With permission, I will update the House on the situation in Iran and the wider region, and our response. The United Kingdom was not involved in the initial strikes on Iran by the US and Israel. That decision was deliberate. We believe that the best way forward for the region and for the world is a negotiated settlemen…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and for the security briefing I received earlier. This is a defining moment for the people of Iran, the wider middle east and the world order. I know that hundreds of thousands of British people still in the region, many sheltering from drone attacks, are fe…

The right hon. Lady asks about contingency plans for UK nationals. I can assure her and the House that we are working at speed with our partners in the region to take whatever measures we can to ensure that our people can return as safely and as swiftly as possible, and we will continue to do so. I am happy to update h…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I thank the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. I assume that she also informed the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) of her intention to refer to him.

As the hon. Member will know, Members themselves are responsible for the accuracy of their words in the Chamber. If a correction is needed, I am sure that one will be forthcoming. For now, she has placed her own view on the record.

The reasoned amendment in the name of the official Opposition has been selected.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. There is a lot of interest from Members across the House in this Bill, and that is no surprise, because we are all proud of our British democracy. Our democracy is a fundamental part of who we are as a country. The long history of this House has been punctuated by…

I have come straight to Parliament from Kingsbury school in my constituency, where the year 11 pupils were saying how much they are looking forward to being given the right to vote, so may I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing that forward in the Bill?

I thank my hon. Friend for her support for these measures? They were in the Labour election manifesto on which we both stood, and it is a great pleasure now to start to implement them. We committed to these measures because we understand that in a democracy, people must be in control of their lives and their own countr…

There are some very welcome measures in the Bill. I intend to table an amendment to stop oil and gas giants making donations, given the pernicious role that they play in undermining the action that we need to take on climate change. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the amendment and the need to clean up our politic…

Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that the resounding victory of my hon. Friend the new Member for Gorton and Denton (Hannah Spencer) in the by-election was a victory for hope over hate? And does he not recognise that he sounds like an extremely bad loser?

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that I like to start with the positives and the areas of common ground. I warmly welcome the fact that this Bill has come forward and a number of measures in it. It is very positive that the Government are taking forward votes at 16—something that the Green party has campaigned for s…

I will not, because of the time. The British Social Attitudes survey shows that a majority of all political supporters are in favour of proportional representation, and of course, it is pragmatic and will improve our politics—

I thank and commend the hon. Lady for initiating the debate, and for her devotion to this subject. Does she agree that we should consider education and the role of school principals? In Northern Ireland the Education Minister, Paul Givan, has introduced a pilot scheme on phone-free schools, and I have held an event in …

It is always a pleasure to give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is the first to intervene in the debate, and I entirely agree with him. I will touch on the point about phones in schools later, and I believe that we will have a chance to vote on that specific measure shortly, when the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bil…

The hon. Lady is making her case very personally and passionately, describing the harms to young people’s mental health that result from the predatory algorithms that the tech giants have devised to create addictive content for children. I, too, think that there is cross-party agreement on the need to look very careful…

I hope the hon. Lady will not mind if I call her my hon. Friend, although we are on opposite sides of the House. I thank her for her intervention, and I take her point, which I have also heard the Government express. I agree that we need to consult, but I think we should be consulting on how we implement some of these …

I am sympathetic to all the hon. Lady’s arguments. However, it appears that we are about to have a Second Reading debate on an as yet unpublished Bill, when the motion on the Order Paper is about whether we have a day for that Second Reading debate. I am conscious, because I have been to the Vote Office, that the Bill …

I have received contact from hundreds of parents in my constituency and from some young people sharing their huge concern about online harm caused by engagement with social media, so I fully understand the sense of urgency in the Chamber and the desire for quick action. The Government said in January that they would co…

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

This Government are ushering in a new era for our railways, with landmark legislation to set up Great British Railways making good progress in this place. Eight train operators are now run by the public for the public, with West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern Railway services nationalised at the end of Januar…

The airspace modernisation strategy will rationalise flightpaths last redrawn in the 1950s to cut emissions and noise. However, the community in the historical village of Blackness, in my constituency, are concerned that the opposite will happen with the plans for Edinburgh airport airspace, and that their tranquil vil…

I will ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Aviation to meet my hon. Friend to discuss her concerns, as I appreciate that this is a sensitive issue for many people. Airspace modernisation will provide huge benefits for air passengers, businesses and the UK economy, and the move to more efficient flight paths will be don…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

(Urgent question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his Department’s contracts with Palantir.

Palantir is a strategic supplier to the Ministry of Defence, providing secure data integration, analytics and AI platforms that help to support operational planning and decision making. In 2022, the Conservative Government signed a three-year enterprise agreement with Palantir, in light of the growing significance of f…

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. Before I turn to the detail, let me say that the Mandelson scandal is truly shocking. When debating these matters, it is incumbent on all of us to remember the victims of Epstein’s crimes. Following Peter Mandelson’s sacking as US ambassador, serious questions su…

As I said in my first answer, Peter Mandelson had no influence on the decision to award this contract; it was a decision made by the Secretary of State, and it was his decision alone. As the shadow Secretary of State well knows, this enterprise agreement builds on the one that Conservative Ministers signed with Palanti…

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

The business for the week commencing 9 February will include: Monday 9 February —General debate on the UK-India free trade agreement, followed by debate on a motion on increasing survival rates of brain tumours. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee. Tuesday 10 February —Debate …

I do not think that this is a moment for normal business. I am sure that you, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House and all Members, will join me in taking this moment to remember the victims of Jeffrey Epstein: the young women and girls who were systematically trafficked and abused by him and his associates over man…

I thank the shadow Leader of the House for the way he has addressed these matters this morning. He is fully entitled to do so. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he is right to do so, because I agree that there is palpable anger, outrage and a degree of sadness about the way these events have unfolded. I would n…

I have been working closely with driving instructors who provide tuition to learner drivers in North West Leicestershire. One of them reached out to me earlier this week to share that they had got up at 5.45 am to book a test for a student in Loughborough, but no tests were available. What work is being done to increas…

I wish to update the House on the situation in Sudan. On Tuesday night, I returned from the border between Sudan and Chad, where I witnessed from the camp of 140,000 people in Adré—85% of them women and children who have fled the most horrendous violence and violations—the devastating human toll of the world’s worst hu…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

The situation in Sudan is serious and deadly, and Members across the Chamber want this awful, barbaric war to end. Millions are suffering, displaced and malnourished, and an estimated 150,000 people have been killed, including in massacres such as El Fasher. War crimes are being committed, and appalling acts of sexual …

I welcome the shadow Foreign Secretary’s words on Sudan. It is the worst humanitarian crisis in the 21st century, and the whole House should be united in wanting it to end. She asked about the work being done through the Quad, and the work led by the US. I am in close contact with the US special envoy, Massad Boulos, a…

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for her impactful visit and for the sanctions that she has announced today. Earlier this week, the all-party parliamentary group for Sudan and South Sudan met the Somoud civilian coalition. It stressed, as she has done today, that it is often civilians who are delivering humanitar…

I call Brendan O’Hara, who will speak for up to 15 minutes.

I beg to move, That this House has considered the obligation to assess the risk of genocide under international law in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and may I put on record my thanks to the Speaker’s Office for working so hard to ensure that we have time for the deba…

Order. Because I want to get everyone in before we finish at 5 pm, all Members are on a three-minute speaking limit.

I thank the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O’Hara) for bringing forward this most important debate. This is a debate on an obligation to assess the risk of genocide. Who could disagree with that? There has been a terrible war in Gaza, and although there is a ceasefire, loss of life continues. …

We are witnessing in Gaza a catastrophe that was not only foreseeable but preventable. For over two years, the UK Government have hidden behind legal sleight of hand while a genocide has unfolded in Gaza. The definition of genocide set out in article II of the genocide convention is precise. It involves specific acts “…

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment tabled in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions to require the Government to lay before this House all papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as His Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States of America, including but not confined to the C…

My hon. Friend is making excellent points. It is a surprise not to see the Prime Minister answering these questions himself. At the end of the day, he made the decision to appoint Mandelson to the post of ambassador, so he must explain his decision-making process, and what he knew and when. Why is he not here?

Order. In fairness, that is not a problem for Mr Burghart to address. Who responds is a matter for the Government.

I am glad that it is not my problem, Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend is right: the appointment of this man was absolutely the Prime Minister’s responsibility. Today we are trying to dig into exactly what the Prime Minister knew, whether any information was kept from him, and, if so, who kept it from him.

The Minister has set out the difference between national security matters and issues which may be embarrassing to the Government—let’s face it, practically anything could damage international relations with Donald Trump; who knows what he is going to take offence at—but the process he has just outlined implies that the…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Foreign, Development and Commonwealth Office if she will make a statement regarding the situation on Iran.

Iran’s horrific attacks on protesters have shocked the world. In recent days, the scale of the violence and brutality has become clearer. Reports suggest that many thousands of people across Iran have been killed, and many more arrested, in what has been a brutal and bloody repression against those exercising their rig…

The brutal crackdown on brave Iranians fighting for their basic rights and freedoms continues. The reports are shocking. We have now seen that tens of thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands injured. Some are even saying that 30,000 people have died. These are warlike casualty rates, yet the condemnation a…

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her questions; I will respond to them in turn. We have taken a series of steps to ensure that anyone in this country wishing to support the Iranian Government must meet a much higher threshold to do so. We have introduced 550 sanctions, including some introduced by the last Gove…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

What steps she is taking to provide regional funding.

What steps she is taking to provide regional funding.

What steps she is taking to provide regional funding.

I am very sorry to see your leg in such a way, Mr Speaker. We are committed to driving growth everywhere. The Budget ensured that Scottish public services are fairly funded, with an extra £820 million for the Scottish Government through the Barnett formula, on top of a record settlement in June this year. We are also i…

I welcome the fantastic news that Edinburgh and south-east Scotland will receive £37.8 million from the new local growth fund, supporting infrastructure, business support and skills development. However, I consistently hear from businesses that they struggle to recruit people with the skill sets needed to grow their op…

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Since the new year we have had the first expressions of interest from firms that want to participate in the youth guarantee scheme. We have announced our intention to change benefit entitlement for people in mental health hospitals who have been convicted of serious violent crimes. We have announced reforms to the disa…

Whether it is at Kia, Alstom or others, apprentices in Derby are thriving at our large manufacturing companies, but we also want our small and medium-sized businesses to take on more apprentices. Will the Government set out what is being done to help smaller businesses to take on more apprentices?

I congratulate my hon. Friend and everyone involved in Team Derby on their excellent training and employment record. Around 40% of all apprenticeship starts are in small and medium-sized employers and they will benefit from the £725 million in funding that we announced at the Budget, which includes fully funding SME ap…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 21 January.

In recent days, I have spoken extensively to our international allies, including European leaders and others, the US and NATO. We will continue to engage constructively to resolve issues, particularly those relating to international security, applying the principles and values that I set out on Monday. In addition, thi…

We face an affordability crisis in this country. In the short term, our dependence on fossil fuels has led to a rise in energy bills, and in the longer term, the aftershocks of Thatcher mean that there are not enough good, non-graduate jobs. That is why today’s warm homes plan is such good news: batteries, solar, home …

I thank my hon. Friend. I know how much he cares about making life affordable. We are taking £150 off energy bills. That is £300 for the 6 million poorest families, including almost 3,700 households in his constituency. The warm homes plan we are announcing today is the biggest ever public investment in upgrading Briti…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understood that the purpose of Prime Minister’s questions was for the Prime Minister to answer questions from MPs, yet—

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement about the warm homes plan, which we publish today. It is a plan focused on the No. 1 issue facing our country, which is the cost of living crisis, and on the scourge of fuel poverty, which affects millions of families across Britain. At the Budget, my right hon. Frie…

I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement. Today’s announcement is long overdue—overdue by an entire year, to be exact. During the general election, the Labour party claimed that it would cut household bills. This announcement should be part of that, but in that time, since the general electi…

It is always a pleasure to be opposite the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) . Let me make a few points to him, in the gentlest way I can. Let me deal first with his point about the cost of electricity. In her Budget, the Chancellor did more in one decision—namely, to transfer 75% of the …

The hon. Gentleman is shouting about bills. Let me tell him that the average bill in 2025 was lower in real terms than in 2024, and so was the price cap, as he will know from the figures. I am incredibly proud that this Government, unlike the last Government, are taking £150 of costs off bills thanks to the Chancellor’…

I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the publication of the Government’s water White Paper, “A New Vision for Water”. The paper sets out once-in-a-generation reforms, putting consumers and the environment first and building a water system fit for the future. For too long, the last …

I call the shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of her statement. Indeed, I welcome the Secretary of State to the Chamber. It is not often that she puts in an appearance, from the publication of the Minette Batters report to the animal welfare strategy, which was published two days before Christmas eve, to the famil…

Oh my gosh! Well, I say to the right hon. Lady that I will not take any lectures from the Conservative party. Not only can they not be bothered to turn up for the statement, which shows an absolute disregard for the concerns of the public about the levels of pollution in our waterways—[Interruption.] I will answer her …

I welcome the White Paper because customers right across the country have been failed by their water company, and all too often, when turning to Ofwat for support and to hold executives to account, they have been met with bureaucracy and a weak response. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the creation of a new co…

What steps her Department is taking to help improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

What steps her Department is taking to help ensure the continued delivery of aid in Gaza and the west bank.

