Sir John Hayes

Sir John Hayes

Conservative — South Holland and The Deepings

Speaking in the House of Commons on 18 May 2026

Debate

Backing Business to Create Economic Growth

Contribution

The hon. Member is right that the pubs, clubs, small shops and associations—the things that Edmund Burke called the “little platoons”—are what constitute civil society. Yet successive Governments, including this one, have capitulated to huge, corporate, multinational, globalist businesses. Nothing in the King’s Speech casts us in a separate, distinctive direction, and the hon. Member is right to champion those little platoons in a Burkean fashion.

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