to deploy 10,000 new police officers in hotspot areas where crime is most likely to occur. I appreciate that hotspot policing might be less impactful for groups such as cyclists, who travel much greater distances than other people, but in urban environments or in places such as Richmond Park, which we have already heard about, there are often particular locations and areas that dissuade people from running and walking. The more we can do to target those locations—where crime, particularly crime against women, is more likely—the more we can instil trust and a sense that such activities are safe.

Therefore, can the Minister say what cross-Government work has been conducted by her Department to prioritise the safety of women and girls when they are engaged in active travel and to feed into the Government’s strategy on preventing violence against women and girls? Also, can she make a commitment that her Department will engage with local police forces to ensure that they are monitoring areas where women feel most unsafe?

Also, I understand that the consultation for the third cycling and walking investment strategy says that

“Investment in well-lit, safe, high-quality walking, wheeling and cycling routes increases feelings of personal safety, as well as improving road safety”.

I think we can all agree with the sentiment and the principle that we want particular areas to have improved lighting, in order to improve safety. As with many aspects of road safety, targeted measures that focus on the most dangerous areas will rightly have support from Members across this House.

I am aware that issues such as improved lighting form part of the much broader calls for clear targets on what organisations such as Cycling UK describe as high-quality cycling infrastructure, which are made alongside calls for appropriate levels of spending. That is all important. And from our time together on the Transport Committee in the last Parliament, I know the Minister is a long-standing supporter of active travel in general and of cycling in particular.

There is always a difficult balance to be drawn between making our roads safe for cyclists and making them too difficult for other modes of transport to use, or even prohibiting other modes of transport. Nevertheless, I hope the Government can find the appropriate balance by making cycling safer for women without making it more difficult for those same women to use their cars for other journeys.

One request from Cycling UK and a range of other road safety organisations is to improve understanding of the 2022 changes to the highway code. These organisations have been clear about welcoming the changes as an important step in improving the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and other road users, but the knowledge gap remains in the public’s awareness of these changes.

All in all, as I said at the start of my remarks, this needs a whole-Government approach. The safety of women cannot be put on the back-burner or into a footnote; it must take centre stage across multiple Government Departments. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s commitments this afternoon on how she will be leading that in the Department for Transport and across the whole of Government.

Business Rates: Retail, Hospitality and Leisure

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

This morning I met Roly May, the landlord of the Russell Arms pub in Butlers Cross. Government Members might recognise it: it is the closest pub to Chequers, where they can drown their sorrows after an audience with the Prime Minister. The pub has seen as £17,500 business rate increase. I have heard similar horror stories from pubs such as the Cock and Rabbit in The Lee, the Dinton Hermit in Ford and many others. Will the Minister at least accept that there is no more money to squeeze out of pubs that are absolutely on the brink of financial catastrophe under this Government?

[Dan Tomlinson]

This Government understand the pressures that hospitality businesses, and pubs in particular, are facing. One of the pressures, which I have heard about very clearly, relates to the fact that the previous Government did not invest in our energy security, which would have ensured that businesses and families had lower energy bills and certainty about future bills, and as a result those businesses and families have seen their energy bills surge. In 2022, under the previous Government, we saw inflation hit 11%, and it is things like that that have made it difficult for small businesses up and down the country.

Horse and Rider Road Safety

Greg Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Too often when we talk about rural activities, too many dismiss them as relics of a bygone age. Those of us who represent rural constituencies know that nothing could be further from the truth. Horse riding remains a vital living part of rural life, deeply embedded in the culture, economy and daily rhythms of our communities. That reality makes it all the more important that we take seriously the safety of the horses and riders on our roads.

My constituency is overwhelmingly rural—home to many stud farms, riding schools and equestrian centres that rely on local road networks as part of their everyday operation. Riders frequently use narrow country lanes, often with no pavements, limited passing places and little room for error. Such roads were not designed for modern traffic speeds or volumes, yet they are shared by horses, cyclists, pedestrians and vehicles. For less experienced riders, these interactions can be especially intimidating. Horses can be easily startled by sudden movement or noise, and situations can escalate quickly if drivers approach at speed or pass too closely.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In Buckinghamshire there are many single-lane country roads, which is where many of the accidents occur. It would be wonderful to highlight that and how to address that moving forward.