What steps her Department is taking to help improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

What steps her Department is taking to help ensure the continued delivery of aid in Gaza and the west bank.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is still dire, because of the winter conditions and a lack of urgently needed aid. Last month we were pleased to learn that UK-funded tents had entered Gaza to provide critical shelter for 12,000 people, and the Government are matching £3 million of donations to the Disasters Emergency C…

What steps she is taking to ensure high-quality school places for children with SEND.

What steps she is taking to ensure high-quality school places for children with SEND.

The Department has announced at least £3 billion in high needs capital between 2026-27 and 2029-30 to support local authorities to deliver sufficient high-quality school places for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. This will create provision within mainstream schools that can de…

I draw attention to the fact that my wife is employed by our local authority as a special educational needs co-ordinator. At the start of this school year, my local authority, the London borough of Bexley, rolled out a number of new resource provisions, adding an additional 122 SEN places in mainstream schools. They ar…

My hon. Friend rightly identifies that there are pockets of brilliant provision right across our country, and our schools White Paper will ensure that we spread that best practice and make it a reality for all children. Through the £3 billion of investment, we will deliver 50,000 more specialist places for children wit…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office if she will make a statement on the British Government’s response to the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on protests.

The United Kingdom condemns in the strongest of terms the horrendous killing of Iranian protesters and the most brutal and bloody repression against public protest in Iran for at least 13 years. The Iranian authorities must immediately end the abhorrent killings and uphold the human rights and fundamental freedoms of I…

Since last week’s statement, we have seen more information about the horrific brutality that the despotic regime in Tehran has inflicted and the bloodshed it is responsible for against its own citizens. Reports from medics in country say that the figure could be as high as 18,000 men, women and children dead, slaughter…

The right hon. Lady asks important questions. Let me turn first to the question of numbers. I do not want to give the House an artificial sense of precision when the internet has remained restricted since 8 January . There clearly have been many deaths; we believe in the thousands. We will not put a more precise figure…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I begin by expressing my condolences to all affected by the terrible train crash near Cordoba last night and thanking the Spanish emergency services who responded overnight and throughout today. I am sure the House will join me in thinking of the people of Spain at this distressing time. With permission, I will make a …

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

I begin by expressing our condolences to the people of Spain following the devasting train crash yesterday. The Conservative party is clear that the US Administration’s decision to announce tariffs on the UK over Greenland is completely wrong. People in the United Kingdom and the United States will face higher costs be…

I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for her response and welcome her support for the sovereignty of Greenland and Denmark and for the strengthening of support for Arctic security against the Russian threat, which she is right to highlight. She asked what work can be done to establish constructive discussions, and inde…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will update the House on the disturbing developments unfolding in Iran. Horrific reports suggest that potentially thousands of people have been killed and many more arrested in the most brutal and bloody repression against public protest in Iran for at least 13 years. On 28 Dece…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for giving me sight of her statement earlier. Every day for the last two weeks across Iran, we have seen brave and courageous men, women and children standing in defiance of a cruel, barbaric and despotic regime that has suppressed lives and freedom for over five decades. People are being …

I agree with the shadow Foreign Secretary in her condemnation of the brutality and horrendous actions of the Iranian regime and the threats that it poses. She will know that when she was Home Secretary and I was shadow Home Secretary, we strongly supported the national security actions on Iran. In fact, I said specific…

The question now is: what is Donald Trump going to do next? There must be many people in the Foreign Office trying to second guess what he might do. Will we give support to Donald Trump if he decides to take action against the Iranian regime in—what he would say would be—defence of the Iranian people, or will we take t…

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

House building in this country ground to a near halt in 2023 because the previous Government failed to reform our planning system, despite knowing that it is too slow and cumbersome and deters development. Our Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December last year. It delivers fundamental r…

I am concerned about the villages in my most beautiful constituency of Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket; there, people tell me that they are increasingly concerned about the lack of affordable housing in rural communities. What steps is the Minister taking to increase the supply of affordable housing for local people in …

Order. Can I just remind everyone that this is topicals? You are meant to set an example, Peter—come on.

Our planning changes will support affordable rural housing by giving rural authorities greater flexibility to require affordable housing on smaller sites. Our £39 billion social and affordable homes programme, which opens to bids next month, is available to rural authorities as well.

With permission, I would like to make a statement on artificial intelligence, social media and online safety. No woman or child should live in fear of having their image sexually manipulated by technology, yet in recent days the AI tool Grok on the social media platform X has been used to create and share degrading, no…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance notice of her statement. Last week, public outrage was rightly expressed about the use of artificial intelligence to undress women and children in photographs by X’s AI assistant Grok. The use of AI in that way without consent is wrong. It is disturbing, and in many cases it i…

I was going to say that I was grateful to the hon. Lady for her support for Ofcom’s action and investigations, and her support for our action on banning nudification apps, and that I hope she and her party will actually vote for the Crime and Policing Bill in its final stages, but she then began her own campaign of mis…

I call the Chair of the Select Committee, Chi Onwurah.

With permission, Mr Speaker, and with thanks to you for allowing me to do so at this late hour, I wish to make a statement to update the House on today’s US operation and yesterday’s coalition of the willing summit in Paris. Today the US conducted a military operation to intercept the motor vessel Bella 1 in the north …

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I begin by thanking the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement, and for the briefing he provided to me and other parliamentarians on today’s operation. As the Leader of the Opposition said earlier, there should always be a statement to Parliament when UK troops are committed abroad, and we hope…

We are working flat out on the defence investment plan. We will complete it and publish it as soon as we can. The sovereignty of Greenland is not at issue: it is clearly Denmark that has sovereignty. It is clear that Greenland and Denmark are a part of NATO. Greenland’s security is guaranteed by its membership, and by …

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.

What steps he is taking to help tackle fuel poverty.

Tackling fuel poverty is a priority for this Government. We will publish a new fuel poverty strategy for England to ensure that many more fuel-poor households are protected by 2030, at the same time as publishing the warm homes plan. We have also expanded the warm home discount to nearly 6 million households, adding ap…

Everyone deserves a warm and safe place to call home, but for the 20% of families in Derby South who live in fuel poverty this week’s cold snap is a nightmare as they struggle to heat their homes. What longer-term plans are being made so that families can see the benefits of a Labour Government and do not dread this so…

I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. Energy prices are still far too high because of dither and delay from the Opposition when they were in government. No one should have to make the difficult choices that my hon. Friend describes. The Government are totally focused on reducing the cost of energy and mak…

It is worth waiting for the warm homes plan, which will be published very soon. Alongside that there will be an ambitious fuel poverty plan for England. The Chancellor has already announced £15 billion of funding for that. We will set it out very soon and I look forward to constructive discussions with the hon. Member …

(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if she will make a statement on the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief.

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for asking this question. I wish a happy new year to her and to all Members of the House. The reforms announced in December go further to protect more farms and businesses while maintaining the core principle that more valuable agricultural a…

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this first urgent question of 2026—and what a way to open the new year, with yet another Government U-turn. But where is the Chancellor of the Exchequer? This is her tax and her U-turn, and she should explain why she did not announce this at the Budget. Over the past 14 months, farme…

The Government announced the change in December because we had continued to listen to the representatives of family businesses and the farming community. I note that the National Farmers’ Union and others have welcomed the change, which will increase the threshold from £1 million to £2.5 million. I think it is the righ…

Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for his answer. I was pleased to meet NFU representatives for Dartford and for Kent in late 2024 and January 2025. Following those meetings, I passed on the view to Treasury Ministers that it was right for the Government to close the inheritance tax loophole and s…

I want to begin by expressing my condolences to all those affected by the terrible tragedy in Crans-Montana, and my support for the Swiss authorities. The British embassy has been supporting the family of Charlotte Niddam, who was educated in Hertfordshire and in north-west London. I can confirm that yesterday Charlott…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

I would like to start by associating myself with the condolences expressed by the Foreign Secretary about the awful tragedy in Crans-Montana. I also thank her for her statement on Venezuela, although I am disappointed that it was not the Prime Minister who delivered the statement, because many of us in this House and b…

I must just say to the Leader of the Opposition that, while I obviously welcome her support on Switzerland, Greenland and Denmark and so on, it felt like the tone of her response was very poorly judged. It was really all over the place. Many times when we were in opposition, we set out our agreement with the Government…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Madam Deputy Speaker, there have been a number of developments in the middle east that I would like to update the House on, including in Gaza, Iran, Yemen and Syria. I would also like to take the opportunity to provide an update on the case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, which has been a subject of debate during the parliament…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

Britain’s place in the world matters, and the Opposition are clear about the fact that our influence should be used to its fullest effect to support efforts to combat the complex and dangerous conflicts and tensions in the middle east about which we speak all too often in the House. From Israel to Gaza, Iran, Syria and…

I can confirm that I have been in touch with my counterparts in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and indeed that I spoke to the Yemeni Foreign Minister this morning. We are in intensive discussions with all our partners in the region on the questions on Yemen, which are very significant. I did not speak about the Houthis…

I thank my hon. Friend for his statement. I entirely agree with him that, at a time when the humanitarian crisis in Gaza remains so desperately urgent, the decision by the Israeli Government to withdraw accreditation from 37 extremely credible aid agencies, such as Caritas Internationalis, ActionAid and the Internation…

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

We know how much you love your pets, Mr Speaker, and we are a nation of animal lovers. We intend to publish our animal welfare strategy very soon, taking forward our manifesto promises with the most ambitious reform in a generation. This commitment to animal welfare sits alongside our wider ambitions for nature. Earlie…

While wishing the Minister, and indeed all hon. Members and staff, a very happy Christmas, may I tell her that many of my farming constituents will not be celebrating as they gather with their families, because their hopes of passing on their farms to their children, just as their parents and grandparents did before th…

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. We did debate this issue on the radio together. The reason we are making these changes is that the top 7% of estates account for 40% of inheritance tax reliefs—that is £219 million for the top 37 landowners—and we think that is unfair.

Merry Christmas to everybody in the Chamber and beyond. I was very proud to stand on a manifesto that committed to end cruel practices such as puppy smuggling and to phase out animal testing and ban fur imports. Is the Secretary of State able to update the House with a little more detail on the progress of the animal w…

On 20 November , my Department published a policy statement setting out our approach to the first multi-year local government finance settlement in a decade. Today, we publish the provisional settlement itself and launch our formal consultation on the proposals. It represents the choices we are making as a Government. …

It is no surprise that the Government sought to sneak this consultation out with the minimum level of attention, proposed, as it was, for simply a written ministerial statement at the last possible second. We can all see that poverty is rising, driven by a shrinking economy and rising unemployment, combined with inflat…

I can hardly wonder at getting that purely political response when I made the perfectly legitimate political point that under the Tories a lot of councils were dealt very bad funding settlements indeed. We do not need to trade political insults to see the libraries closed, the parks left unmaintained and the damage don…

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

I thank the Minister for her statement. I know she has been working really hard on this issue since she took on the role a few months ago. She is aware of the many pressing issues facing councils up and down the country—from SEND to temporary accommodation, housing and adult social care—and 14 years of under-investment…

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the Government’s ongoing efforts to overhaul the planning system. As the House is fully aware, England remains in the grip of an acute and entrenched housing crisis. It is a crisis, first and foremost, that is blighting countless lives, not least th…

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. This Labour Government’s last planning framework began pushing development on to rural areas, prioritising concreting over the green belt and green fields rather than focusing on supporting building in urban areas, which is where we need to build most. From what …

I thank the shadow Minister for his questions. I appreciate that he has not had a huge amount of time to look over today’s announcement, but he has completely misunderstood one of the primary thrusts of the changes we are making, which is to double down on a brownfield-first approach. Through the draft framework, we ar…

I call the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

I thank the Minister for his statement. I commend him for his work on bringing the planning system up to date, which can be quite a technical process, and on the landmark Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will receive Royal Assent later this month. I welcome the fact that the Minister has listened to many people …

I call James MacCleary, who will speak for up to 15 minutes.

I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of foreign interference on security, trade and democracy. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and my co-sponsors for their support. Since I submitted my application for the debate, the profound and urgent national importance of this…

I commend the hon. Member for securing this timely and important debate. Given the NSS and other challenges, we must move closer to European partners—we see what happens when there is division. I commend him for his work in Georgia in particular. Will he comment on the breakdown of the belief in the rule of law and dem…

I will come to Georgia later in my speech, but on the European aspect, the context of the national security strategy has, if anything, made it more urgent to work more closely with our European friends. The SAFE—Security Action for Europe—fund negotiations seem to have broken down. It would be good to get more clarity …

There are six Members bobbing and I will be calling the Front Bench spokespeople at 4.30pm, so the guideline is seven minutes each.

That is not the Green party’s position. The Green party’s position, which I clarified in a point of order in this Chamber just last week, supports our membership of NATO at this time of extreme threat on Europe’s borders. It has long been known that the Kremlin seeks to interfere and undermine democratic politics in ot…

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

May I send my condolences and those of the Government to all those who have lost loved ones in the deadly storms in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam? Many have lost homes and livelihoods. I praise the emergency responders who have worked tirelessly and are committed to helping those affected,…

I associate myself with the Foreign Secretary’s comments. The UK has shown global leadership on international climate finance over many years, both in the £11.6 billion we are providing over the five years to 2026 and in encouraging other major nations to recognise their responsibility to those nations most in the firi…

The details for future financial issues were obviously set out as part of the Budget. We will continue to take action on international climate finance and provide support for dealing with these issues.

