Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Back-Bench MPs can only come in if the question is about Jodrell Bank observatory. [Interruption.] I call the shadow Minister.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—the renationalisation of the railways is not working. [Laughter.]

The Drayson partitions exist to ensure that costs which the UK must meet and cannot change, such as international subscriptions that give us access to scientific facilities, are treated separately to costs that we have control over, such as grants funding. With the Science and Technology Facilities Council given a flat cash settlement, but with international subscriptions rising with inflation, the STFC now has less money to spend on actual research, leading to world-leading scientific research being dropped and to the closure of facilities such as Jodrell Bank. Can I ask the Secretary of State who made the decision to disregard the Drayson partitions?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

It is good to see the shadow Minister and I thank him for his question.

Let me be clear with the House. If we take the UKRI budget in aggregate for the spending review period, it is nearly £39 billion. If we take the overall R&D budget for the UK in the spending review period, it is £86 billion —record levels of funding making a difference. It is absolutely crucial within that that we make sure the decisions on the prioritisation of funding are science-based. The issue the hon. Gentleman identifies, the tension between research projects and subscription projects and their funding, is one I am familiar with, and he is making a serious point that has to be explored. As for who made the decision, the process runs through, I think, 30 different meetings of the research council. It has a process where submissions are taken from a very wide range of areas. There will always be more people wanting more funding than is available, no matter how big I make the spending pot, but as a House we should be clear that we want these decisions to be made primarily on a scientific basis.

Draft Code of Practice on Access and Unfair Practices During the Recognition and Derecognition Process

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2026 General Committees

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. The Conservatives opposed the Employment Rights Act at every stage of its legislative journey and remain steadfastly opposed to that Act, elements of which this code serves to implement.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 burdens employers with 330 pages of red tape: the single largest increase in employment regulation in a generation. As a direct result, we have seen reduced hiring, job cuts and huge costs to businesses. Even the Government’s own assessment of the Act admits that it will cost business billions. We are not opposed to the Employment Rights Act because we want to see workers stripped of their rights. We are opposed because of the damage it will do to businesses up and down the country.

The code of practice is one piece of a much larger picture but an important one. Before turning to that, I will touch on the consultation that the Minister mentioned. Over 920 responses were received to the Government’s consultation, with over 80% of those coming from employers and their representative organisations. On the proposals to increase the frequency of access meetings from once every 10 working days to once every five, 98% of the respondents disagreed. Some 97% of respondents disagreed with the proposal to increase the minimum meeting duration from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. When asked if the code adequately reflects digital communication in the workplace, 94% said no. On the question of whether the code adequately explains the role of the CAC, 96% said no. When asked if section D of the code provides sufficient guidance on access arrangements, 97% said no. Finally, some 96% said that the code’s unfair practices guidance was insufficient.

The consultation on the code of practice is damning. On virtually every substantive question put to the consultation respondents, the overwhelming majority of them expressed concern or disagreement, or called for a significant revision. The Minister has said that the Government listened and made amendments. I will be fair and acknowledge that some clarifications have been made, particularly on digital access. That is welcome, but on the issues that matter most to small and medium-sized businesses, the Government have noted the near-unanimous concerns of the consultation responses and chosen to disregard those concerns and force the code through against that advice.

On the duration and frequency of access meetings, I would appreciate if the Minister would outline why the overwhelming view of the consultation respondents has been ignored. Will the Minister also outline if any assessment has been made of the extra costs that employers will incur in facilitating the increased frequency of access meetings? The consultation response makes clear that the majority of respondents—57%—were from relatively small organisations of between 10 and 49 staff. Those are not large corporations with dedicated human resources and legal teams. For many businesses the code will put serious demands on time and limited resources.

On unfair practice complaints, the code makes significant shifts. The CAC will now be able to uphold unfair practice complaints without the need to show that the practice actually affected the outcome of the ballot. We recognise that the old test may have been difficult to satisfy in the time allowed, and that did lead to some genuine complaints falling, but does the Minister not think that removing the need to prove an impact on the result of the ballot risks opening the door to vexatious claims to disrupt the process? Will the Minister outline if any safeguards are in place to prevent that?

