Budget Resolutions

Debate between Catherine Atkinson and James Naish

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Catherine Atkinson]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. I acknowledge that there are many categories of people who we want to ensure have real priority. The Government already have the ambition to halve the number of prisoners who are released into homelessness, but, if we are to end rough sleeping and break cycles of offending, that ambition is not ambitious enough.

Just as it is morally offensive to us when we see someone sleeping rough in the doorway of a really high-end hotel, it should also offend us when we see the global elite and blue chip companies coming to Britain for our world-class justice while our own citizens are often left outside that justice system, getting rough justice. We should be rightly proud—and the Treasury mindful—of the huge contribution that international cases make to our country’s economy. In 2024 alone, the UK legal sector contributed £42.6 billion to the economy, and the UK is the largest legal services market in Europe and second only to the US globally, but we should be using some of that revenue to improve access to early legal advice and to legal aid, and to address the dire shortage in duty solicitors for our own people.

Lastly, there was positive news for our high streets, with the Budget taking many of our cafés, pubs and beauty salons completely out of business rates. The Home Secretary is putting police back on the frontline, and we have reversed the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting under the previous Government, but the justice system needs to work much faster for all of us, including on our high streets and in our town and city centres, where people need to feel safe if they are to want to be there and spend money.

But as well as fast, justice needs to be fair. It is not right for people on the minimum wage to face custodial sentences—potentially going up to two years’ custody—and not qualify for legal aid, leaving them unrepresented in court.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Catherine Atkinson]

I am conscious of the number of people who want to speak in this debate, so I will continue.

It is not said often enough that this country’s dogged belief in fair rules for everyone is also a secret ingredient to business success—if your assets are protected, your contracts are enforced and your disputes are decided, that is one less risk—but there must be access to justice for our smaller businesses, as well as the larger multinationals.

There is more to do in our justice system. More is needed. I acknowledge that in the last spending review, the Budget for justice was increased by an average of 2.4%, but in the 2010s, justice spending was cut by 33% in real terms. Spending today is only on a par with what it was 24 years ago, in 2002, and it is lower per person than it was then. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the Ministry of Justice would need an additional £3.6 billion just to equal its spending per person before austerity. Many of the challenges facing the justice system today have their roots in that period of austerity. I will be knocking on the Treasury Ministers’ door as hard as my children were knocking on our neighbours’ doors last week at Halloween. This is not trick or treat; it is common sense. It is essential that we act now to avoid a jump-scare later on.

Regional Transport Inequality

Debate between Catherine Atkinson and James Naish

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine Atkinson]

I think we can all agree that the better the technology and the real-time information that is needed, the more people will be encouraged to use our buses. We absolutely need to encourage more people to use our buses. Over the 15 years up to 2023, we saw a massive loss of bus services. Where the cuts hit has varied, but hardest hit was the east midlands region where we lost 60% of our bus services. The Transport Committee highlighted that decline in our report on buses that was published over the summer. We must not forget on whom bus investment impacts the most: the young, the elderly, those on low incomes and the disabled.

Hon. Members will be shocked that I have got this far into my speech without mentioning trains, because I talk about rail quite a lot, which is entirely understandable as a Derby MP. Derby will be the home of Great British Railways. It is the city at the centre of the largest cluster of rail companies in Europe, and arguably globally. It is the city that a few weeks ago hosted the Greatest Gathering—the world’s largest ever gathering of historical and modern rail vehicles, which was described as a “Glastonbury for trains”—to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the modern railway. However, despite this rich rail heritage in the region, there are just over 100 rail stations for 5 million people. The region has the lowest proportion of people living within a 15 to 20-minute walk of a rail station in England, and about three quarters of those stations are served by just one train or fewer per hour. The capital of rail will be the region with the lowest train station usage per head in England.

Our midlands main line that runs through the east midlands is the only main line route in England that is not yet fully electrified. It is electrified to Wigston, south of Leicester. East Midlands Railway will be putting on new bi-mode trains by the end of the year, so those living alongside the route up to Wigston will benefit and the 9 million passengers who use the line will get that far using electrified tracks. After Wigston, however, the trains will revert to diesel, and the rest of the densely populated line will continue to be exposed to more noise and tens of thousands of tonnes of CO₂ every year. Hundreds of people have written to me supporting the call for electrification.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentions that constituents have written to her, but does she acknowledge that in addition more than 30 MPs have been working together to advocate for electrification, because of the great benefits she has described?

[Catherine Atkinson]

I am grateful for the support that my hon. Friend, alongside many colleagues, has shown for electrification and the benefits that it can bring. It would be a fitting celebration of 200 years of the modern railway to continue the electrification of the midland main line, which would bring jobs, skills and hundreds of millions of pounds in economic benefits particularly to the east midlands.

I love my region, and like so many in this Chamber I know my region’s strengths and can imagine the possibilities if investment were genuinely equitably distributed around our country. If our regional transport was more equal, it would create more prosperity, economic growth, social equality, regional development and carbon reduction as well as better air quality. Our transport infrastructure is the country’s circulatory system: it connects and enriches wherever it reaches. If someone’s circulation is not great, they feel the cold a little more in their fingers, as I well know. If it is restricted more, their arms and legs get fatigue, numbness and pain. In the extreme, it eventually leads to organ failure. That is where we had been heading for far too long, but over the last year the Government have been getting the blood pumping again.