Last month, the Government buckled under pressure about their lack of consultation with the Chagossian people on the shameful handover of sovereign British territory to Mauritius. If the process is genuinely intended to inform policy, what steps will the Minister take to ensure that the views expressed to the House of …

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

Labour believes that background should not determine what people go on to achieve in life. We see child poverty as a moral scar on our country. When last in government, we lifted 600,000 children out of poverty. During their time in government, the Tories plunged 900,000 children into poverty. The seismic decision take…

The Government have taken responsibility for SEND funding away from local authorities such as the Isle of Wight council, but they cannot explain where the money is coming from. Surely the Secretary of State understands how concerned parents are up and down the country. She can reassure them right now and explain where …

I recognise the very real worry that parents across the country have about the system of support for children with SEND, which the hon. Gentleman and the Conservative party left on its knees. He would do well to reassure parents, not to scaremonger. I suggest that he goes away from here, reads the Budget document and w…

Archbishop Beck Catholic college in my constituency has lost £700 per pupil since 2011, while the number of disadvantaged pupils has risen from 38% to 52%. It is an excellent school with strong leadership, creating great outcomes for pupils. Will the Minister look specifically at the funding calculation for Archbishop …

I would like to make a statement to the House on two separate but related matters. The first is regarding communication with the public in the lead-up to the Budget. I understand that this is a topic that has held much interest and speculation over the weekend and I would like to take this opportunity to give a formal …

In the light of press reports on this matter, I remind the House of the rules and conventions relating to parliamentary language. As “Erskine May” sets out, unless a discussion is based on a substantive motion, certain personal criticisms, including accusations of lying or deliberately misleading the House, are not per…

I begin with the matter of the report on the OBR leak. We will of course study that report in detail, but as the right hon. Gentleman concluded by saying, “We will respond to this matter with the seriousness it demands”, I seek immediate reassurance that this will not include scapegoating the OBR to distract from the s…

I was unclear from what the shadow Chancellor said at the beginning of his comments whether he, like us, values the role of the OBR in the Budget-setting process. We value its independence and we value its integrity. That is why we take what happened last Wednesday with the utmost seriousness, and we are determined to …

I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee.

It is a privilege to open this Budget debate on a theme of paramount importance to our country: the cost of living crisis facing Britain’s families. Whatever our party, we should take a step back and think about the history of the last two decades since the financial crisis, during which we have seen: the stagnation of…

When it comes to making decisions about poverty, it is difficult, so I would be grateful to understand the Secretary of State decision to change the winter fuel payments, which the Government’s own analysis said put 100,000 people into relative poverty and 50,000 people immediately into absolute poverty. Those are deci…

Well, the hon. Gentleman’s question is out of date, because, in case he had not noticed, we changed the policy on winter fuel payments. Let me just say this to him: he will have to answer to his constituents. Some 1,500 children in his constituency will be helped by our changes to the two-child cap, and he is saying, “…

Will the Secretary of State give way?

I will in a moment. On the one hand, 60% of these people are working—and the Conservatives do not really want to explain why they want to cut help for those people. But let us discuss the 40% of households that are not working and will be impacted. What we are seeing here—I am old enough to remember—is a re-run of the …

With sky-high bills, unaffordable, cold and mouldy homes, and one in three children growing up in poverty, our country is in crisis. Life has become unaffordable for millions of people, and years of devastating cuts to our public services, from hospitals and schools to social care, mean that those who most need support…

I will not, because many Members want to get in. Frankly, given that a typical energy bill in October 2025 was £478 a year higher than four years before, it is indefensible that this Budget does nothing to address the structural factors that keep costs high. In 2024, almost a quarter of the average energy bill went str…

With permission, I will update the House on my recent international engagements and our work to strengthen the security of our continent and economy, starting with the situation in Ukraine, which is at the forefront of all our minds. Over recent days, I have had detailed discussions with allies; I met our partners in t…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. We are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine and our support remains unwavering. Ukraine is battling the most flagrant breach of territorial integrity in Europe in recent times. We must never forget that the war was started by Putin, who is tryin…

May I start by thanking the right hon. Lady for her support on Ukraine? It is really important that we stay united in this House. I readily acknowledge the role of the previous Government in leading on Ukraine and in bringing the whole House together on this issue, which they did for a number of years. This allowed us …

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

With permission, I would like to make a statement about the COP30 climate summit. The climate crisis represents the greatest long-term threat we face as a world, but the transition also represents the greatest economic opportunity of our time. At home, we are driving for clean energy and climate action, because it is r…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Let us be clear: when this Secretary of State resumed office, he decided to impose the most punishing climate policies at home, because according to his argument, if we lead, others will follow. That is why we are the only country in the world to be shu…

Oh dear, oh dear! I remember a time when the Conservative party was serious about the COP negotiations. The shadow Secretary of State had advance sight of the statement, but she did not ask any questions about it. I have to say that there is a fundamental issue here: do we engage internationally on how we drive forward…

Because Putin invaded Ukraine!

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I am privileged to be able to open this Third Reading debate following constructive debates on Report. Let me first reiterate my thanks to Members on both sides of the House for their thoughtful contributions during the Bill’s passage. The Bill cements the Govern…

I will speak briefly. There is a high degree of consensus on some of the objectives that the Government have set out. We share the ambition to deliver more homes, and we share the ambition on economic growth and devolution. However, the alternative stimulants that the Government have chosen essentially involve more bur…

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. It is not a point of order for the Chair, but she has most definitely put her point on the record.

If he will take steps through the fair funding review 2.0 to ensure that the most deprived lower layer super output areas receive the largest increases in funding.

What progress he has made on the fair funding review 2.0.

On Thursday 20 November , the Government published a policy statement setting out our plans for the 2026-27 to 2028-29 multi-year local government finance settlement. Through the settlement, we are introducing a system based on need and evidence. In doing so we will target a greater proportion of grant funding at depri…

In Warrington we see some of the starkest inequalities anywhere in the country. One area is ranked the 899th most deprived, and the highest position is 33,480th, a gap of more than 32,500. Those vast disparities are masked by population-weighted averages, with Warrington ranking 199th overall and only 43rd in range. Wi…

I admire my hon. Friend not only for standing up for Warrington, but for her command of the statistical detail. The fair funding review will distribute more funds to deprived areas, and, as she has just demonstrated, the distribution is underpinned by granular data from households in lower-layer super-output areas cons…

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

The business for the week commencing 24 November will include: Monday 24 November —Remaining stages of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (day one). Tuesday 25 November —Remaining stages of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (day two). Wednesday 26 November —My right hon. Friend th…

May I start by recording my thanks to the Leader of the House for agreeing to the request to have the Ukraine debate on 4 December ? I think we all feel warmly about that decision. Politics at the present moment may not be enormously pretty, but it has been a week of triumph in the sporting world. We have had the joyou…

I thank the shadow Leader of the House for his questions. Can I first, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, thank Mr Speaker for his timely reminder this week of our responsibilities in this House regarding national security? As the House will know, the Security Service issued an espionage alert to Parliament, highlighti…

The speedy passage of environmental legislation through this House is not often a feature, so I thank the Leader of the House for the speedy way in which the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction treaty was dealt with by the Government. In contrast, I remind him that in 2023 our party said that we would bring forwa…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if she will make a statement on the recent severe flooding impacting Monmouthshire and what support will be made available for those affected.

My first thoughts, and those of the Secretary of State, are with all the people and businesses affected by the flooding over the weekend. The impact in Monmouthshire has been devastating for local residents and traders and I know that hon. Members across the House will be thinking of them as they recover from this drea…

This weekend, tragic and heart-wrenching floods affected families and their loved ones, resulting in evacuation from their properties in Monmouth after the River Monnow burst its banks. That, in turn, has blighted businesses with devastating consequences. This horrific experience also hit hard nearby areas, including A…

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that time is of the essence. My heart goes out to all those impacted by the storm over the weekend. It must be absolutely dreadful for those people to see their business or home flooded after all the hard work they have put in all their lives; I cannot image the trauma and the difficul…

My constituency neighbour and very diligent representative, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) , is as we speak in Abergavenny and will join the Secretary of State in Monmouth shortly, meeting and listening to those affected by the devastating floods which hit Monmouth, Abergavenny, Skenfrit…

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister for Climate are in Brazil at the conference of the parties, fighting for Britain’s interests in the global transition and playing our part in securing leadership on the climate crisis. Since our last oral questions session, we have announced that 250 schools …

Last year, over 1,000 former mineworkers in North Warwickshire and Bedworth benefited from this Government’s historic decision to release the surplus from the mineworkers’ pension scheme. Now, members of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme, such as my constituents Ray Sweet, Don Jennings and Andy Callow, are s…

Could the Minister reassure my constituent and others like her that the Government are doing everything they can—

Order. Sorry, but one of us is going to have to sit down. Please—topical questions are meant to be short and punchy. You cannot do a full statement. I think you ought to try to catch my eye for an Adjournment debate, because this is a very important subject. Minister, I think you have got the principle of the question.

I want to update the House on two of the world’s gravest conflicts—in Gaza and in Sudan—following recent resolutions in the UN and discussions at the G7, and on the action that the UK Government are taking to pursue peace. First, I turn to Gaza. After two years of the most horrendous suffering, the ceasefire agreement …

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of her statement. His Majesty’s Opposition welcome the passing of the US-drafted resolution at the United Nations Security Council yesterday. The US has shown consistent leadership on the middle east, and for that we are grateful. Hamas must now release the final three de…

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response to the issues relating to Gaza and Sudan, and I will take his points in turn. We do not expect the UK to contribute troops to the international stabilisation force, but we are already providing military and civilian deployment into the civil-military co-ordination committee t…

I call the Chair of the International Development Committee.

This morning, Members received a private briefing on Sudan, at which one of the academics stated: “El Fasher is a slaughter house. Our low estimate is 60,000 people have been killed there in the last three weeks.” That would make it the biggest atrocity crime since the 1990s. These are civilians, not soldiers, and this…

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the closure of the ExxonMobil Fife ethylene plant at Mossmorran in Scotland. I thank Mr Speaker for accommodating this statement today. Like many Members of this House, I am saddened to learn of Exxon’s plans to close its Fife ethylene plant. Thi…

I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement. Since the Government came to power in July 2024, over 15,000 manufacturing and industry jobs have been lost. Only this Labour Government would recognise that as a success. The Minister says that he is saddened. That is cold comfort to the workers losing their job…

I would be very happy to take the opportunity to educate the shadow Secretary on some of these issues.

No; it is real. He will realise that soon. I was genuinely upset when the shadow Secretary of State described my words as cold; they were not. They were sincere and heartfelt, because I have been in this position myself. I really wish that the shadow Secretary of State and his colleagues had shown similar vigour when t…

This is devastating news for all the workers at the ExxonMobil Fife ethylene plant in Mossmorran, many of whom are my constituents. ExxonMobil must now be fully transparent and give proper clarity for the sake of all those affected. This company made £25 billion in profits last year, yet over the course of multiple mee…

The hon. Member is making a powerful case about fuel poverty. In my constituency, around 5,000 households are experiencing fuel poverty—about one in 10 homes. We know that three factors affect this issue: the energy efficiency of a property, the household’s income, and the cost of keeping warm. Given that last year alo…

I commend the hon. Lady for raising this issue. In Northern Ireland we have a slightly different scheme called the affordable warmth scheme, run by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. The problem we have is that only a certain amount of money is set aside, and it is first come, first served, so some people in pover…

In my constituency, the charity Act On Energy gives advice and support on energy efficiency to residents, many of whom are in fuel poverty. Its work is particularly relevant in rural communities where properties are older and harder to insulate and, in many instances, rely on oil and liquefied petroleum gas. Does my ho…

I agree that rural households such as those in my part of Cornwall desperately need the warm homes plan. Does the hon. Member agree that other sources of energy provision—for instance, ground source heat pumps and liquid fuels such as hydrotreated vegetable oil—could also be included, and would be a good addition to th…

I am really grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue, because the two things are intrinsically linked. It is absolutely vital that we have a strategic plan that brings together the issues that cause fuel poverty, including poorly insulated homes. Does she agree that the Government need to have a strategic plan …

The hon. Member is right to draw attention to the eye-watering profits made by energy companies—a subject raised during exchanges on the statement made just before this debate—and the irresponsibility of many of those companies’ actions. It is essential to ensure that when people pay their bills, the money goes towards…

The hon. Gentleman may have been reading my notes over my shoulder, because I was about to make exactly that point. We must keep the needs of the most vulnerable households front and centre. I was talking about the fuel poverty statistics. According to the Government’s own figures, 3 million households were fuel-poor i…

My hon. Friend is entirely right about the particular problems that we face in rural areas. This is relevant to the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) : we must support the most vulnerable households.