Another significant issue is that it is still unclear to many employers what constitutes unfair practice. In the consultation, employers consistently raised their concerns about the lack of clear examples and case studies of what constitutes an unfair practice and about the uncertainty that lack creates. The Government’s response stated that it was not appropriate to include examples in the code because it is the CAC’s role to make judgments on a case-by-case basis. Surely some basic examples could be provided to employers. Will the Minister outline now what an unfair practice is?

The Conservative party will continue to make the case for balanced employment rights that protect workers without unduly punishing the businesses that employ them. The code of practice fails to do that. It creates even more uncertainty for businesses and makes employing people even harder than the Employment Rights Act already made it. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s responses to my questions, but I am afraid that we cannot support this code of practice.

The Modification of the Law (British Steel Limited Property Transfer) Regulations 2026

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 General Committees

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd.

British Steel’s vitality and sustainability is very important to those of us on the Opposition Benches as well. When Scunthorpe faced crisis, it was a Conservative Government who stepped in. We provided financial support and kept the plant running and the workers in employment. We began the work with Tata Steel on a package to secure a future for steelmaking in Wales, and delivered an emergency loan to Celsa Steel to help it to continue trading during the covid pandemic. The Conservative party will never be indifferent to the steel industry.

We agree with the Government that retaining primary steelmaking capacity in the United Kingdom matters, but they have offered no credible plan for making British Steel viable. I have a few questions. What is the Government’s strategy for profitability? What is their plan for the energy costs that make UK steelmaking uncompetitive? What is the timeline to commercial viability?

We have heard no real detail that amounts to a serious industrial strategy for steel. The Government have spent their first period in office piling cost after cost on to British business—the national insurance increase and the Employment Rights Act 2025, and a regulatory burden that keeps growing. I would welcome clarity on how the Government’s approach for British Steel will succeed where the private sector could not. The Labour party cannot adhere to an ideological obsession with nationalisation that has nothing to do with what is best for steelworkers. We need to look forward, not back. We know that history did not end well for 1970s industrial policy, and the Government would do well to remember that.

Let me turn to the specific provisions in the SI and a number of questions it raises in respect of accountability. I want to press the Minister specifically on regulation 7, which disapplies the Procurement Act 2023 to BCo and its group undertakings. The 2023 Act is meant to ensure transparency, competition and value for money in public contracting, to protect the taxpayer from poor procurement decisions, but here we have a publicly owned company operating entirely outside those rules. Will the Minister outline why the exemption is necessary, whether it will last indefinitely, and what alternative procurement standards will apply in its place?

I have another question for the Minister about the broader nationalised steel sector. The Government will now own not only British Steel but Sheffield Forgemasters and Speciality Steel UK Ltd. These are complementary assets with different capabilities and different products, but they are all part of the same strategic picture for UK steel. The Minister touched on this, but some clarity would be appreciated. Will he outline whether there are any plans to allow Sheffield Forgemasters or Speciality Steel UK to make use of British Steel’s intellectual property or trademarks, or the British Steel brand itself? I would welcome the Minister’s thinking on that.

British Steel can and should have a future, but taxpayers are now the owners of the company, and they deserve transparency, accountability and a credible plan for commercial viability. I look forward to the Minister’s response and, in particular, his answer on the procurement question.

Science Facilities and Laboratories

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alison Hume]

I thank the hon. Member; he is right that those areas of academic expertise must continue to be a hotbed for physics talent.

Boulby underground laboratory, nestled between Saltburn and Whitby on the north-east coast of England, is the UK’s only deep underground science facility. Located 1.1 km beneath the Earth’s surface, in a working polyhalite and rock-salt mine, it is the deepest laboratory in the UK and one of only a dozen such facilities worldwide. I will never forget visiting the lab for the first time and descending for what seemed like an hour—it was actually about eight minutes—in a tiny lift towards the centre of the Earth, before walking out towards a pristine laboratory sitting in the dusty, science-fiction-like moonscape.

