Julia Lopez MP
@JuliaLopezMP • 13,602 subscribers
Conservative MP for Hornchurch & Upminster. Shadow SoS for Science, Innovation & Technology. Promoted by Julia Lopez of 23 Butts Green Rd, Hornchurch, RM11 2JS
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The penny is fast dropping that a Burnham gov won’t just be Starmer with better comms. Things are moving firmly leftwards. Yesterday, Andy had a big meeting with the unions just as his camp were sending a flurry of anti-tech briefings to the FT. It has immediately spooked the UK’s tech industry - one of the economy’s rare bright spots right now. Take this one on autonomous vehicles, where Team Burnham criticises the gov’s ‘headlong pursuit of driverless cars.’ We should be so proud that the UK has a dog in the fight when it comes to this field of tech, with British software company, Wayve, competing against the likes of Tesla, Waymo and Baidu. Wayve is developing a different proposition to its competitors, which map everything in a way that is time-intensive and costly. By safely testing its tech on London’s complex road network, a brilliant product is being developed and refined in the UK that could be exported or have application in other settings. Instead, all the focus is on the threat of robotaxis to jobs even though there remain substantial real-world hurdles to rolling them out at scale, not least their cost versus a driver. Do we want the UK to develop world-leading tech or just receive what everyone else is willing to give us? It looks like a Burnham gov may want to crush our chances, just as it wants to remove Palantir from the delivery of important gov projects even if its tech can deliver better NHS services or policing. I am on record as being sceptical of Labour’s unquestioning embrace of US big tech in its first two years because I worried that they were too dazzled to carry out due diligence on promised investments, draw up decent contracts which avoided vendor lock-in or to procure from a wider range of more innovative, often domestic, companies. But that’s not the critique the Left is making of this current gov’s tech policy thus far. Tech companies of all kinds are their new bogeymen, to be driven out the moment a union’s interests are threatened. After all, if Labour was truly concerned about tech’s impact on jobs, it would not have made it so much more eyewateringly expensive and difficult to employ people.
Julia Lopez MP231,029 次观看 • 2 个月前
Labour has spent the past year dining off deals the Conservative government secured. Those deals are now off. Last night, a £1bn investment from US life sciences giant, Merck - in the Prime Minister's own constituency -collapsed. Yesterday, Merck was unsparing - 'Simply put, the UK is not internationally competitive'. And instead of batting for Britain's economy yesterday, our Ambassador to the US was battling for his position. The new Science Secretary sent her junior minister to answer parliament's questions. The cancellation this year of Astra Zeneca's £450m UK plant should've been a canary screaming in the coal mine. Where is the sense of urgency from Labour on addressing the needs of our brilliant and vital life sciences sector?
Julia Lopez MP447,606 次观看 • 11 个月前
In mandatory digital ID, Liz Kendall has been handed another of Keir Starmer's steaming messes to clear up. To get through her Statement in parliament today, she simply talked about something else. A digital 'key' (not ID). Better online services. A world in which nobody loses a library card again. She could hardly bring herself to mention the PM's dodgy argument about stopping illegal migration. She couldn't own up to the reality that Labour will be excluding British people from the workplace if they don't sign up to a mandatory ID. (Don't worry, everyone, they're spending £9m on an 'inclusion' plan) Labour is choosing to cover up its mistake by suggesting their mandatory ID plan is the only way to deliver better online government services - which it's not. MP after MP - including even the stoogier Labour ones - stood up to pick holes in the government's plan. Answers from Liz there came none. Perhaps this can be one of those cack-handed government announcements that goes quietly into the night.
Julia Lopez MP310,588 次观看 • 10 个月前
Nearly 3 million people signed the petition to say NO to Keir Starmer's mandatory digital ID. It sparked a debate at which MPs from every party turned out to say NO too. It was packed. Labour MPs now openly speculate about the PM's future. Let's make sure if Starmer goes, his dodgy mandatory ID follows him.