I am not an engineer, and I must confess to having some doubts, certainly about HVO, so I would need to engage in a bit more conversation on that subject. As for ground source heat pumps—yes, absolutely, although I understand that air source is normally more efficient. In my constituency we have some water source heat …

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member, who is a fantastic champion for health. She pays attention to the needs of the most vulnerable in our society, and ensures that policy really addresses the root issues that people face. I agree, and that is why I am so deeply concerned that the Government are flying this kite, a…

The hon. Member is a fantastic champion for policies that address social and environmental justice. He raises the important point that in these schemes, far too often, people have to jump through umpteen hoops. We are talking about supporting the most vulnerable households; the last thing they need to do is jump throug…

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the earlier part of my speech, in which I explained that I absolutely do welcome the commitment to £13.2 billion, but I am deeply worried that the Government appear to be backsliding from that commitment; they are promising to use part of that in other policy areas, as a sticking plaster. …

Absolutely, I completely agree. We need a long-term strategic approach that takes into account all the issues in houses, so that we do not repeat the problems of ECO4. That is part of the issue that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I am literally on my final sentence. Let us make the warm homes plan the bold, high-…

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Lords amendment 2, and Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment 2. Lords amendment 3, and Government motion to disagree. Lords amendment 31, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu. Lords amendment 32, and Government motio…

Sustained economic growth is the only route to delivering the improved prosperity our country needs and the higher living standards working people deserve. That is why it has always been this Government’s No. 1 mission. This landmark Bill, which will speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infras…

The housing market is absolutely flat and we desperately need to build more housing. What is stopping all this new building, people moving and creating a healthy housing market? It is the appalling stamp duty that everybody acknowledges is the worst tax. The Minister is not the Chancellor, but will he approach his righ…

The Chancellor will set out her decisions on the Budget in fairly short order and the right hon. Gentleman will have to wait for that. I am going to be quite strict in sticking to the contents of the Bill and what is in scope, rather than ranging more widely, as he tempts me to do. The amendments we tabled in the summe…

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that there are many hundreds of thousands of homes sitting empty around the country and that this Bill will not do anything to address that issue, which could go a very long way to addressing the problems of homelessness that he claims to worry about?

I inform the House that Mr Speaker has not selected either of the amendments tabled. I call the shadow Chancellor.

I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to control public expenditure in order to keep the promise made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Confederation of British Industry conference on 25 November 2024 that, after the last Budget, the Government would not raise taxes; and further calls on the Go…

No, it was definitely the Korean war!

It was the Korean war—my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is the Chancellor’s choices that have led to this situation. She was the person who chose to put up taxes on jobs, which has led to growth being anaemic. We know that taxes such as national insurance feed through to lower investment, higher inflation, h…

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the real downfall of the Government dates from when they did not face down their own Back Benchers and deal with the rocketing benefits bill? Frankly, the country is going broke and the Government must have the courage to deal with millions of people who are not contributing to soci…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the Government’s approach to the worsening conflict in Sudan.

I am sure the whole House will join me in condemning the shocking violence against civilians in El Fasher. The latest reports, including of 460 civilians being killed in a single attack, are harrowing. This is part of a pattern of appalling violence perpetrated against civilians and is just one element of the suffering…

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. The atrocities of recent days, including in El Fasher, are beyond horrifying. The suffering inflicted on the Sudanese people by this war is an affront to humanity. Red lines have been crossed in the prosecution of this conflict that cannot be allowed to stand, e…

I thank the right hon. Lady for that important set of questions. On accountability, we continue to lead the core group in Geneva. We are supporting the fact-finding mechanism of the United Nations, and it is absolutely vital that work on accountability and justice continues. Those at the top of both the RSF and the Sud…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Before we come to the statement from the Education Secretary, I should inform the House that Mr Speaker is disappointed that this announcement was widely trailed in the media this morning, before this House had an opportunity to hear directly from the Government. I remind the Government Front Benchers that the expectat…

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I note your comments, and I will make sure that they are taken forward. With permission, I would like to make a statement to update the House on this Government’s plans to renew the national curriculum, to secure for every child an education steeped in our rich history, ready to shape o…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. I also thank Professor Francis for her work—any criticism of today’s announcement is directed not at her, but at the Government’s response to her review. I welcome some of the measures announced today. I am pleased that the Government have not moved awa…

Order. Ms Trott, you have run over your time. I hope you are going to conclude very quickly.

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on the future of the North Sea oil and gas industry.

The North sea will be at the heart of Britain’s energy future. For decades its workers, business and communities have helped to power our country and our world, and they will do so for decades to come. The oil and gas industry has lost around a third of its entire workforce in the last decade as oil and gas production …

Another week and yet another hammer blow to our North sea oil and gas industry, another gut punch to energy workers and another blow to our energy security. Whatever the Minister says today, the blame lies squarely with this Labour Government. [Interruption.] They do not like to hear it, but it is true. Today, the ener…

On Petrofac, the hon. Gentleman should be careful with his tone. To come here and try to undermine efforts to find a buyer for the UK arm and to talk down a business, which, as I just outlined, is a successful and growing business in the North sea, is deeply irresponsible. There have been long-standing issues at the co…

Will my hon. Friend outline to the House how the Government are delivering the clean energy jobs plan, which will see 40,000 new jobs in the clean energy industries in Scotland by 2030? I am sure that move will be welcomed around the Chamber. Will he advise us what support will be given to that plan by the Scottish Gov…

What recent progress his Department has made on strengthening national resilience.

In July the Government published the resilience action plan, which sets out our strategic vision for a stronger and more resilient United Kingdom. The Government also successfully carried out the second ever national drill of the emergency alert system last month. I am pleased to tell the House that the test reached 96…

In August, authorities declared a major incident after a wildfire broke out in Langdale forest and spread dangerously close to RAF Fylingdales, the ballistic missile early warning base. Given the increasing threat that wildfires pose to our security, can the Minister confirm whether he will consider automatically activ…

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question, and I commend the emergency services and the local community who came together in her constituency to bravely tackle the Langdale moor fire. The risk of wildfires to critical sites is well known to local responders, who plan for such events and can call on central Gover…

The Government routinely conduct and update assessments on a whole range of threats. On gov.uk, the Government publish the outcome of those assessments in the national risk register and in their chronic risks analysis, including on climate change, biodiversity loss and the impact on our ecosystems.

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

This is my first appearance at the Dispatch Box as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister. In this role, I have been tasked with modernising the state to build a system that will better deliver the public’s priorities and better communicate the changes we are making across the country. Sadly, too many political parties …

Transforming Britain’s public services will be a mammoth task, but while the white heat of artificial intelligence and digital technology offer a revolutionary opportunity to improve performance and value for money in healthcare, tax services and everything in between, will the Government seize this opportunity to mode…

The answer is absolutely yes. All our constituents know from their experiences at home, whether they are trying to do their banking, do their shopping or book a holiday, that they have the power to do it, when they want to do it, how they want to do it, on their phone, with services delivered in the way they want. That…

I call the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 22 October.

On Sunday we unveiled Labour’s plan to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers into clean energy, creating quality, well-paid jobs in every quarter of the United Kingdom. On Monday we announced the new V-level qualification, to make sure that every young person has the skills to realise their potential. On Tuesday our…

I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s sympathies extended towards Claire, and I commend her for her bravery. I regret to inform the House that yesterday there was a very serious breach of national security, when my Prime Minister’s question was photographed heading into No. 10 in a transparent folder. The nation…

I thank the hon. Member for her question. The whole point of digital ID, of course, is that you cannot see it, so that should at least deal with her first concern. It is important that we make access to public services as easy as possible for people. We all know the difficulties that so many people have with accessing …

The number of households in Cornwall in temporary accommodation has increased by 265% in five years, so I am delighted that this Labour Government are investing £39 billion in social and affordable housing. In Cornwall we are developing a strategy to provide housing at sites such as Pydar in my constituency, which need…

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of extending the warm home discount on levels of fuel poverty.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of extending the warm home discount on levels of fuel poverty.

From this winter, an additional 2.7 million households across the UK will receive £150 off their energy bills, which makes a total of nearly 6 million low-income households receiving this vital support. That is the difference that this Government are making to our communities.

I am delighted that thanks to this Government and the warm home discount eligibility extension, thousands more Rochdale families will be eligible for £150 off their bills this winter. It will ensure that young and old alike get more help with their bills this winter. I would like to raise the case of my constituent Kei…

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all his work championing causes for his constituents. He will know that an extra 280,000 households in the north-west will be eligible for the warm home discount, and that 2.7 million households across the country will be helped this year. I would be more than happy to meet my hon. F…

Before I update the House on the peace process in the middle east and my trade visit to India, I want to put on record my utter condemnation of the vile antisemitic terrorist attack at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, which killed two Jewish men: Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz. Antisemitism is not a new hatre…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. I remember almost two years ago meeting three mothers whose children had been stolen from them on 7 October and held captive in terror tunnels. They were living a nightmare unimaginable for any parent. Many of us on the Conservative Benches have me…

May I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her words about the hostages a moment ago? I know how heartfelt they are. I was surprised and saddened that she spent more time attacking what we actually did to help the process than even mentioning the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, without setting out in terms the number of…

I call the Chair of the International Development Committee.

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

My No. 1 priority is to get Britain building again: we will build, baby, build. That means putting Britain on a path to end the moral stain of homelessness and rough sleeping that doubled under the previous Conservative Government; growing our economy with good, secure jobs and rising incomes in every region of Britain…

My constituents in Oldham East and Saddleworth were delighted to learn that Oldham has received a £20 million award from the Pride in Place programme. Will the Secretary of State expand on the transformational change that the award will mean to places like Oldham, where Government support was decimated under the Conser…

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, for her work in supporting disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Oldham and her strong support for the Pride in Place programme, which offers a significant amount of long-term flexible funding and support to areas like Oldham. Best of all, it is local peop…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement about the terrorist attack on 2 October and the action that the Government are taking in response. Let me start by calling this attack what it was: an evil act of antisemitic terrorism that targeted innocent worshippers on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish ca…

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. At 9.31 am on the morning of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, we saw the sickening terrorist attack on worshippers at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester by an Islamist extremist. The brutal attack left two men dead, Melvin Cravitz and Ad…

I thank the shadow Home Secretary for his response and for the way in which he made it. I look forward to working with him and with all Members across the House as we deal with what I hope will always be a shared issue and a shared problem. Where there is agreement and consensus in this House on the measures that we sh…

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and I am sure that the people of Crumpsall, where this atrocity took place, will welcome it. The only point I would add is that while these acts of antisemitism and violence are un-British, they are also inhuman—I think that is a better way to describe them, rather than “un…

Council housing is the first, most important and only viable solution to the housing crisis and to creating a society that matches the hopes of both the Labour movement and the wider public. Not long ago, under the leadership of the current Prime Minister, Labour Front Benchers now sitting in Cabinet declared that hous…

According to the charity Crisis, only 1.4% of one to three-bedroom properties in my constituency are affordable to renters who need housing benefits, while the number of people on the social housing waiting list in Wolverhampton has nearly tripled in three years and rents have surged by over 35% in the last five years.…

I fully agree with my hon. Friend. The points he raises perfectly exemplify why the provision of council housing is so important. England has seen 724,000 more net additional dwellings than new households since 2015, yet in the same period the number of households in England on local authority housing waiting lists ros…

I fully agree that council housing is essential to meeting the housing crisis that we face, and I hope that we will hear ambitious remarks from the Minister. The question is not simply how much housing is built, but the type of housing built and for whom. As has been referenced, more than 1.3 million households in Engl…

I commend the hon. Member for securing the debate. In my office, as I suspect in everybody else’s, benefits are the first issue of importance and housing is the second. One possible solution—I want to be constructive, and I showed him this suggestion—is to focus on building smaller social housing units, enabling older …

Given that the Minister feels that social housing is so important, can he explain why he will not set a target for it?

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to make a statement on the implications of Israel’s strike in Qatar for peace and stability in the middle east and for UK foreign policy.

The UK Government are deeply concerned by Israel’s strike in Doha yesterday. As the House heard a few minutes ago from the Prime Minister, he and the Foreign Secretary have condemned these flagrant violations of Qatar’s sovereignty, which will set back the cause for peace and risk further escalation in the region. The …

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting my application for an urgent question. I am grateful to the Minister for his statement. Last night’s Israeli strikes against Hamas officials in Qatar heralded a new and grave escalation in this terrible conflict. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s willingness to strike Doha will undermine ef…

Mr Speaker, as you would expect and as is our usual practice, I will not be commenting on sanctions from the Dispatch Box. The Prime Minister has set out to this House his intentions for his meeting with President Herzog later. I can confirm that the Foreign Secretary met President Herzog this morning and raised these …

I call Dame Emily Thornberry, Chair of the Select Committee.

What progress he has made on reducing pollution in bathing waters.

We have introduced a new era of accountability. We are resetting, reforming and revolutionising the water sector, putting public health and the environment first and delivering the change rightly demanded by the British people. With the most ambitious targets on sewage water pollution in history, we will halve sewage w…

Over the summer, we saw the announcement of a £50 million investment into Southport’s waste water treatment works to reduce the number of sewage overflows to just three per bathing season, allowing Southport to once again become the jewel in the crown of the north-west coast. Does the Minister agree that that level of …

Minister, that is a tough one.

Unsurprisingly, I could not agree more. I thank my hon. Friend for his work to champion his community here in Parliament. The previous Government oversaw record levels of sewage pollution in our rivers, lakes and seas, but this Government have secured £104 billion of private investment to upgrade crumbling pipes and ha…

Will the Leader of the House give the forthcoming business?

The business for the week commencing 8 September will include: Monday 8 September —Consideration of Lords amendments to the Renters’ Rights Bill. Tuesday 9 September —Second Reading of the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill. Wednesday 10 September —Remaining stages of the Bus Services (N…

I call the shadow Leader of the House.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope you and everyone in this Chamber had a very good summer break, with just the right proportions of sun, sleep and family. If I may, let me start with a double round of congratulations: first, to the Prime Minister on his 63rd birthday this week, putting him squarely in the prime o…

I call the Leader of the House.

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 3 September.