Inside, Boulby lab is home to an extraordinary range of research, from environmental science and biology to quantum physics. The lab’s greatest advantage lies in its depth: a quiet place in the universe, where studies can be carried out almost entirely free from interference from natural background radiation, including the search for dark matter.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I share her passion for physics, although I make this point objectively: some of the proposed £160 million-plus reduction in funding will reduce the ability of younger people to learn a passion for physics. That is something we can all get together to encourage the Government to look at again.

[Alison Hume]

I thank the hon. Member for making that important point. We lead the way in physics in the UK, and we want to continue that and continue to inspire young minds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Dearden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work in this area. I have heard his reflections and his desire to see longer-term certainty, which I will feed back to the relevant Minister and the Department.

The benefits of our investment, building on the previous funding that I mentioned, will be felt right across the UK. Particularly in respect of this debate and the Yorkshire and the Humber region—I am a Yorkshire MP myself—UKRI’s £580 million investment in 2023-24 was significant.

My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby mentioned a long list of vital science facilities, including Boulby, Diamond, ISIS and Jodrell Bank, which we have touched on, and I completely agree that they are not merely items on a balance sheet; they are national assets. Boulby is unique in that respect, as it is the UK’s deepest underground science facility. Located more than a kilometre beneath Yorkshire in a working mine, its depth and the surrounding salt rock mean that it is shielded from radiation, enabling world-leading research in areas such as dark matter and quantum technologies. I hope to answer many of my hon. Friend’s questions throughout my speech.

Our science and research ecosystem has lots of important research infrastructure. The UK’s science and technology successes are built not only on researchers making groundbreaking discoveries, or engineers developing new technologies, but on our world-class R&D facilities and capabilities—the essential tools that our research communities use every day. Those include the facilities that allow us to explore the building blocks of matter and the computing systems that allow scientists to turn raw data into models of the universe or treatments for disease, as well as the international collaborations that enable us to tackle grand scientific challenges that no country can solve alone.

Our research infrastructure makes the UK’s R&D achievements possible. The facilities are not only tools for research and industry but national assets, as I have mentioned. The landscape is changing rapidly. Facilities are becoming more connected and data-intensive than ever before, researchers are increasingly collaborating across borders, and the most powerful scientific instruments are often of a scale, cost and geographical reach beyond the capacity of any one nation to deliver alone. To ensure that our research facilities are ready for tomorrow, we must lay the groundwork today by supporting the facilities that allow researchers and innovators to produce the most insightful and impactful research.

I will briefly highlight some examples of the impact of our facilities on our understanding of science and the lives of people across the UK. As we heard from colleagues, the Diamond Light Source at Harwell in Oxfordshire is the UK’s national synchrotron. Currently undergoing a £500 million upgrade, Diamond generates intense beams of X-rays, allowing research to examine materials in extraordinary detail. This enables discovery and innovation in fields ranging from medicines and battery technology to advanced manufacturing and aerospace, including for companies such as Rolls-Royce. We are also a leading partner in major international facilities, sharing the costs and benefits of scientific endeavours that, as I have said, no country could undertake alone.

Also included in respect of our investment, and the Government’s absolute commitment to the sector, is the Square Kilometre Array observatory, headquartered in the UK at Jodrell Bank. I will come to that in just a second, but we are investing more than £300 million over 10 years to build the world’s largest radio telescope, enabling scientists to study the cosmos with unparalleled sensitivity, from the first stars and galaxies to signs of life beyond Earth.

[Peter Fortune]

The issue underlying a lot of this is the £160 million saving. My understanding is that that saving has come about because a previous agreement to match expanding costs for research has been reversed. Perhaps the Minister could tell me, or could ask the relevant Minister to let me know, who took the decision not to match those costs, which has resulted in the need for £160 million of savings.

[Kate Dearden]

I am coming to the difficult choices about how to prioritise funding. We can of course follow up with any further information that the hon. Gentleman requires from the relevant Minister.

Ensuring that the UK remains at the forefront of global research requires not just record levels of investment, but difficult choices about how to prioritise funding. When a country has world-class research projects across so many disciplines and sectors, prioritisation is unavoidable. The fact that we cannot fund every excellent idea is a reflection of the depth, ambition and international competitiveness of UK research and innovation. But, of course, our responsibility is to ensure that the infrastructure we do support continues to deliver the greatest scientific, economic, industrial and societal benefit for the country, including in the places we have heard about today. That means taking long-term decisions.

