Business of the House

Claire Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the hon. Member for mentioning that matter, which was raised earlier. I am sorry to hear of the impact on the Oswestry livestock market. As I said earlier, Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are working closely with devolved Ministers to try to resolve this issue. Obviously, people want to hear an update via a statement from Ministers, so I will look into that. She also mentioned the length of DEFRA questions, a matter that is raised with me and others regularly. We look at how many people apply to ask questions, especially on Thursday mornings, so if colleagues want that question time to be longer, they need to get more people to take part in the lottery to ask questions.

[Claire Hughes (Bangor Aberconwy) (Lab)]

Mountain rescue teams are responding to an increased number of incidents, including fatalities. Emergency responders think that the massive increase in people coming to the mountains without sufficient preparation is due to people seeing beauty spots promoted on Instagram and TikTok. The ability of local agencies to do anything about this is limited, because people are coming from outside the area. I would be very grateful if the Leader of the House could advise me on whether this issue should be brought to the attention of a Science, Innovation and Technology Minister, and if so, could she assist me in raising it with them?

[Lucy Powell]

This matter has been raised with me before, and it is concerning. We want people to enjoy the countryside and, specifically, the great countryside in her constituency. It is great that people on social media are advertising it, but if they are not also telling people what steps they need to take to keep themselves safe on our mountains, then that is a challenge. I will certainly raise that point with Ministers for my hon. Friend.