On Sunday, we won the contract for the biggest defence deal that Norway has ever placed. That is a £10 billion investment, securing 15 years of shipbuilding in Scotland and across the rest of the United Kingdom. One day later on Monday, we launched 30 hours of free childcare for working families. Not only does that sav…

Economically deprived high streets and poorer high streets are flooded with gambling shops. The “aim to permit” legislation prevents councils from saying no. My summer campaign on gambling reform has received loads of support, including from Gordon Brown, who says that if we tax the gambling industry, we will get £3 bi…

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. It is important that local authorities are given additional tools and powers to ensure vibrant high streets. We are looking at introducing cumulative impact assessments, like those already in place for alcohol licensing, and we will give councils stronger powers over the locatio…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a statement on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Iran. In Gaza, the situation on the ground is unimaginably bleak. Horrifying images and accounts will be seared into the minds of colleagues across this House. They are almost impossible to put i…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary, who can speak for up to six and a half minutes.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. Let me also express my sympathy for the people of Afghanistan who are suffering as a result of last night’s major earthquake. Since the House last met, the awful conflict in the middle east has continued to see lives lost, with intolerable suffering. Ham…

I am grateful to the shadow Foreign Secretary for the tone of her remarks. I am pleased that she agrees with me and, indeed, shares the sentiment of the entire House on the dire—as she described it— humanitarian situation in Gaza and the inhumanity that she also described. She will recognise that even before we came to…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

What steps her Department is taking to ensure adequate funding for SEND provision.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend that important question. Labour is providing £1 billion more for high-needs budgets, and also providing councils with £740 million of capital funding to improve support for children with SEND in specialist and mainstream schools. This investment will lay the foundation for the better sys…

The last Government left behind a SEND system that was failing children and families. Parents were made to fight for support, with education, health and care plans denied or delayed and vital services taken away. Tory cuts to early years support, rising poverty and extreme deprivation in Blackpool, as well as the pande…

My hon. Friend is a powerful champion for his constituents and for Blackpool, and he is right that far too many children are not currently getting the support they need in order to thrive. Early intervention is key—more support at the earliest possible point to identify where children might be struggling, and to make s…

The Secretary of State knows that out-of-county placements are very expensive and highly unsatisfactory both for pupils and for families. Will she therefore confirm that the excellent news that we had last year about a new SEND school being built at Bitham Park in Westbury will go ahead to the advantage of children and…

With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the middle east. I will begin with Syria. We have been horrified by the recent violence in the south, including civilian deaths. Clashes between Druze and Bedouin militias have quickly escalated into intense fighting, with involvement from Governme…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. The violence, loss of life and conflicts that continue in the middle east shock us all. Events in the middle east have a direct impact on our national interests and on people living on our own country, from concerns about family members in the r…

I am grateful to the shadow Foreign Secretary for the tone of her remarks, and I am grateful for the cross-party consensus in the House that this war must come to an end. I note the huge concern that we all feel, not just in the House but in the international community, about the humanitarian suffering that we continue…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I am happy to have secured this debate on Homes for Ukraine and the Ukraine permission extension scheme. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia started on 24 February 2022 , eight years after the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014. Now in its fourth year, this awful war has seen some 7 million members of …

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate, and for his excellent remarks. I am aware of two cases in my constituency in which, as he says, constituents have only been allowed to apply 28 days before the deadline for extension, yet UK Visas and Immigration gives itself a standard service time of eight wee…

I absolutely agree, and people in that situation are very worried—I have several in my own constituency. I have spoken to groups of guests in Newton Abbot, and they are mostly working, getting on with integrating into the local community and strongly supporting each other.

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue forward. The reason so many of us are here is that it impacts each and every one of us, and I have a very strong Ukrainian contingent in my constituency. Many refugees have made their homes in our constituencies—in Newton Abbot, Strangford and elsewhere. Ukrainian ch…

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and I absolutely agree. Ukrainians are scared of what happens next, and we have no answer for them. They see reports of their countrymen being refused asylum in the UK because it is said to be safe to return to Ukraine, even while Putin’s drones explode in Ukraine’s cities i…

What steps she is taking to build more social and affordable homes.

We announced a record £39 billion investment into the new social and affordable homes programme at the spending review, which will create around 300,000 new homes over 10 years. Earlier this month, we published a five step plan that sets out how we will deliver the biggest increase in social housing in a generation to …

Planning authorities such as Rugby borough council are working hard to ensure that new housing developments contain as much affordable and social housing as possible. They work in partnership with housing developers, Government bodies such as Homes England, and others to that end, though it is not always an easy proces…

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will unlock a new scale of housing and infrastructure delivery across all tenures to help build 1.5 million homes in this Parliament. We are also taking action in the Bill to improve local decision making by modernising planning committees and…

The Government have not set an affordable housing target to date, but we continue to keep the matter under review. Accurately trying to forecast long-term delivery is inherently challenging, but we believe that our new social and affordable homes programme could deliver around 300,000 social and affordable homes over i…

It is a pleasure to stand here today and raise, once again, the issue of restrictions on the use of disabled bus passes. The Minister will be well aware of this matter, which I have raised with him on a number of occasions, and I have already had the opportunity to discuss it with him directly, for which I am grateful.…

Young people in post-16 education or apprenticeships, including my son George at Linwood’s post-16 provision, are unable to learn to drive as easily because of their complex needs, yet while their parents currently have to pay to get them to college in the morning, they can use their free bus passes to get home. That i…

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; she speaks extensively about an area in which I know she is a champion. I completely agree with her. If we are giving people disabled bus passes, we are doing that for a reason, and those reasons often do not apply only from 9.30 am onwards. That brings me to the next part o…

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment. My constituency is in north Yorkshire—a vast rural area where we have exactly the same challenges that she describes in her own patch. The impact of this restrictive rule is particularly clear when we listen to young disabled people themselves. In a recent conversatio…

Many of those opportunities start before 9 am. Disabled people can still board a bus earlier if they pay, but we have just established that disabled people already face much higher daily living costs. Those on low or no income are therefore disproportionately affected by this decision and their opportunities impacted. …

It makes sense for bus services to reflect local needs, but whether someone has a disability and needs to use a bus is not a locally determined thing. There should be fair access to these services wherever someone lives in the country. Currently we have a postcode lottery regarding the ability to use bus passes 24 hour…

On that point, will the Minister give way?

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a statement to the House on “Fit for the Future”, the Government’s 10-year health plan for England. There are moments in our national story when our choices define who we are. In 1948, the Attlee Government made a choice founded on fairness: that everyone in our count…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Secretary of State for his typical courtesy in providing advance sight not only of his statement but of his plan. I am grateful, and others on the Government Front Bench might learn a thing or two from him. I am pleased to see the plan published. This Secretary of State is a rare thing these days: one whose…

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his constructive approach to what does need to be a successful plan for the next decade, to get our NHS back on its feet, to make it fit for the future and to make sure we improve the health of the nation. Aside from the lines that he was no doubt given to trot out at the begin…

I call the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee.

I beg to move, That this House notes the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s (PHSO) report on Women’s State Pension Age, HC 638, published in March 2024, which found that maladministration in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) communication about the Pensions Act 1995 resulted in complainants losing op…

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. What she says reflects some of the conversations I have had with WASPI women in my constituency about not only the distress this has caused them, but how so many of them simply did not receive the correspondence that they have been told they did receive over the years about th…

The hon. Lady has been a formidable campaigner for these women. In answer to her question, no, I have not had any joyous information from the Government as of yet, which is why we are here today. I will outline why I think the Government’s statement and response to the ombudsman’s report was misinformed. While I unders…

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her leadership of this campaign. The situation is worse still than she paints it to be, for the ombudsman made clear that the “DWP has clearly indicated that it will refuse to comply” with the ombudsman’s recommendations, inviting Parliament to step in to resolve the matter. This is o…

The right hon. Gentleman has been a formidable campaigner for the women affected and an ally in the campaign in this House. He is correct. I will explain in a moment how unprecedented it is for a Government to reject the ombudsman’s recommendations in this way, and how dangerous it is, in fact, for our democracy and fo…

I beg to move, That the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 30 June , be approved. I am grateful to the House for its consideration of this draft order, which will see three distinct groups proscribed: Maniacs Murder Cult, Palestine Action and …

On that point, will the Minister give way?

I will make a bit of progress, which I do not think is unreasonable. The proscription of those three organisations will reaffirm the UK’s zero-tolerance approach to terrorism, regardless of its form or underlying ideology. It may be helpful to set out some background to the proscription power. To proscribe an organisat…

On that point, will the Minister give way?

I will make a little more progress before giving way. The definition has three limbs. First, the use or threat of action must reach a certain level of seriousness, such as serious violence or serious damage to property. Secondly, the use or threat must be designed to influence a Government or intimidate the public or a…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his Department’s plan to procure nuclear-certified F-35A aircraft.

The UK will purchase 12 new F-35A fighter jets and join NATO’s dual capable aircraft nuclear mission in a major boost for national security. The Prime Minister has announced at the NATO summit that the UK intends to buy at least a dozen of the dual capable aircraft, which can carry both nuclear and conventional weapons…

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. You will recall that the Government’s plan, announced today, to procure nuclear-certified F-35As was previously covered in The Sunday Times the day before the SDR was published. You therefore granted an urgent question that day on this very subject, but we recei…

On the in-service date, as the Secretary of State said this morning, we are hopeful that the aircraft will start delivering before the end of the decade. On the tranche being ordered that will now include 12 F-35As, yes, we will still be ordering the remaining F-35Bs, so there will be 15 extra F-35Bs in the next tranch…

I welcome the announcement and, on behalf of the Defence Committee, I welcome the additional detail that has been added to the SDR. It is imperative that we recognise and close some of the gaps in our national defence, including the size and shape of our combat air force, and this announcement does part of that. But 14…

With permission, I will make a statement on the Israel-Iran conflict. Since I last updated the House, the United States has struck three Iranian nuclear sites at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that the action was “intentionally limited”. Britain was not involved in the strikes, just…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Two weeks ago, the IAEA produced a report that was damning of the Iranian regime. Iran was not co-operating, and was breaching its obligations. It had more than 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60%, far beyond any level needed for a civilian nuclear programme, and enough material to create at least nine nuclear devices, w…

I am very grateful for the co-operative tone in which the right hon. Lady has made her remarks. Quite rightly, she has a number of questions that I will attempt to answer, but let me begin by saying that, fundamentally, we are in agreement that the regime in Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and all our efforts are…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

What steps he is taking to tackle river pollution.

My hon. Friend will be aware that we inherited record levels of sewage pollution in our waterways from the previous Government. Since the election, we have launched the biggest crackdown on water pollution in history: unfair bonuses have been banned for water company executives, and water bosses who cover up pollution …

I remain extremely grateful for the £100 million of support the Government have given to the River Wye action plan—a pioneering joint effort between the UK and Welsh Governments—but we must do more, including using sustainable farming initiatives to support farmers to look at their stocking rates. I am concerned by rep…

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I understand her concerns. I reassure her that the Government will always act in the national interest on these issues. Thames Water must meet its statutory and regulatory obligations to its customers and to the environment—it is only right that the company is subject to the…

Order. I am sorry, but we are over time as it is.

With permission, I wish to make a statement on the action we are taking to cut energy bills for working families. Three years on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine which sent prices soaring, people up and down the country are still feeling the impacts. Everywhere I go in this job and from every person I speak to, I h…

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement—what a delight it was to receive an update on the warm home discount on this, the warmest day of the year. I know that the Minister is a tireless champion for the people of Peckham and for the most vulnerable, and I thank her for all the work that she does behind …

I think the hon. Lady has some cheek, given the previous Government’s record on energy bills. When, under their watch, families across the country were paying sky-high energy bills—with people still paying the price of that today—the idea that the Conservatives would try to lecture us on energy bills is pretty rich. Le…

I welcome the Minister’s statement. I think the shadow Minister was right to highlight this statement being made on the warmest day of the year—this is a Government announcing a warm home plan to literally fix the roof while the sun shines, which the Conservatives failed to do. This announcement will benefit nearly 3 m…

As always, my hon. Friend puts it perfectly. I will pick up his point on data sharing, which is critical. My Department and the Department for Work and Pensions have been working over the past few months on the sharing of means-tested benefit data so that this will be automatic; come this winter, all eligible consumers…

What steps he is taking to shift care from hospitals into the community.

We are getting the NHS back on its feet and making it fit for the future by shifting care to the community with £889 million more for GPs, 1,700 additional frontline GPs, 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments annually and a 19% uplift to the community pharmacy contract. Looking to the future, our commitment to build…

I am delighted by the Government’s commitment to moving healthcare closer to the community, including through the establishment of neighbourhood health centres. That is exactly what we need in Aylesbury, and I am pleased that all our key healthcare providers, including the NHS trust and several GP practices, are alread…

It is really good to hear about the fantastic work going on in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We are working with systems to move to a neighbourhood health model by building on existing good practice, particularly around the development of multidisciplinary teams. Aylesbury is an outstanding example of that. Ahead of t…

Dental patients with untreated need end up in hospitals. In places like Hedon in my constituency, we have seen more and more dental practices moving away from the NHS. I have a constituent who found it took her three years to get her child their first check-up, and that dental practice has now ceased to look after NHS …

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment (b) to new clause 13, at end insert— “(5A) The Secretary of State may only approve a device under subsection (5) if the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has approved the device for that purpose. (5B) Before making any regulations und…

It is a privilege to open today’s debate and to present to the House the amendments tabled in my name, a number of which relate to issues that I promised to return to when they were raised in Committee. All amendments in my name have been drafted with technical advice and expertise from civil servants from the Departme…

I am genuinely looking for clarification. As a former Cabinet Minister in the Scottish Government, I jealously guard the devolution settlement. I wonder how the extension of some of these clauses to include Scotland will be interpreted. What conversations have taken place between my hon. Friend, Scotland’s Lord Advocat…

I have taken legal advice from Government officials to ensure that devolution is respected at every stage in proceedings. Where legislation that affects other jurisdictions needs to be amended, those conversations have already started and will continue.