Draft Register of Overseas Entities (Protection and Trusts) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Company Law) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Blair McDougall)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Register of Overseas Entities (Protection and Trusts) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Company Law) (Amendment) Regulations 2026.

These regulations, which were laid in draft before this House on 1 June 2026, make targeted and technical amendments to strengthen the transparency and operation of the register of overseas entities, which I will refer to as the ROE or the register from here. They also correct a separate technical issue relating to limited liability partnerships, or LLPs.

Hon. Members will be aware that the ROE was introduced in 2022 as part of the Government’s efforts to increase transparency in land ownership and combat economic crime. It is a public register maintained by Companies House that requires overseas entities that own or acquire land in the United Kingdom to disclose information about their beneficial owners or managing officers.

The register plays an important role in shedding light on complex ownership structures and in supporting action against illicit activity. Information on the register has been used by law enforcement, journalists and other parties examining corruption, money laundering and assets held by sanctioned individuals.

Appropriate safeguards are in place through a protection regime that includes the ability to apply to Companies House to have a home address removed from the register. As part of the application, individuals are required to provide supporting evidence to confirm that the address on the register is indeed their residential address. However, in most cases, the registrar is able to identify and verify that information internally. Furthermore, there is currently no requirement for applicants to provide a replacement correspondence address. This results in a gap in the information available on the public register.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

I agree with the principles put forward in the regulations, but I am a little concerned about the regulations allowing overseas beneficial owners to suppress their residential address. Could the Minister reassure us on how the Government will prevent dirty money from flowing into the UK?

[Blair McDougall]

Yes, I will come on to that. The hon. Gentleman will hopefully find reassurance shortly that that information will still be gathered.

Part 2 of these regulations streamlines the application process; applicants will no longer be required to provide supporting evidence when applying to remove a home address that appears on the public ROE. This removes an unnecessary administrative burden for applicants. The regulations also introduce a requirement for applicants to provide a replacement service address to be displayed on the public register, except in very limited circumstances. Taken together, these changes bring the ROE protection regime more closely in line with the approach taken with UK companies.

Part 3 of the regulations includes changes to the ROE’s trust disclosure service, which enables members of the public to apply to Companies House to access unpublished trust information held on the register. Under the current application process, individuals must provide their own details, as well as the overseas entity’s name and ID number. These details relating to the entity are publicly available on the register. However, applicants must also provide the name of the trust that they are requesting information on. The name of the trust is not publicly available on the register, and many applicants are therefore unlikely to have this information, which leads to rejected applications.

In addition, where an application relates to trust information involving a person under the age of 18, the applicant must demonstrate a legitimate interest. This is demonstrated by evidencing that the applicant is investigating money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing or sanctions breaches. However, currently, when that is not demonstrated, all associated trust information is withheld, including information relating to adults, so those requirements can act as a barrier to accessing trust information and limit the effectiveness of the service.

The instrument therefore makes two targeted changes to the trust disclosure service to improve public access while maintaining appropriate safeguards. First, it removes the requirement for all applicants to provide the name of the trust when requesting access to trust information. This addresses a key barrier for making a successful application.

Secondly, the instrument makes a further change where trust information involves a person under the age of 18. Where legitimate interest is not demonstrated, the regulations enable Companies House to disclose trust information related to any individual over 18 years old. This ensures that access to information is not unnecessarily restricted because an individual under 18 years old is associated with the trust. Access to trust information relating to those aged under 18 will continue to require a legitimate interest. Together these changes improve the transparency of trust information on the register and enable more effective scrutiny while maintaining appropriate protection for minors.

Finally, part 4 of the instrument makes a limited and technical correction to the LLP framework. The requirement to provide additional address information in certain circumstances was inadvertently introduced ahead of schedule. The instrument therefore removes the requirement for LLPs to provide additional address information. However, this requirement will be reinstated once appropriate systems are in place to collect the information for companies and LLPs, and work is ongoing to achieve that. In the meantime, other address information is available on the public register for all LLPs.

Taken together, these measures improve the transparency and practical operation of the ROE while resolving a small but necessary technical issue relating to LLPs. I commend the draft regulations to the House.

Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lincoln Jopp]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I hope other Members will come forward with their own preferred alternatives to land-based systems, because there are others.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically brilliant speech—the jokes get better each time we hear them. Does he agree that there are other types of provision? My area of interest is space-based solar power provision, which could provide the same sorts of solutions without taking up precious agricultural land.

[Lincoln Jopp]

As the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend is only too well placed to talk about that. As his Whip, I can only say that his jokes get better too.

Royal Mail: Performance

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) on securing this important debate. Like all Members here, I have received a significant amount of correspondence from constituents—by email, I hasten to add—who are concerned about the performance of Royal Mail.

To be clear, I do not lay the blame at the feet of the posties; their hard work, day in and day out, is vital. However, delivery delays are having a huge impact on my constituents’ lives, and I will raise some of their concerns today. I have had numerous reports of areas in Bromley and Biggin Hill that my constituents receive only one delivery of letters a week, while parcels seem to be delivered with no delays. When letters do arrive, they are bundled together—sometimes a week’s worth in one go. One constituent even described a Christmas card being delivered three months late.

I appreciate that not all letters are time sensitive, but an issue of particular concern that has been raised by other hon. Members is whether NHS appointment letters are lost or delayed. One lady preparing for an ophthalmology appointment expected to receive a letter in advance to explain what she needed to do to prepare, but it arrived after the appointment.

Another of my constituents explained that her husband was recently referred for a CT scan, and subsequently heard nothing about when the appointment was scheduled for. When they phoned the hospital, they discovered that a letter with an appointment date was sent to them four months previously. They never received that letter, so they naturally did not keep the appointment.

Bromley and Biggin Hill is not in the middle of nowhere. It simply should not be the case that my constituents are waiting for weeks for letters to be delivered. I hope that the Minister can provide some clarity on what can be done to ensure my constituents receive the service they deserve and need from the Royal Mail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Blair McDougall]

I know my hon. Friend is a great believer in Leigh and Atherton’s untapped potential, and so are we. We have launched the small business strategy, with action on late payments, action to unlock access to finance, and better, simpler support through the business growth hub. In addition to that, Leigh will receive £20 million through the pride in place programme. I know my hon. Friend fought hard for that on her community’s behalf.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

My constituency has nearly 5,000 SMEs, all of which are facing increasing business rates and taxes, threatening jobs and growth. Will the Minister signal his support for SMEs by following the Conservative party’s lead and completely abolishing business rates for pubs and restaurants on the high street?

Department for Business and Trade

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

I regularly meet business owners big and small across Bromley and Biggin Hill. The story is the same no matter who I talk to, be it big franchisees, independent care providers or small family-owned start-ups: British businesses do not feel supported by this Labour Government. Instead, they feel hamstrung by Labour’s tax rises and red tape. The Department for Business and Trade’s budget may be over £3.3 billion, but any business will say that things are getting worse, not better, under Labour.

I have lost count of the number of local enterprises who have told me that they have stopped recruiting, and are making redundancies, delaying investment and increasing prices, all after Labour’s tax-raising budget. That should not come as a surprise to the Government. Hiking employers’ national insurance contributions by £25 billion will cost jobs. Imposing reams of new employment red tape will deter businesses from hiring. There may only be one Cabinet member who has started their own business, but this is simple stuff. If they make it more expensive and difficult to hire and grow, businesses will not hire or grow. That is what anti-business, anti-growth Government look like. Labour’s policies are causing economic growth to slow down, unemployment to rise fast and inflation to increase again.

Bromley and Biggin Hill has nearly 4,800 small businesses. They are the lifeblood of the local economy. If they thrive, our community succeeds. If they fail, our community suffers. But Labour is making their jobs harder, as it is for small businesses across the country. A new survey by the Federation of Small Businesses shows that a third of small employers plan to cut jobs, with nine in 10 worried about Labour’s Employment Rights Bill. Small business confidence has also fallen to a record low because of the pandemic, with confidence among small firms plummeting more in London than in any other English region. This Labour Government are not helping businesses to deliver economic growth; instead, they are taxing them to the very brink.