Richmond Park News: 30 October 2026

THE BUDGET

The Chancellor announced his first budget on Wednesday. While there were elements to welcome, including Healey’s commitment to fiscal devolution, promise to end rough sleeping and additional assistance for people to pay their energy bills, the consensus within Parliament and the media was that this budget bought the government breathing space, rather than providing it for the people.

I was interviewed by BBC Radio 5 Live in advance of the Budget, and Times Radio following Healey’s announcement. I thought it was telling that not much had changed in the line of questioning between the two interviews, demonstrating the lack of ambition of the Chancellor. This was undoubtedly a safe Budget, and despite assertions from the Prime Minister, perhaps signals that the government has one eye on an early General Election.

The following day, after sitting down and reading through the details in the Treasury’s Red Book, I provided my response to the Budget in the Chamber. What hasn’t seemed to be picked-up on, is that the Home Office faces £1.2bn in cuts next year, and then another £1.2bn cut the following year, while the DfT will lose out on £100million over two years. In fact, cuts are being made to most departments within the next three years. 

In addition, I welcome additional powers being granted to the Mayor of London to set up a successor to the Elizabeth Line Business Rates Supplement, which helped finance the Elizabeth Line. This will ringfence funds for the Bakerloo extension and the West London Orbital, which are both vital projects, however, as many of you will have experienced, the District Line has been plagued by delays and cancellation due to signalling issues, and therefore its disappointing to not see additional funding being allocated to carry out vital upgrades.

Overall, my assessment is that the Chancellor has done little harm, but his lack of ambition and vision may come back to bite the government later down the line. 

You can watch clips from my appearances on Radio 5 Live and Times Radio by clicking here and here, and you can watch a clip of my response to the budget by clicking here.

BUILDING SAFETY (REMEDIATION OF UNSAFE CLADDING) SECOND READING

The government’s Building Safety Bill was brought before Parliament on Tuesday.

Work to enhance the safety of blocks of flats has, of course, been prompted by the tragedy of the Grenfell disaster, in which 72 people lost their lives.

The Grenfell tragedy will not be forgotten by communities, and it is even more vital that it is never forgotten in Parliament.

While the Bill is another step in the right direction, it does not legislate for the removal of the PAS 9980 regime. This provision allows for a fire engineer chosen and paid for by the building owner, to declare dangerous cladding “tolerable” and decide no work is needed.

I questioned if other Members of Parliament would feel reassured if a fire engineer, paid for by their building’s owner, declared the cladding in their block of flats to be ‘tolerable,’ and called for the end of this clause.

You can watch a clip of my speech here

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Yesterday, I attended a Public Accounts Committee meeting regarding HMRC’s anti-fraud intervention on child benefit.

In an attempt to identify people who were still claiming child benefit despite not living in the UK, HMRC halted claims for people who had left the UK for over 12 weeks. However, HMRC only used data from flight records to judge whether a person was still residing in the UK, meaning people who had taken a flight abroad, and then travelled back by other means, had their claims halted.

This resulted in many eligible claimants having their benefits stopped, and I took exception to a civil servant on the panel calling this ‘a bump in the road.’ Many families will have needed these payments to help feed and clothe their children, and wrongly removing this benefit for eligible claimants will have had serious consequences. 

You can watch a clip of my line of questioning by clicking here.

COSTA COFFEE VISIT

Last Friday, I visited the Costa Coffee store by Richmond Station to meet with their baristas and public affairs team to discuss the local issues impacting the store, and the wider policy matters which are impacting Costa as a business.

The Costa team stated that, nationwide, their stores are experiencing ASB and criminal activity on a more regular basis, and highlighted that this puts a lot of stress onto their young teams. In some of their stores, they’ve had to employ bouncers, which they said is unprecedented for a coffee store in the UK.

They also reiterated what I hear time and time again from businesses; that the costs of employing people is far too high, meaning that while they want to employ young people coming out of school or college, the government is not incentivising them to do so. I had hoped that the former Chancellor’s National Insurance Contributions rise would be scrapped in this Budget, but this opportunity was missed and not even referenced by John Healey.

WORK EXPERIENCE

This week, I hosted 6 constituents for work experience in my Parliamentary and Mortlake constituency office. I am always impressed that students want to spend their half-term learning about the political world, and I have copied below a summary of the students’ week which they put together:

‘Overall, these days of work experience have been extremely rewarding and have truly helped us understand more about how politics in the UK works and what jobs we may be interested in holding in future.

The first two days of our work experience included policy and Parliamentary work, as well as interesting conversations with Sarah Olney and her staff. We explored Sarah’s business portfolio, and helped draft Written Parliamentary Questions, while also collaborating on a letter to the Secretary of State for Education about the student loan repayment policy. 

Our conversation with a Liberal Democrat Legislative & Political Advisor in the House of Lords gave us an insight into his work, explaining his work from keeping Peers informed on legislation to helping organise Parliamentary business and votes. It was interesting to hear about the coordination that goes into political decisions and the role he plays in keeping things running smoothly.

A real highlight for us was sitting down for lunch with Sarah herself, asking about her life as an MP, the demands of the job, and what it takes to build a career in politics. Aside from working in Parliament, we had the opportunity to look at the local side of the job. We learnt how casework is dealt with for Richmond Park constituents, which showed us how much vital support an MP's office provides to individuals everyday.’

COMMUNITY NEWS

HEATHROW CONSULTATION

Earlier this week, Heathrow launched their public consultation which will shape their Development Consent Order (DCO) application for a third runway.

This week’s budget did include a reference to Heathrow expansion, which stated that ‘the Transport Secretary will provide an update as soon as possible.’

With the advancement of a third runway seeming to be in the balance, it is important that we all respond to Heathrow’s consultation to make our thoughts clear.

You can respond to the consultation by emailing ‘expansionconsultation@heathrow.com’ and more ways to respond can be found via the following link.

KEW VILLAGE MARKET

This Sunday, 1 November, market stalls will be set-up in Kew Village, just by Kew Gardens Station. 

With the exception of January, the market operates between 10:00-14:00 on the first Sunday of every month. The market provides street food from a variety of cuisines, as well as live music.

You can read more about what to expect from the Kew Village Market by clicking here.