I thank the hon. Member for raising that issue and giving me the opportunity to speak about the detailed evidence given by my constituent Emeritus Professor Sam Ahmedzai, with whom I spoke at length yesterday about precisely this detail. I have reviewed a number of tables of data about this. Any substance has side effe…

I am very short of time, so I think I had better continue. Turning to new clause 15, which relates to the role of coroners, if the Bill is passed, assisted dying would be a very strictly regulated process—the choice of an individual; not a death caused by others, but by the individual themselves. As Aneez Esmail has po…

I am so sorry, but we are very short of time. New clause 15 is a compassionate and practical clause. There are strong safeguards already in place, and requiring a coroner’s inquest would go against the spirit of compassion that should be driving us all. I will briefly turn to amendment 42, tabled by the hon. Member for…

I am sorry, but I am concluding. We are each speaking from our own experience and from the heart.

The evidence shows that it is dying people themselves, facing the end of life, who wish to have the choice. Only small numbers of them will take up that choice, but it is crucial, humane and compassionate for us to offer them the choice. Assisted dying is complementary to palliative care, not contradictory, and this Bi…

I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman has misrepresented what I said. I was contributing an observation from somebody who has been deeply involved in palliative care practice, who reports that it is far more frequent that the dying person wishes to die, while it is their family who are pressuring them and encouragi…

What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the UK’s trade agreements programme.

What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the UK’s trade agreements programme.

The UK’s recent trade agreements with India, the United States and the European Union confirm that, under this Government, Britain is back and open for business. These deals open markets and cut tariffs and will contribute to growth across the United Kingdom. For example, our deal with the EU—our closest and largest tr…

Cumbernauld is fast becoming a centre for advanced manufacturing, with too many companies to name basing themselves there. Will the Minister set out how the UK’s trade agreements are helping such companies to expand into new markets, creating growth and jobs in places such as Cumbernauld? What steps are being taken to …

I pay tribute to Cumbernauld’s advanced manufacturing capability. It is estimated that the UK-India free trade agreement will boost the whole UK economy by £4.8 billion and grow trade with India by over £25 billion annually. The Scotch Whisky Association forecasts £1 billion in extra exports and 1,200 new jobs. For Irn…

With permission, I would like to make a statement on the outcome of the spending review for the Department of Health and Social Care. This Government were elected on a manifesto to fix our broken NHS and make it fit for the future. Our job is twofold: first, to get the NHS back on its feet and treating patients on time…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Yesterday, yet again, we saw the Chancellor do what the Labour party always does: default to high spending, more borrowing and higher taxes, leaving the public finances vulnerable. The Minister has spoken of additional funding for the NHS. To use the same comparison as the NHS England chief executive, the NHS budget wi…

I am entirely unclear, after that run-through of a number of different issues, whether the Conservatives welcome the extra investment in the NHS or oppose it. We know they oppose the means of funding it, but after that, I have no idea. At some point, they have to make up their mind whether they support that extra inves…

I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement about the record funding going into our NHS. We are already seeing the benefit in my constituency, with millions of pounds going into investment in our hospital; that is so desperately needed to get waiting lists down. People were left behind by the Conservative party, and I note th…

What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.

What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.

What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.

What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.

What steps he is taking to support rooftop solar power projects.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The two-state solution is in peril. There is catastrophic conflict in Gaza and a shocking deterioration in the west bank. This is an affront to the rights of Palestinians, but it is also against the interests of Isr…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. As he said, the situation in the middle east and the suffering we see is serious and completely intolerable, and I reiterate what I said in response to the statement last week about this desperation and suffering being completely unacceptable. We continu…

I thank the right hon. Lady for her questions. She raises important points about work with allies. Let me address what she said about Egypt, which is vital. The Egyptians have conducted important work, and I am pleased that I will be with them next week at the two-state solution conference to discuss the reconstruction…

I have long called for comprehensive sanctions on Israel in response to its crimes against the Palestinian people, so the sanctions against two far-right Ministers are a step in the right direction, but Israel’s war crimes are about far more than a couple of bad apples, so much, much more needs to be done. When Russia …

Whether her Department is taking steps with independent training colleges to train construction sector specialist apprentices to support house building targets.

The Government recognise the need to expand and upskill the construction workforce to meet our ambitious plan-for-change milestone of delivering 1.5 million safe and decent homes in this Parliament. We are working closely with industry to provide high-quality house building training opportunities, and we welcome the £1…

The construction skills village in Scarborough is an innovative real-world training environment for the specialist trades that we desperately need to build homes. Does the Minister acknowledge the importance of independent training providers in our plans to build 1.5 million new homes, and will he meet me to discuss ho…

The Government are investing significant amounts of money to train more construction workers. We appreciate fully the importance of independent training providers in training the workforce needed to deliver more homes across England. I suggest that my hon. Friend and I find time to meet Baroness Smith from the Departme…

I hope that the hon. Lady recognises that we are putting significant amounts of investment into construction skills. In the spring statement, the Government announced a £600 million investment that will recruit an additional 60,000 construction workers by 2029. I am more than happy to recognise the contributions made b…

On 21 May , the Prime Minister told this House that the Government wanted to extend eligibility for winter fuel payments to a wider range of pensioners in England and Wales. Today we are setting out how this will happen for the coming winter and the years ahead. This will provide certainty for pensioners and ensure tha…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I feel for the Minister, sent here by his bosses to complete what must be the most humiliating climbdown a Government have ever faced in their first year in office. For nearly a year, the Conservatives have campaigned against this cut, and for nearly a year, the Government have tried to hold out. Just four weeks ago, I…

I will deal directly with two of the questions raised because it is important to provide reassurance. The right hon. Lady asks what will happen with the estate of someone who is deceased. I want to be clear that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will never pursue any estate for the winter fuel payment alone. She also a…

Members on both sides of the House will have had a large volume of correspondence on this matter, so I thank the Minister for his statement. This fair policy change saves our public services £450 million by ensuring that the wealthiest pensioners do not continue to receive the winter fuel payment. Does he agree?

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 1—Steps to be taken when exercising functions under Part 3— “When exercising any function or fulfilling any duty under Part 3 of this Act, the Secretary of State and Natural England must take all reasonable steps to— (a) avoid, prevent and reduce any …

It is a real pleasure to bring this landmark Bill back to the House on Report. Let me begin by thanking hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber for their engagement with the Bill over recent months. In particular, I thank the hon. Members for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmo…

I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union, the mother body of which is the National Farmers Union. Others will comment on this, but the UFU has told me that it is concerned about losing farmland for housing. Should it not be the policy of Government to ensure that brownfield sites are used first? If…

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention—he knows I have great affection for him. He tempts me into a debate that does not directly relate to the Bill, but I can tell him the following: the Government’s position is brownfield-first when it comes to development. He knows that we strengthened the national plannin…

I thank the Minister warmly for giving way. He dismissed “spurious” criticism of part 3 of the Bill, but would he use that phrase to dismiss the very expert criticism of the Office for Environmental Protection? In complete contrast to the Secretary of the State’s claim that the Bill does not reduce environmental protec…

Will the hon. Member give way?

I will get straight to the point: there are two big problems with this Bill. First, there is no social housing target, which means that it does not do anything to secure delivery of the fit-for-the-future social rent housing that we so desperately need, as colleagues across the House have said tonight. Secondly, it rol…

I am sorry, I will not give way because there are so many colleagues who still want to speak and we are short of time. Green MPs gave the Bill a chance on Second Reading, because a secure home is out of reach for too many people. Rents are spiralling, over 165,000 children are living in temporary accommodation and over…

With permission, I will make a statement to update the House on free school meals for children. This is a Government who put children first—they are at the centre of the change that we want to see, because what we do for our children, we do for our country. If we want to break the unfair link between background and suc…

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The truth is that the families benefiting from today’s announcement are the same ones who are paying for it, because the same group of people are hit hardest by Labour’s national insurance increase. Labour promised not to increase national insurance, but it broke…

I cannot believe that I did not hear the Opposition spokesperson welcome our announcement. It is a shame that when the Conservatives were in government tackling child poverty was not considered a priority. I feel a little sorry for the spokesperson, who claims to care about education, given that his only policy is to g…

Order. I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

I warmly welcome the expansion of the free school meals entitlement. It is an evidence-based approach for which many of us have campaigned for a long time. It will help to close the disadvantage gap in our schools, tackling child poverty, benefiting children’s health and supporting children to learn. I hope the Governm…

We now come to the second Select Committee statement on behalf of the Environmental Audit Committee. Mr Toby Perkins will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brie…

I am pleased to present to the House the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on “Governing the marine environment”. Ahead of World Ocean Day and the United Nations ocean conference next week, there is an opportunity for the Government to send a clear signal that the UK is serious about protecting our marine environm…

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his statement, and I congratulate the Environmental Audit Committee for its excellent and thoughtful report on governing the marine environment. A key component in that is marine conservation and protection, including the myriad species living in that environment, such as c…

The shadow Minister makes an important point. I know that the previous Government wrestled with this, and the current Government will too. It was not featured in our report, but I know my Front-Bench colleagues will listen and take it seriously. I thank him for raising that point.

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his statement. It has been a privilege to be involved in the Committee’s work on this report. Does he agree that next week’s UN ocean conference offers the Government a unique opportunity to take a global lead on banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling in mari…

We are appalled by repeated reports of mass casualty incidents in which Palestinians have been killed when trying to access aid sites in Gaza. Desperate civilians who have endured 20 months of war should never face the risk of death or injury to simply feed themselves and their families. We call for an immediate and in…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The scenes emanating from Gaza are harrowing and the suffering is intolerable. The current situation that we are all witnessing simply cannot continue. The level of humanitarian suffering and desperation continues to be unacceptable, as children, women a…

I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for her important questions. I confirm that we are working closely with our allies, both in the region and beyond, on this devastating situation. I saw colleagues from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the Madrid conference 10 days ago, and I will be continuing my consultatio…

I thank the Minister for his statement, but we have been here countless times before. Last week, Israel approved 22 further settlements in the west bank. Israeli Defence Minister Katz claimed it was “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state”. What more evidence do we need to call this exa…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on Thames Water’s financial situation.

I thank the right hon. Lady for securing this urgent question. I want to begin by making clear that Thames Water remains stable, and the Government are carefully monitoring the situation. Customers can be assured that there will be no disruption to water supply. Thames Water is a commercial entity currently engaged in …

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. May I begin by correcting the Secretary of State? When he refers to private sector investment, he is in fact referring to the bill increases that each and every one of us will pay—£31 a year—so when he talks about private sector investment, he means bill payers’…

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for making it clear to the House that she does not understand the principles of private sector investment, and neither is it particularly clever to stand at the Opposition Dispatch Box and make up figures to attack. This Government stand ready for all eventualities, but I …

Let me begin by drawing Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Let us be clear that the collapse of KKR’s rescue deal is not a blip; it is a reckoning—a moment that exposes the complete bankruptcy of the privatised water model. This morning’s interim Cunliffe review of the water…

I thank the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. I have had no message to say that a member of the Government will be coming to the House today, but what she has said is certainly on the record. I know, too, that the Prime Minister took notice of the question on this subject that was put to him, and I a…

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, following the publication of the hard copy of the strategic defence review, I informed you that I was aware that at least two major defence companies had been given a copy of that document at 8 am yesterday morning. Looking at what happened on the market, I noticed that the s…

I have had no indication that Ministers intend to come to the House to make a statement. What the shadow Secretary of State has said is on the record, and I know that he will not give up on this. I suspect that he will be on his way to the Table Office to see what advice he can be given on pursuing this matter.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the strategic defence review. I have laid the full 130-page review before the House, and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so and to make this statement on our first day back from the recess. The world has changed, and we must respond. The SDR is our Plan fo…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Before I turn to the substance, in responding to my point of order, the Secretary of State said that when he was in opposition, “We were not offered a briefing”, and “We had no advance copy of the defence review.”—[Interruption.]

Order. Please! It has not been a good day so far, and I do not want any more interruptions.

The Secretary of State said that this occurred when I was a Defence Minister. Actually, in March 2023, before I became a Minister, he was invited to a reading room on the morning of publication. On the Defence Command Paper refresh in July 2023, when I was Minister, he said he did not get a copy. I can confirm, and I a…

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I start by thanking my friend, the Minister of State for Rail, for being an excellent advocate and custodian of the Bill as it made its way through the other place. As someone who started his career on London’s world-famous red buses, there was no better person in…

I wholeheartedly agree with the Secretary of State on the importance of buses for connectivity. I note that the Bill talks about “socially necessary” services, but it would be helpful to have a better understanding of the definition of what they are beyond my own interpretation. For example, if a constituency does not …

Through the Bill, we will be giving local transport authorities the power to determine socially necessary local services. That relates to access to employment, jobs, things like health facilities, and education. That power will lie with local authorities and it will be for them to determine.

I will make some progress. Before I come to the Bill’s key measures, I will briefly set out the context. Although it may be tempting for me to lay the blame for the current state of buses entirely at the feet of the last Government, that would be neither right nor fair. They too inherited a broken, deregulated system t…

Will the Secretary of State give way?

