Road Safety

Jenny Riddell-Carpenter Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

In my constituency, road safety is now the No. 1 issue raised with the police. Just in the last year we have seen fatalities, injuries and countless near misses across Rossendale and Darwen. My inbox is filled with emails from people telling me that the roads just do not feel safe, which is why I warmly welcome the Government’s road safety strategy, and we now must turn its ambition into reality.

Let me begin with delivery. Road safety is, by necessity, delivered locally. Road safety partnerships are theoretically the main forum for this, bringing together councils, police forces and other services. Some partnerships, such as the one in Warwickshire, have shown the success that this model can bring; chaired by the PCC, they have the political backing to deliver the change we need. However, in too many parts of the country these partnerships are without that buy-in, with councils and police forces siloed and unwilling to meaningfully share resources. That is very much the picture in Lancashire, with the result being an underfunded and reactive approach to road safety that relies on outdated processes and fails to listen to our communities.

To give one example, William Cartwright, an 11-year-old boy in my constituency, did not feel safe crossing a very busy road on his way to school and launched a petition asking for a zebra crossing to be built, which gained over 1,400 signatures. Despite the mass of evidence showing that the community did not deem the road safe, the Reform leadership at the county council rejected the proposal because they said too few people had been killed or seriously injured there to merit an intervention.

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that there does not need to be a certain number of incidents outside a school gate, or indeed on any road, in order for local councils to intervene? It is a myth that we need to bust.

[Andy MacNae]

Absolutely; I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. It is outdated guidance, and it is used as an excuse to avoid taking the action that people need to see.

It does not have to be this way. Neighbouring authorities—we have heard about the example of West Yorkshire—proactively listen to schools and their communities. That community-led approach must become our baseline, because listening to communities is vital. Partnerships also need resources to deliver the change we need; too often they are constrained by low levels of funding. Allowing councils to retain the fees from road offence fixed penalties, which in some cases raise millions of pounds each year, would make a real difference if ringfenced locally.

Nationally, we must be strategic and dynamic with our interventions, aiming for the greatest impact by focusing on higher-risk groups. An empowered road safety board and the new road safety investigation branch could be vital in keeping policy responsive. It would be good to hear from the Minister when the board will be established, what its powers will be and whether she expects it to meet more regularly than once a year.

With speeding being a key factor in 56% of all fatal collisions, this is an area where targeted action is essential. The Minister has committed to update the guidance on speed limits and enforcement, and the need for that is urgent. Just last week I was with residents on a road notorious for speeding, looking at three wrecked cars on the spot where a fatality occurred last year. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before we saw another crash. They had spent the year calling for speed cameras, yet nothing was done. The message here is clear: communities know where the risks are, and we need to listen.

That is why last month I launched a road safety campaign in Rossendale and Darwen, calling on Lancashire to adopt a new road safety approach that properly resources our road safety partnership and acts to identify and address high-risk roads before incidents occur. Our survey has already had hundreds of responses, and this coming weekend I am hosting roundtables across the constituency to bring together residents, councillors and police to identify the high-risk areas and discuss how we can make them safer. I really hope that Lancashire county council will now listen to residents and work with me to deliver safer roads and save lives.

To conclude, we must end the road safety postcode lottery. Strong national leadership that sets clear expectations will be essential in supporting delivery for every community. That needs to be complemented by steps to genuinely resource delivery on the ground. If we can get this right, the road safety strategy and the lives it saves will be a legacy of which we can all be proud.

Business Rates

Jenny Riddell-Carpenter Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, and I give my personal thanks to the Members on both sides of the House who have been advocating very strongly with him, including my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch (Chris Bloore), for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley). I also thank the businesses and, in particular, the pubs in my constituency: the Anchor at Walberswick, the Froize Inn, Deben Inns, and many, many more. I welcome today’s announcement, but we can do more and go further, including in the strategy, to look at lowering VAT for hospitality and lowering the alcohol duty, which could perhaps be offset by a higher alcohol duty in supermarkets.

[Dan Tomlinson]

This year, we are three years on from the changes in alcohol duty that the last Government implemented. I am not sure whether they adopted the same policy position, but we made it clear that it would be reviewed after three years. As part of that usual process, we will be reviewing the reforms that were made in 2023. If my hon. Friend or other Members want to write to me about changes that they think should be made, I will, of course, be happy to receive that correspondence.

Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief

Jenny Riddell-Carpenter Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Tomlinson]

We will be going ahead with the changes that were set out in our manifesto and that have been announced recently. I think that that is the right thing for us to do.