Julia Lopez MP170,801 次观看 • 8 个月前
“Sit down!” “What’s she on?” That and more was shouted at me yesterday in parliament during the Statement on Grok/X I made clear the images are wrong. I made clear I support Ofcom. I made clear that if law is to be effective, we have to be willing to enforce it. But it’s my job as Opposition to scrutinise the Tech Secretary. So I raised: - If it’s proportionate at this stage to threaten a wholesale ban of an important platform - Who holds power in the Internet Age - What the regulator should do about difficult enforcement decisions re images under threshold of illegality - If she’s had contact with US gov after sanctions threatened by some administration figures, further to her and PM’s statements at the weekend. - What gov is doing on issues affecting women and girls in the real world…
Julia Lopez MP133,089 次观看 • 7 个月前
Want to know what Andy’s plans are to get Britain's energy costs down? I asked Miatta Fahnbulleh, the lady charged with drawing them up. She was the Energy Minister who presided over a £150 increase in energy bills during her year in post despite Labour promising Ed Miliband’s plan would cut them by £300. I think we’re about to see the limitations of good vibes and platitudes.
Julia Lopez MP29,615 次观看 • 1 个月前
At today's PMQs, Kemi asked the PM what he's delivering for all that extra tax everyone's paying. PROMISE - Labour will cut your energy bill by £300 ➡️ It's gone up £187. PROMISE - Labour will deliver 6500 extra teachers. ➡️ There are 400 fewer. PROMISE - Labour will recruit 13 000 more police officers. ➡️ Numbers are down by 1300. PROMISE - Labour will end doctors' strikes. ➡️ 93 000 appointments lost to strikes since the 28.5% pay deal. And instead of delivering, all his Cabinet Ministers are jostling for his position. That extra tax is causing so much pain for people and businesses, and they're not getting anything for it.
Julia Lopez MP102,560 次观看 • 8 个月前
🚨LATEST on Labour’s Digital ID Mess 👀 WATCH - Labour MP jumps up to tell me off when I ask Ministers about security breaches of the underpinning system — at a time when public sector cyber risk is already red-light-flashingly large, they’re expanding it with mandatory digital ID. 💷 Ministers have no idea how to pay for the new system, so Starmer’s demanding cuts elsewhere. 📢The guy they’ve put in charge of improving public perceptions of the project is the same Minister who refused to take MPs’ questions on it - great start…
Julia Lopez MP61,222 次观看 • 7 个月前
Labour don’t get that their policies are driving the very things they say they want to fix. They then try to fix that by spending everyone’s tax on stuff that doesn’t work. Take this. Liz Kendall famously failed to cut welfare while Rachel Reeves jacked up jobs taxes. Both policies are killing opportunity for young people. Now it’s more expensive to employ humans at a time when AI is disrupting the graduate jobs market. Kendall becomes Tech Secretary, launches an AI Skills Hub to ‘help’ same young people. It costs millions and a few months in, they can’t even tell us how many people are using it. A low tech solution to sound high tech, while completely screwing the fundamentals on employment taxes. See the useless PQ answer we got on this below. 👇
Julia Lopez MP25,790 次观看 • 3 个月前
Want to know what Andy’s plans are for housing in London? Tax it and give more power to Mayor Sadiq Khan. What could possibli* go wrong? (*Simpsons S6, E4) Here Andy’s policy guru, Miatta Fahnbulleh, says London also needs housing targets and to give Sir Sadiq more taxpayers’ cash. He’s already had enough and missed his targets. Under Conservatives, he was given billions under the Affordable Homes Programme and undershot the target by over a quarter. In Labour’s first year in office (24/25), he added 8184 homes to London’s affordable stock when 45k needed. Oh and remember Angela Rayner’s pledge as Housing Secretary to build 1.5 million homes? That’s well off target too. Figures out this week show construction in London has collapsed by 22%. This is why in their desperation, Labour is now reclassifying Green Belt to Grey Belt - their strategy hasn’t worked so they’re giving developers the long hanging fruit.
