Speeches by Thomas.

“I am very fond of my hon. Friend’s constituency. I recall a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon for a stag do, when my friends and I embarked on one of its many ghost tours—I have to say that my Geiger meter was unmoved. There is so much about her constituency and mine that adds to the character of the UK, and I am sure she w…”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for securing this important debate. There are no bustling city centres in the Tewkesbury constituency. Instead, our historic town and village high streets are …”

“I absolutely agree, but we should not leave it to gambling companies to make that statement. We should instead take action. Gambling is not symbiotic with sport, and the companies should not be allowed to indoctrinate children, whose parents, like me, just want to introduce them to the beautiful game. We no longer allo…”

“I invite the Minister to join the APPG for fair elections. She will see that there is a very clear correspondence between first past the post and the lack of engagement over time.”

“For my daughter’s second birthday, I took her to the wonderful Birdland in Gloucestershire, which has hundreds of different exotic and rare birds. Could the Minister please tell me how he is going to support that type of business model and how he is going to keep staff and visitors safe?”

“I represent almost 40,000 women, and they and the men who love them would invite the Minister to state explicitly that the Government will not draw down their access to women’s health hubs or remove their women’s health targets.”

“It is an honour to sit on the fair elections all-party group, which is so well chaired by the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel). It is also an honour to take up this fight in this House with the Liberal Democrats for whom electoral reform has been a central tenet for decades. In order to be here…”

“No, for two reasons: the Liberal Democrats defied the odds, but there are many other smaller parties who are not adequately represented; and, as I will come to later, 58% of voters across the country did not get the MP they voted for, and that is true even in my constituency. At the general election, Tewkesbury did see…”

“My hon. Friend speaks of low turnout. I would be grateful for his opinion on whether a switch to an electoral system of proportional representation would be to the deficit of any particular parties in the House, and whether that is reflected in their turnout at this debate.”

“The Liberal Democrats support the regulations. The stake limit will help to address gambling-related harm associated with online slots, which have rapid, repetitive play patterns and high average losses per customer. It reflects a commitment to tackling problem gambling and is a progressive step in the right direction,…”

“I did not manage to make this point in my speech, but whereas one in five young people will be involved in a reportable road traffic collision in the year following their test, that figure is reduced to one in 33 for those who complete that course. I invite the hon. Member to agree.”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I commend the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) for securing this important debate. Just three weeks after the 2024 general election, four young men were killed in Ullenwood, just outside my constituency, when their car collided with a tree. They were…”

“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. “We had reached the bottom. It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so. Nothing belongs to us any more; they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair…They will even take away our name: and if we…”

“Professor, you mentioned about how some of the mitigation elements need to be done at an individual property level. Some of my constituents are flooded on a regular basis and they have had trouble getting funding from the local authority to pay for their own mitigation measures. It is a problem that repeats on a yearly…”

“Professor, you mentioned about how some of the mitigation elements need to be done at an individual property level. Some of my constituents are flooded on a regular basis and they have had trouble getting funding from the local authority to pay for their own mitigation measures. It is a problem that repeats on a yearly…”

“My hon. Friend has so eloquently put across the pragmatism that we can enjoy from Liberal Democrats in working across parties for the benefit of our constituents, and I thank him for that. This undertaking by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham has been brought up consistently on doorsteps across the Tewkesbury co…”

“Earlier, the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) lamented—in good faith—the drawdown of environmental pledges in 2016. Of course, that was not the coalition Government; what we saw and what we got is what happens when the Liberal Democrats are no longer there to hold people to account.”

“I pay tribute to my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) for so boldly taking up this cause. His so-named sunshine Bill, which to my mind reflects his own disposition so brightly—as though it was his own glowing cranium—[Laughter.]”

“The Minister represents a city and a football club that are close to my heart. I also thank the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) for bringing forward this important debate. I am heartened to hear that the Minister views the interoperability of our workforce and our assets alongside our NATO alli…”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. Tewskesbury is characterised by its waterways, and most commonly known for its propensity to flood. It floods because, from north to south, the western boundary is the River Severn, and the River Avon also flows into Tewkesbury town. Tributary waterways course acr…”