Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Miliband and Alison Bennett

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

This is an important issue that we need to take seriously. At the moment, it comes under the health and safety regime, but we are consulting on the best arrangements to ensure that we have the highest standards of safety. There are high safety standards in place, but as we see the growth of batteries, we will endeavour to ensure that those standards are maintained.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

It goes without saying that I love Burgess Hill. One brilliant business there is Steve Willis Training, which is this week celebrating 25 years in business, training the region’s future electricity, plumbing and heating engineers. Does the Secretary of State agree that such businesses are vital in delivering the skills of the future, and will he join me in congratulating Steve Willis Training on being a brilliant family business that provides key skills to the south-east?

[Ed Miliband]

I warmly congratulate Steve Willis Training on its 25 years in operation and on the work it is doing. The hon. Lady makes an important point: we can help to create jobs in the private sector, but the question then is whether people will have the skills to fill them. Organisations and companies like Steve Willis Training are fundamental to that. Sometimes it requires lots of training; sometimes it requires shorter amounts of training to retrain people in new technologies like heat pumps. It is vital that that training happens.

State of Climate and Nature

Debate between Ed Miliband and Alison Bennett

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

My hon. Friend is very kind. To be frank with him, when I met a group of young people earlier today, I felt a sense of responsibility, because no country is yet doing enough on these issues and we need to do more. They are fearful about the world that they will inherit and look to the Government to show leadership. The issue that he mentions is important, and we will ensure that we make it part of our agenda at COP30.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

Hosepipe bans rightly anger my constituents. The bans frustrate them and me because they speak to decades of failure to put in place provisions to prepare so that the changing climate is liveable for our children. How can people be expected to support large-scale house building, which those same children will need, when water companies fail to fix leaks, pollute our rivers and too often fail even to provide clean drinking water?

[Ed Miliband]

The hon. Lady raises an important issue. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has commissioned a review of the whole system of regulation of the water companies. I think I am right in saying that a new reservoir has not been built in Britain for 30 years, but we have plans for nine new reservoirs as part of our action to address the issue the hon. Lady raises.