I rise to speak about British arms and military cargo export controls—specifically, our exports to Israel amid one of the most devastating conflicts in modern memory. “It’s horrific. Gaza has become a slaughterhouse. That’s what it is: a slaughterhouse.” Those are the words of Tom Potokar, a British doctor working in K…

A report in The Guardian last month suggested that despite the suspension of key arms export licences to Israel back in September, UK firms have exported thousands of military items, including munitions, to Israel. Motion lapsed ( Standing Order No. 9(3) ). Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adj…

The exports have included items such as bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and similar munitions of war. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is completely conceivable that those weapons have been used to kill and maim children in Gaza, and therefore the only humane and reasonable option is for us to suspend all …

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which is easy for me to respond to—yes, I agree wholeheartedly. Since October 2023 there have been at least 14 shipments of military goods from the UK to Israel. Those include over 8,500 munitions, bombs, grenades, missiles, and 146 armoured vehicle parts. In October 2023 al…

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Since October 2023, analysis by Action on Armed Violence identified more than 500 RAF-linked flights from Akrotiri to Israeli airspace. While described as “reconnaissance”, the Ministry of Defence refuses to confirm whether any carried military cargo. Does my hon. Friend agree t…

With permission, I will update the House on the three recent trade deals that we have struck in the national interest. First, however, I would like to say something about the horrific situation in Gaza, where the level of suffering, with innocent children being bombed again, is utterly intolerable. Over the weekend we …

Order. The Prime Minister is correct.

This is not the full list, but the new partnership has been backed by the Federation of Small Businesses, the CBI, the British Retail Consortium, Asda, Morrisons, Salmon Scotland, the Food & Drink Federation, the British Chamber of Commerce, Ryanair, Vodafone and producers of meat, milk and poultry—the list goes on and…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

When Labour negotiates, Britain loses. The Prime Minister talks about a hat trick of deals—they are own goals. In 2020, the Conservatives concluded the trade and co-operation agreement, the largest and most comprehensive free trade agreement in the world. We agreed to come back in five years with improved terms. This r…

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment (a) to new clause 10, after subsection 8(b), insert— “(8A) Nothing in Schedule (Protection from Detriment) prevents an employer who has chosen not to participate in the provision of assistance in accordance with this Act from prohibiting their employee…

It is a privilege to open the debate on this next important stage of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It seems a long time ago that we held the Second Reading debate in November on what many of us felt was a very proud day for Parliament, when we saw an emotional and passionate but largely respectful debat…

My hon. Friend mentioned many real stories influencing this debate. I will mention one more: my constituent Mick Murray, who is in the Public Gallery today. Mick helped two close friends, Bob and Ann, to make the painful journey to Dignitas. Both simply wanted to die at home with dignity and surrounded by loved ones; i…

Order. We will set the example by following the rules of the House. We will have short interventions, not speeches. There are a load of other Members.

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

The hon. Lady and I have discussed these issues before. I know that she shares my passion for achieving the transition to the nature-friendly farming that we all want. The Government are investing £5 billion in farming over the next two years—the highest budget for sustainable food production and nature recovery in our…

Order. We have a lot to get through today—come on.

I am always interested to hear reflections from farmers. I have spoken to other members of the Nature Friendly Farming Network who are very pleased with the progress being made, but of course we want to go faster and further. We have over 50,000 people in the schemes and more money is being spent than ever before. We m…

On behalf of the Green party, on this special day of commemoration, I join colleagues from across the House in paying tribute to all those who sacrificed so much to resist and defeat fascism 80 years ago. I thank the Minister for his response. We have indeed discussed these issues before and will continue to do so, I a…

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on India and Pakistan. The whole House will have been closely following developments in recent weeks following the horrific terrorist attack in Pahalgam on 22 April , which left 26 tourists dead. Last night, soon after 21.00 British summer time, Indian forces launche…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

On 22 April , terrorists brutally killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam in a barbaric and savage act of violence. Most victims were killed at point blank range by gunshots to their head. My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by that murderous, violent terrorism in Pahalgam. It was an act of terrorism, and we mus…

The right hon. Lady asks important questions. Let me take this opportunity to reiterate our condemnation of terrorism in all its forms. Our thoughts are still with those affected by the despicable acts of 22 April , their loved ones and the people of India. The Prime Minister spoke with Prime Minister Modi on 24 April …

The reality is that India’s air strikes in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir have seen the killing and injury of dozens of civilians, including children, and led to a massive escalation in the real threat of war between two nuclear powers. That follows two weeks of bulldozer tactics and thousands of mass arrests in Kashmir, th…

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

GPs are at the front door to our NHS. Today, I can announce that we are supporting more than 1,000 surgeries across the country to modernise their buildings, backed by more than £102 million—the biggest public investment in GP facilities for five years. Following years of neglect, this vital funding will create additio…

I very much welcome today’s announcement on refurbishing 1,000 GP surgeries across the country, because I have made it my priority to meet with as many GPs as possible in my constituency. Our local GPs have told me that our health centres need more physical space in order to accommodate growing local needs and facilita…

I would be delighted to do so. Since we came into government, we have made this announcement today, put £889 million into general practice and agreed a contract with GPs, including reform for patient access and services. We are fixing the front door to the NHS, but of course that will take time. We recruited 1,500 more…

Taking medicines on time is important, especially for those with conditions such as diabetes and epilepsy. Dr Acheson, an A&E consultant who has time-critical medicines for his own Parkinson’s disease, understands that well. He has been running a quality improvement programme to ensure that time-critical medicines are …

I beg to move, That this House has considered the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan. I am honoured to be opening today’s debate as we come together as a House and a country to mark 80 years since victory in Europe on Thursday 8 May . On 15 August , we will mark victory over Japan. In May 1940…

I notice an oversight in the Minister’s contribution: Northern Ireland made a very significant contribution. There was never any conscription needed in Northern Ireland, and the great thing about it was that the women filled the gap. They worked in aircraft factories, at Harland and Wolff, in engineering, on the farms,…

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I will come on to speak about Northern Ireland later in my contribution. I was delighted to visit Northern Ireland a few weeks ago to see at first hand how it will commemorate VE Day. I am sure that Members will share how their constituencies or families played their part in …

The Minister talks about victory. Will she join me in paying tribute to Corporal Thomas Priday, from the 1st Battalion of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, who was one of the first soldiers killed in world war two? While she is paying tribute to him and his relatives, will she also pay tribute to the Shropshire Roy…

I join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute. He makes an incredibly important point, which he has put on the record, and I am really pleased to echo his sentiments. As I was saying, it is up to all of us to keep the collective memory alive as time marches forward.

I announced in July that we were resuming free trade agreement negotiations with the Gulf Co-operation Council, India, Israel, the Republic of Korea, Switzerland and Türkiye. We have also begun talks with the United States on an economic prosperity deal, and we support the Cabinet Office with trade aspects of the EU re…

I think that was a few questions, but we seem to have time for them today, so I welcome all of them. First of all, I recognise exactly what the hon. Lady says. When it comes to the importance of the EU as a principal trading partner for this country, the figures speak for themselves. I disagree with her about us having…

I declare an interest as the trade envoy to New Zealand. What conversations has the Secretary of State had recently with his New Zealand counterparts on the implementation of the UK-New Zealand free trade agreement?

First, let me thank my hon. Friend for all her work as our trade envoy to New Zealand. She knows, because she was present, that on his visit to the UK, New Zealand Prime Minister Luxon spent the day with the Prime Minister, and I was able to spend considerable time with him in the afternoon. We discussed the implementa…

It is good to hear that the trade negotiations with India, which began when we were in government, are progressing well. There must surely now be an opportunity to reopen talks with Canada, so it can buy more wonderful cheese from the UK. With the tariff clock ticking, I am sure the Secretary of State recognises that t…

Given the utter unreliability and, frankly, economic illiteracy of President Trump, and given that the EU is by far our largest trading partner, it is clear that the best interests of the UK are served by our having a deal that allows the closest possible co-ordination with the EU. Does the Minister agree with me that …

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if he will make a statement on the Government’s approach to reducing energy prices for energy-intensive industries.

I relay my thoughts to the workers in my hon. Friend’s constituency, for whom I know this is a worrying time. I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue. He is a tireless champion for workers and businesses in his constituency. We have spoken and will continue to speak regularly about these issues and the importance …

I thank the Minister for her engagement on this issue, because she has genuinely and authentically tried to look for a way forward. When my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) and I had a meeting with the Minister six weeks ago, we warned her that…

I agree with my hon. Friend and recognise the challenge. We lost 1,250 jobs in the ceramics sector between 2015 and 2023. It has been a very sad decline, and we want to turn that around. The whole point of an industrial strategy is to have a Government who are proactive in supporting our industries. We will not put ext…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I call the stand-in shadow Leader of the House—one Paul Holmes.

May I please ask the Leader of the House to outline the forthcoming business?

I shall, and that was beautifully delivered. The business of the House for the week commencing 5 May will include: Tuesday 6 May —General debate on the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe and victory over Japan. Wednesday 7 May —Remaining stages of the Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]. Thursday 8 May —General debat…

I am delighted that the Leader of the House has given time for a general debate on VE Day. It is vital that we remember the sacrifice that each and every one of our communities made through the loss of servicemen for the liberties won for each and every one of us. We will never forget them. If I may, I want to pay trib…

I join the shadow Minister in thanking the police and security services of the House for the work they do day in, day out, and particularly in the case he has raised. I take this opportunity to thank the King for all the work he is doing for those living with cancer; his openness about his own condition really does bri…

I inform the House that the Speaker has selected amendment (a) tabled in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move, That this House regrets the persistent scandal of raw sewage being dumped by water companies into rivers, lakes and coastal areas; notes with deep concern that just 14% of rivers and lakes in England are in good ecological health; condemns the previous Government for letting water company bosses get away…

Over Easter in Torbay, we had five sewage spills according to the Surfers Against Sewage app. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is extremely disappointing to say the least that, rather than colleagues just getting their cossie and towel to go swimming at their favourite swimming spot, they must now also check the sewag…

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a really good point about his own communities. That is what we are trying to address today by bringing practical solutions to prevent this outrage. That 106% increase in the duration of sewage spills in just two years has been explained away on the record by water industry bosses …

There were 754 spills in my constituency last year alone. We do not want to see those numbers anywhere, but in a constituency that does not have a major waterway, that is absurdly high. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we want to start genuinely holding these water companies to account, a great place to start would be…

I completely agree. That is precisely the thrust of my argument. Over the last three decades, shareholders have extracted £83 billion in dividends. They have invested effectively less than nothing, because the share capital and retained earnings in those companies are now lower than they were at the time of privatisati…

This Government have committed to halving violence against women and girls in a decade. A broad range of bail conditions can be imposed to protect victims, including electronic monitoring for those who meet the remand threshold, exclusion zones and non-contact orders. Suspects can also be remanded in prison.

I thank the hon. Member for raising this important issue from her constituency. We know that more needs to be done in this area, and that is why this Government have started to roll out our domestic abuse protection orders to help victims of domestic abuse in selected areas. We are seeing how that goes. We are developi…

Having spoken to Essex police and other professionals, and having worked for a homeless charity myself, I know that often the hardest part for victims of domestic violence is making the decision to leave what is sometimes the family home. What work has the Minister done with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Loc…

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. Tackling violence against women and girls is not just a Ministry of Justice problem to fix, but a problem for every Government Department to fix. That is why I have met with my counterparts across the Departments, including in MHCLG, to discuss housing needs. We …

I raise this issue following a meeting with a constituent whose case raises deep concerns that are more widely relevant. First, bail conditions—sometimes weak, sometimes poorly enforced—do not always protect victims of domestic violence from further harassment by their abuser. Secondly, despite the increase in the time…

I remind Members that, under the Order of the House of today, notice of amendments and new clauses to be moved in Committee of the whole House may be—[Interruption.] This is very serious. They may be accepted in person by the Clerks at the Table in the Chamber before the Bill has been read a Second time. The deadline f…

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. We meet in exceptional circumstances to take exceptional action in what are exceptional times. Our request to recall Parliament was not one we made lightly. I am genuinely grateful to hon. Members in all parts of the House for their co-operation, and for being her…

From what the Secretary of State has described, it is beginning to sound as though Jingye is trying to manoeuvre the Government into a recompensed nationalisation. Will he make it plain that if it tries to manoeuvre us into nationalisation, we will pay not more than a penny for the business?

To be clear, where there is a transfer of ownership to the state, we would always pay the fair market value for the assets. In this case, the market value is effectively zero, so I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point entirely. I would say that the intention of Jingye has not been to engineer that situation; its inten…

Is it now the view of the Government that primary steel production in the United Kingdom is an overriding national security issue?

Over the weekend, two Members of this House—my hon. Friends the Members for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang) and for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed)—on a parliamentary delegation to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories were detained and refused entry by the authorities. They had both been granted entry cle…

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. It is important that we put this all within the context of Britain’s relationship with Israel. Israel is a key security and defence partner for the United Kingdom, and it is the only democracy in the middle east. Its security matters and helps to keep us…

Order. We have to be able to hear the shadow Minister. I understand that emotions are high. We have to make sure that we temper the debate.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is important and right that we ask some questions. Will the Minister update the House on the UK Government’s latest engagement with key interlocutors on efforts to find a way through the current, extremely difficult moment in the conflict? [Interruption.] There is chuntering from the…

Order. That is for the Chair to decide. Please continue.