Julia Lopez MP13,176 次观看 • 1 个月前
Professor Brian Cox is among scientists warning of a physics and astronomy funding disaster under Labour. Science Secretary, Liz Kendall, recognised the problem in March. But yesterday in parliament pretended that there’s no problem at all. Our incredible science talent base is one of the UK's remaining advantages since Labour pushed up tax, regulation and energy costs. Yet it's now at risk. The Sec of State is not powerless here. First, she could stop millions being spent on nutty research projects. Second, she could tell Ed Miliband to reverse the crazy policies that are driving up the cost of energy for our vital, energy-intensive science facilities.
Julia Lopez MP14,379 次观看 • 2 个月前
Too many MPs still harbour the view that Brexit was an exercise in nostalgia, pushed on everyone by uninformed thickos. The truth is that it has delivered a major strategic advantage in the industries of the future - an advantage that Labour risks trading away. Today the Tech Secretary refused to rule out aligning us with the EU's AI Act and other tech laws as part of Labour's EU 'reset'. She knows our autonomy on tech is at risk, which is why someone in her ministerial team is briefing the Financial Times that Starmer's EU plans could 'smother' British innovation. Mario Draghi has warned the EU's approach to tech is killing Europe's competitiveness. Chancellor Merz wants looser rules for Germany. Over 40 EU companies are asking for a two-year stop clock on the AI Act. Labour thinks this is what a growth plan looks like.
Julia Lopez MP16,150 次观看 • 3 个月前
We are losing major life sciences investments and Labour has got diddly squat to say about it. Astra Zeneca - £450m gone and £200m paused Merck - £1bn gone Eli Lilly - £279 million incubator on hold Sanofi - won't consider "any substantial investment" in UK R&D under current conditions The industry says the UK is becoming 'uninvestable' for the life sciences. Yet Labour this week tried to dress up as a growth plan a programme we started and which they screwed up. The crisis in life sciences is going to affect us all - it means some pharma companies not bringing new drugs to market here. The NHS will not be able to give people cutting edge treatments. Trials for appalling health conditions won't be done here. Fewer high end science and manufacturing jobs. A less resilient supply chain in medicine manufacture. And yet there's no sign that the Science Secretary is doing anything across government to grip this crisis.
Julia Lopez MP14,470 次观看 • 10 个月前
Today Conservatives launch a new plan for young people: 1. Cut the number of places on poor value uni courses. 2. Use the savings from this to free graduates from the interest rate treadmill & deliver 100 000 more apprenticeships a year. 3. Let people keep the first £5k of tax they'd have paid on starting work. (We’d also cut stamp duty to help people get on the housing ladder.) It’s not wrong in principle to be asked to pay for some of your higher education rather than get those who didn't go to uni to pay through tax. But the current system is not working in the interests of students, taxpayers or the wider economy. Students have crushing debt that can be esp hard to clear for middle earners; the taxpayer will end up footing the bill for loans that can’t be paid; and the wider economy is not getting the skill mix it needs or a new generation of workers able to make the aspirational choices they want because they are so financially constrained. If you agree, sign our student loan petition -
Julia Lopez MP10,187 次观看 • 6 个月前
Residents will have noticed Junction 28 of the M25 with the A12 is getting a major overhaul. The last gov funded the National Highways works to stop local traffic jams, reduce accidents at this major black spot and keep road freight moving to and from our ports to serve our shops, homes and businesses. I went to see progress a couple of weeks ago and it's such an impressive engineering project - much bigger than what you can see from the A12. They're also working with local charities like Harold Hill Deer Aid to minimise impact on local wildlife and digging waterways to reduce flood risk in other parts of Havering. All due to be completed in summer 2025 to improve your journeys. Thanks to all the engineers and construction workers working on the project.
Julia Lopez MP12,367 次观看 • 1 年前
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