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)]

Happy new year to you and the team, Mr Speaker.

I start by thanking the Minister and his Department for working actively with rural colleagues and myself for the last 14 months. In the many conversations that we have had, both face to face and in wider correspondence, we have set out the huge number of issues that are well known to this House, but at the heart of this, and the reason that so many of us are concerned, is the lack of profitability in farming. Baroness Batters’ report will go a huge way towards addressing some of the systemic issues in farming, but does the Minister agree that we also need to tackle supermarkets and unfair practices and to address lots of the long-standing issues, and that the Treasury as a whole needs to continue to engage with rural MPs to make sure that we introduce further reforms to support farming profitability?

[Dan Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend, too, for her work on the Select Committee, and for representing rural communities, including hers. My understanding is that Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Government are looking at what more we can do to ensure that farmers receive a fair price for their products. Of course, we support having a competitive supermarket and retail system in this country, so that we can have low prices for consumers, but we have to ensure that those prices are fair for farmers, and for the communities up and down the country that we rely on to produce good British produce.

Christmas Adjournment

Jenny Riddell-Carpenter Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to participate in today’s debate. As we approach the festive season, I extend my warmest wishes to everyone in the House—to you Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the dedicated staff who help make this place so special and kind.

Christmas offers a timely opportunity to reflect on the achievements, community spirit and remarkable individuals who make up the heart of our constituencies. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the individuals, charities, businesses and organisations that make Suffolk Coastal such a special place. One such group is Pitstop in Felixstowe, where Liss and her team of volunteers do exceptional work supporting young families in need. Their work goes beyond providing material things such as food and clothes. They work to ensure that no family feels isolated or alone. That is especially important during the holidays, but important at any time of year.

The Woodbridge branch of the Salvation Army is a shining example of our community giving back. During my recent visit, I had the pleasure of meeting Alan, Tanya and their team of volunteers, who work tirelessly to provide food and essential supplies to those facing hardship or loneliness. A few weeks ago, I held a pop- up surgery at the Salvation Army’s food bank. Citizens Advice was there to provide financial support to those in need. I was able to provide financial advice and give support to people who face real and pressing poverty, and to those who had unexpectedly found themselves on hard times. That was a pretty normal surgery experience for me.

Then I met Edward. Edward is 42 and street homeless. He was a fisherman previously, in Aldeburgh. He had a stable job, a home and a relationship. When things started to go wrong for him, as they do for us all at some time in our lives, it affected his mental health, which meant that he turned to drugs. The drugs took over his life, and it spiralled from there. When I met Edward the other week, he was clean. He had managed to get clean on his own, and had been sofa surfing, but then, naturally, the good will of his friends ran out. When that luck ran out, he had moved into a disused caravan on private land that he had found near Woodbridge. His only coat had been stolen some days earlier. My team were able to get him some emergency help, and it was the Salvation Army that so kindly stepped in and bought him a brand-new coat from Mountain Warehouse on the same day. He was later placed in emergency temporary accommodation, and he is now being supported by the council; but it was that friendship and support from the Salvation Army that gave him the first glimmer of hope that he had felt in months, with a warm meal, a new coat, and a safe place to begin the journey to find temporary accommodation. I want to place on record my sincere thanks to the Salvation Army, and, indeed, to all those groups that do so much to support our constituents.

Woodbridge is one of the many beautiful market towns in my constituency that tourists flock to, and just the other week it was voted the happiest place in the country in which to live. As someone who lives in Woodbridge, I wholeheartedly and unapologetically agree. However, whenever I talk about the beauty of Suffolk Coastal I feel a desperate need to talk about the other side of the constituency as well, and Edward’s story is a real reminder of that. I fear that many people do not see the poverty or the struggles facing so many people in my constituency. In Suffolk Coastal we have 23% of children on free school meals, but in Southwold, the place that the tourists coo over, we have 39%, and in just one primary school in Southwold one in two children receive it.

We have food banks in every single town in my constituency, and they are growing in each of our villages and parishes. We have a housing waiting list that only increases each year, with 150 households in east Suffolk living in temporary accommodation—which means that this Christmas, 188 children will be living in hotels or B&Bs. That is no way for any child to live at any time of year. The work of our community to fix some of the most pressing issues must be commended; I have already talked about the work of some of our amazing food banks, and it does not stop there.

As you can imagine, Madam Deputy Speaker—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. The hon. Lady’s time is up.