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. She is absolutely right and I wish her a speedy recovery from her own horse-related incident. What might seem a minor lapse in judgment from behind the wheel has serious and sometimes devastating consequences for riders and horses, given that the rider has limited ability to control a frightened horse.

A further recurring challenge in rural areas is poor visibility. Constituents have contacted me about near misses on lanes with high grass verges and dense hedgerows, especially during the spring and summer. Such conditions can severely restrict sight lines, meaning that horses and vehicles may appear suddenly, giving drivers little opportunity to reduce speed or pass with the care that safety demands. I was pleased to see that Buckinghamshire council, a council I know the Government are keen to learn from, has worked constructively with the British Horse Society to introduce simple and effective measures in partnership.

Horse riding is far from a niche pursuit. The British Equestrian Trade Association estimates that more than 1.8 million people ride regularly, with around 3 million participating overall. For many rural communities, riding is a source of wellbeing, fitness, employment and social connection. Yet all that is undermined when riders and their horses feel unsafe simply travelling on the road. One death is always one too many, and although departmental data records a relatively small number of fatalities in recent years, there remain far too many serious incidents. The British Horse Society’s “Horse i” app recorded that 58 horses were killed in equine road-related incidents, with more than 3,100 incidents in 2024 alone. Many of those involved drivers passing too closely, with devastating consequences.

It has been said in this debate that changes to the highway code under the previous Government significantly strengthened protections for horses and riders. The introduction of the hierarchy of road users was important, but the reforms went further, including clearer guidance on passing distances and how drivers should behave when encountering horses at junctions. Although the current Government have published their road safety strategy, it is difficult to see horse riding as a clear priority within it. Despite describing the strategy as being “for everyone”, horses receive only limited mention and there were no references at all in the consultation to proposed changes to motoring-offence penalties. That raises fair questions about how the Government intend to strengthen protections for riders in practice. I would welcome greater clarity from the Minister on that point, as well as an explanation about why the THINK! road safety campaign budget was cut by £1.2 million last year.

Could the Minister set out what specific campaigns the Government intend to introduce to make sure that drivers are aware of their responsibilities when encountering horses—particularly in rural areas, where these interactions are most common? Ultimately, rules are meaningful only if they are understood and enforced. Dangerous driving that intimidates or endangers horses and riders must be taken seriously, and penalties should properly reflect the risk posed by such behaviour.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The NHS will remain free at the point of use for as long as there is a Labour Government. That is not something that Reform is able to promise. As usual, Reform does one thing and says another. In Kent, the party said that it would find efficiencies to keep down council tax, but it has not found a single one and that is why the 2 million people who live in Reform council areas will get a council tax rise next year.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

T9. With reports that the Chancellor is eyeing up doubling council tax for bands G and H, can she tell me whether she really considers the family who wrote to me yesterday—both have mid-range salaries, are fully eligible for child benefit and bought a home for just shy of £500,000 in 2013—rich enough to see their council tax double to £800 a month?

[Dan Tomlinson]

Under the last Government, time and again, council tax went up and up and the funding for local councils went down and down. We have left councils on their knees, struggling when it comes to special educational needs, temporary accommodation and funding for homelessness and adult social care. This Government will make the right decisions when it comes to funding our councils and having a fair property taxation system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He will know that this Government have already invested through the National Wealth Fund in the tin mine in his constituency, bringing good-quality jobs paying decent wages to the people of Cornwall, as advocated by Cornish MPs. However, there is more we can do through the National Wealth Fund, including investing in our ports, which is absolutely vital for clean, cheap energy and for creating good jobs in this country, including in Cornwall.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

A recent freedom of information request has revealed that, for a number of schemes, HMRC has settled with large corporations for just 15% of what was owed. With the loan charge review ongoing, does the Chancellor agree with me that individuals should be treated no differently from the large corporations for which this precedent has been set?

[James Murray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question; he has engaged with me about the loan charge previously. As he knows, there is an independent review of the loan charge at the moment, and I think it is important that I as a Minister do not comment on that. Let the independent reviewer complete his work and report back to us as a Government.

Bank Closures and Banking Hubs

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery]

My ask will be a bit stronger than that. I might get my backside kicked, but hey, it will not be the first time. I will ask the Government to insist on legislation that changes the structures to what we are all crying out for. It will not cost the Government a ha’penny to provide services to the people who actually need them.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

The number of banks that have left my constituency has driven me mad: in the 336 square miles of Mid Buckinghamshire, only one high street bank is left standing. One of the most absurd things that I have heard multiple banks say over the years is: “Oh, but there’s a bank just a few miles away.” That might be technically true on Google Maps, but to pick somewhere close to my constituency entirely at random—I see the Economic Secretary to the Treasury in her place—in High Wycombe it takes an enormous amount of time compared with how it looks on Google Maps to get into the town centre and back again. If one bit of the criteria needs to change, it is that banks should not be able just to say, “Oh, there’s a bank a few miles away.” They need to look at the time it takes in real life to get from a village to a nearby town.

[Ian Lavery]

It feels really strange to agree with so many Conservative Members—it does not make me terribly comfortable, but it shows the power of the argument and, importantly, the support that it has across the House, which is relatively rare. The number of interventions that I have taken has meant that lots of the points in my speech have already been made. I will try to be as quick as possible.

Link does a decent job under the criteria that have been set, which really need to be changed. Link can pause a bank closure but cannot stop one, or set its own timetable for the establishment of banking hubs. Moreover, there is no provision for the FCA to initiate retrospective assessments of the need for banking hubs in areas where banks have left the high street, resulting in banking deserts, many years ago, prior to the 2023 Act.

The Government simply must take a fresh look at this issue and bring forward the necessary legislation to force the banking industry to fulfil its social responsibilities. The customers and communities from whom they have extracted so much profit over the years deserve nothing less. We should not forget that these are the very same banks and financial institutions that we had to bail out in 2008-09 because of their reckless pursuit of ever-increasing profits. They then made fortunes through the quantitative easing that the Bank of England initiated to save the economy after the crash that they caused. They are now abandoning the very taxpayers who bailed them out.

As I mentioned, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of banks on our high streets. In 1986 there were 21,643 bank and building society branches in the UK; by 2024, around 6,800 were left. Clearly, the switch to online banking has had an impact, but even those of us who use online banking sometimes need the certainty that a branch offers. The House of Lords April 2025 report “Closure of bank branches: Impact on rural communities” quotes Sarah Coles, a senior personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown:

“The closure of bank branches is a vicious circle. The more that close, the more people move online, so there are fewer people relying on high street branches, so more of them close. The pandemic picked up the pace around this ever-decreasing circle, closing more branches temporarily and causing online banking to spike.”

The banks say that fewer people are using branches. If a high street branch closes, people cannot use it, as it is not there any more. Does that not result in an automatic reduction in usage? This is not rocket science. It is a vicious circle, which is why we need change from the Government.

Northumberland, my home county, has lost more than half of its bank branches since 2015. In my constituency of Blyth and Ashington, the large villages have been left without high street banks for more than a quarter of a decade. Blyth, Northumberland’s largest town, will be left without a high street bank in a few months’ time, though a building society will remain—the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford).

Growing the UK Economy

Greg Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. These projects have to benefit local communities, local workers and local businesses, as well as others. There can be no greater advocate of that approach than the Mayor of Greater Manchester. Between his work and good offices and the Government’s approach to social value and procurement, I am sure that will be able to deliver that outcome.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

Given that construction of the Oxford to Milton Keynes section of East West Rail was completed when Hugh Merriman, the last Conservative rail Minister, pulled the last rail clip into place, it is a bit rich of the Chief Secretary to try to claim credit for it. In one breath he said that he wanted to work in partnership with local leaders, and in the next he reheated the idea of a top-down, Government-knows-best Ox-Cam arc, rebranding it the Oxford to Cambridge growth commission. Local leaders in Buckinghamshire have consistently said no to that top-down spatial strategy, choosing instead to grow jobs locally, including at Westcott space cluster. Does he really want to work with local leaders in Buckinghamshire, or does he just want to tell them what to do?

[Darren Jones]

The hon. Member is what we call a blocker. That is not in the nature of this Government. We will get on and deliver.