I have met many leaseholders fighting for fair treatment from housing association freeholders such as Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing, Hyde, L&Q, Notting Hill Genesis, Optivo and Peabody, to name a few. They are struggling to secure general repairs, sort issues with damp and mould and get transparency about rising s…

The plight of leaseholders is raised with me regularly in these sessions, and I represent many tens of thousands of leaseholders in Manchester Central. The Government are committed to bringing forward a draft leasehold reform Bill. We recently published our commonhold White Paper, and the Minister for Housing and Plann…

The Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed this week that the tariffs announced have not been factored into the forecast, nor has the effect of the Employment Rights Bill. I talked to local businesses in Salisbury last Friday at a Budget breakfast, as I have done for the last eight years, and they are very concerne…

We have only just had the spring statement last week, and the OBR has forecast that the economy will grow faster than expected over the forecasting period. The right hon. Gentleman might not like our Employment Rights Bill, but I am afraid Government Members stand proud behind it, because we have a firm belief that mak…

With thoughts turning to Easter, I recommend to Members who might not already have plans a visit to my beautiful constituency of Carlisle and north Cumbria, and in particular RSPB Geltsdale, where they will see the award-winning Howgill Beck restoration project, which just last night won the UK river prize. It is a fan…

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the United Kingdom’s economic relationship with the United States. The UK has a strong and balanced trading relationship with the US worth £315 billion, which supports 2.5 million jobs across both our countries. This is second only to the EU, wh…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Businesses, workers and their families woke up this morning with greater fear and more uncertainty about their future. Tariffs make us all poorer by pushing up costs, suppressing demand and making the pound in our pocket buy less of the things we need. …

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his response and his tone in responding. I recognise his commitment to free trade and the case he has made for it. I believe it is something we broadly share. He asks for honesty—that is always good in Parliament—but he is a little bit flippant about the position we find oursel…

Workers at BMW at Cowley are deeply concerned by the recent news. BMW is right that a trade war would have no benefits. The Secretary of State is right to engage calmly with his US counterparts, but what discussions has he had with his EU counterparts, given how integrated our automotive sector is with that of EU count…

What steps he is taking to help restore the ceasefire in Gaza.

I am deeply concerned about the resumption of hostilities in Gaza. The Foreign Secretary and I are pressing all parties to return urgently to dialogue and to implement the ceasefire agreement in full. Since the renewed outbreak of hostilities, the Foreign Secretary has spoken to Secretary Rubio, Israeli Foreign Ministe…

The hon. Lady will know the importance that we have placed on international law since we came to power in July. We have been clear throughout this period that we want to see a ceasefire in Gaza. We regret that, at this point, we are still in disagreement with the Israeli Government, and we regret the scenes of the last…

Over the past week, I have been in touch with medical colleagues on the ground in Gaza and also with representatives of hostage families in Israel. In Gaza, they corroborate the worrying UN reports of a shallow grave containing the bodies of 15 paramedics and rescue workers, seemingly shot one by one by the Israeli arm…

My hon. Friend is right to ask this question. I know that he, himself a surgeon, has been closely engaged with the medical situation in Gaza and the incredible bravery of those who provide that assistance. As I said in answer to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) , the scenes in Gaza in relation to …

It is often said that actions speak louder than words. The Government have repeatedly condemned what is happening in Gaza and the west bank, yet Israeli settler violence, Israeli settlement expansion, the unlawful demolition of Palestinian homes and violence in Gaza are continuing. Given that UK diplomatic efforts and …

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Around 50 years ago, Margaret Thatcher’s revolution tore up the rulebook on political and economic management. She rewrote it with a single unwavering principle: that the pur…

I hope the engineers can check that the microphones and speakers are working while I ask a quick question. My hon. Friend mentions Members on this side of the House. There are far more of us on this side since July last year than there were in 2019, with a very different approach taken in our manifestos. Does he fear t…

No, I do not. We have a distorted electoral system. Bring on proportional representation, because if we had PR, we would have had a different Government in 2019 and most definitely in 2017. Sometimes politicians have to do what they believe to be right and lead from the front. I think we should lead from the front.

I compliment the hon. Member on his Bill. To help his argument, there was overwhelming opinion poll support for public ownership of water in 2017 and 2019, and there still is today.

I thank the right hon. Member for his point. I will come on to this later, and I hope other Members will pick up on it, but the fact that the public are way ahead of this House on the issue of public ownership is one of the reasons why so many people are losing faith in the two-party political system. One only has to l…

I think it is important to correct the misapprehension among some Government Members, which may arise from an inadvertent misreading of the Bill. Clause 4, on the citizens’ assembly on water ownership, at subsection (4), simply says: “The Commission must publish the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly.” It does n…

I remind the House briefly that all these issues are well investigated and understood, and the House has previously used this mechanism effectively.

I declare experience in this area in that, through Herefordshire council, I set up a citizens’ assembly. A process called sortition is used to ensure a fully representative sample. Participants are paid for their time so that people of all socioeconomic backgrounds can participate, and additional efforts are made to en…

I am delighted that we are having this debate in the House today. Clean water is a subject that is very close to my heart as the representative for North Herefordshire, and to the hearts of my constituents, because the condition of the River Lugg, the River Wye and their tributaries has caused terrible damage to the lo…

I warmly invite the hon. Member to read up about how citizens’ assemblies work, how the sampling works and how participation is facilitated for all people, and about the time commitment. The citizens’ assembly previously established by this House was over three weekends in Birmingham. These are not huge commitments, bu…

I refer the hon. Lady to my previous comments on the merits of citizens’ assemblies in considering the details over many dozens of hours. I also refer to my party’s manifesto. Secondly, climate change is a systemic challenge. I am glad that some hon. Members have mentioned this and that it is included in the text of th…

I hope the right hon. Member would agree that it is a multifaceted problem, and that there are different issues in different places. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. In my constituency, the issue is particularly about phosphate pollution, but in other places it is about nitrates, and in other places it is about …

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this Bill before the House. On entering politics, I was determined to raise the issue of children in care and, in particular, the lack of safe, decent accommodation for the most vulnerable children. The state’s enduring f…

I thank my hon. Friend not just for his passion in bringing forward this Bill, but for his service as a lawyer before entering this place. He brings that expertise from his previous profession here. Will he join me in acknowledging that in places such as Plymouth this problem can be even more acute? Plymouth is not par…

Order. May I just point out to Members that interventions, while always welcome, do need to be briefer than that?

My hon. Friend is right. There is a particular problem in the south-west—his part of the country—and in his constituency, which he represents so ably. In fact, there are some care leavers with that experience in the Public Gallery who are from that part of the world. There are particular issues there. My Bill does not …

Does my hon. Friend welcome the Government’s important changes, including the support from local authorities, for kinship carers, such as those I met in Beckenham and Penge?

What steps she is taking to improve local bus services.

What steps she is taking to improve local bus services.

Improving local bus services is vital to kick-starting economic growth. Through our Bus Services (No. 2) Bill and the £1 billion we are investing to support and improve bus services, we are taking definitive action to help deliver the better, more reliable bus services that passengers deserve throughout the country. I …

I thank the Minister for his response. In Watford, private bus operators such as Arriva change bus routes on a whim, usually providing less frequent services and sometimes withdrawing them altogether. That leaves Hertfordshire county council scrambling to plug gaps in services through expensive contracts. Does he agree…

It is vital that passengers have access to a stable and reliable bus network, and our Bus Services (No. 2) Bill includes a measure that offers greater protection to services from being arbitrarily cancelled or reduced. Alongside our investment in buses, including £12.2 million for Hertfordshire, this Government are tak…

I beg to move, That this House has considered the tenth anniversary of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It is an honour to open this debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it and thank all right hon. and hon. Members and Friends who supported the application for it. I also want to put on the record m…

As the only female MP to be sanctioned by the Chinese Communist party for highlighting Uyghur slave labour in supply chains, I will join the right hon. Lady in paying close attention to the Minister’s response.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) on securing the debate. However, I do not thank her for giving me that familiar feeling of dread—I am discovering that we often get it in this place—when the speaker immediately before makes almost identical points to those I had inte…

I thank the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) for securing this important debate. As Members, we are all united by our desire to do as much as we can to tackle the scourge of modern slavery. My constituency is known for many things, but perhaps less well known for its connection to one …

As a child I was taught that 200 years ago we abolished the transatlantic slave trade. As a young adult, I learned that that had not marked the end, and that modern slavery was a booming global industry. Then, as I became a young father, I learned through the excellent work of Hope for Justice that there were slaves ri…

The reasoned amendment in the name of Gideon Amos has not been selected.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. It is time to get Britain building again. It is what working people expect of this Government and it is what we will deliver. Our Planning and Infrastructure Bill is critical to achieving economic growth, higher living standards and a more secure future for our co…

I gently say to the Secretary of State that none of my constituents is saying, “In Shropshire, we don’t need any more homes. We don’t want any more homes.” They just want to be consulted. They want the homes in the right place, at the right scale, with the right architecture and in the right numbers. They want their vo…

I gently say to the right hon. Member that it is this Government who have brought forward mandatory local plans, and it was his Government who did not. For too long we have left home ownership to collapse, with homelessness soaring and over 160,000 children in temporary accommodation. This is a country that simply is n…

Can the Secretary of State outline what powers in the Bill she will use to take on developers and make sure that they build based on the planning permissions they already have?

With the permission of the House, I shall make a statement about the conflict in Gaza. In January, I outlined to the House the deal agreed between Israel and Hamas. It was a moment of huge hope and relief. In the weeks that followed, hostages cruelly detained by Hamas were reunited with their families, and aid blocked …

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. We all mourned the loss of innocent lives in this appalling conflict. The death of the UN aid worker and the injury to a British national are tragic, and our sympathies and thoughts are with their families. Will the Foreign Secretary provide an update on…

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, and let me make clear regarding the charity worker who was injured, that of course our ambassador and the Foreign Office are in touch with his family. As she would expect, we have made representations to the Israeli Government, and I will be speaking to the Israeli Foreign Minister…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

My Department works night and day to deliver our plan for change by making Britain the best place to invest, work and do business. This Government have provided political stability and openness to the world, and we are continually improving the business environment. Since the last Business and Trade questions, we have …

Businesses across Beaconsfield, Marlow and the south Bucks villages are facing crippling costs from the Government’s national insurance tax raid and the Employment Rights Bill. Can the Secretary of State reassure or advise my businesses? Should they stop hiring, cut staff, increase prices, or all of the above?

I would say that businesses in the hon. Lady’s constituency should contact their local Conservative MP and say, “What was your plan?” because I think we have had three oral question sessions where this has broadly been the only thing that the Conservatives have to say. I genuinely want to know: what was the plan to pay…

Order. Look, this is getting ridiculous. We are on topicals, and that is the worst example I have seen of an answer to a topical.

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

I shall. Monday 17 March —Remaining stages of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (day one). Tuesday 18 March —Remaining stages of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (day two). Wednesday 19 March —Consideration of Lords amendments to the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bi…

I am sure the whole House will want to join me in recognising and thanking the salvage and nature recovery specialists who are even now scrambling to clear up after the disastrous collision in the North sea. They say a conservative is a socialist who has been mugged by reality. If that is so, we are witnessing the extr…

I start by congratulating young carers across the country on their day of action yesterday. I know the whole House will be as hopeful as everybody else in the country about Ukraine, as talks continue this week and over the weekend. I am sure we all welcome the resumption of military aid and intelligence sharing between…

I recently met my constituent, Becky, who is profoundly disabled after her mother was given Primodos, a hormone-based pregnancy test that was popular in the ’60s and ’70s and taken by roughly 1.5 million pregnant women. It was directly linked to miscarriages and severe birth defects in a study commissioned by the Unive…

I beg to move, That this House has considered the future of farming. First, I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and place on record my appreciation for the Backbench Business Committee in allowing us this time in the Chamber. It might be helpful first just to explain to the Ho…

Farmers in Ely and East Cambridgeshire face the threats of flood and drought, which are made infinitely worse by the climate change that my right hon. Friend is talking about, in addition to all the other challenges that farmers are facing. Does he agree that the Government should invest in rural flood management and w…

I absolutely do, and my hon. Friend puts it perfectly when she talks about working with farmers. It seems that—this is as true for Governments north of the border as it is for those south of it—so much of what passes for agricultural policy is something that is done to farmers, rather than in partnership with them. To …

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his excellent contribution to this debate. Do the points that he is making not underline the issue that is faced in my constituency? Given the value of land, it is being bought up by private equity firms and pension funds for use in industrial tree production or solar farms. Land is…

What the right hon. Gentleman refers to is the consequence of an agricultural policy that, despite aiming to do many worthy and worthwhile things, no longer has the concept of food production at its heart. Across this House and the different parties, we need to rebuild a consensus around getting food production back in…

I could not agree more. This has diminished trust. It is vital to rebuild that trust because we need that sustainable, fair and in-partnership future for farming. It needs to be sustainable in environmental terms— we need to recognise the reality of the climate crisis and the nature crisis. We need to support our farme…

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the sustainable farming incentive. We stand on the edge of an unprecedented global transition for British farming. From leaving the European Union to the challenges of climate change and geopolitical events, we are asking more of farmers than ever be…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Minister for an advance copy of his statement, which I am going to pull apart in a moment. I thank you as well, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question that forced the Minister to the Dispatch Box, because the Government sneaked this statement out last night, presumably hoping nobody would notice; but,…

Well, really! I had hoped that the shadow Secretary of State would understand how the schemes that her own Government created actually work. Let me explain the problem that we inherited—there are some on the shadow Front Bench who, I think, understand this better than her. This time last year, these schemes were unders…

Can the Minister confirm that environmental land management scheme agreements will remain in place under this Labour Government, including SFI, and that there will be a new and better targeted SFI on offer as soon as possible, with details to follow in the spending review?

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the collision that occurred between two vessels off the east coast of Yorkshire yesterday. I want to begin by offering my sincere thanks to all those who are responding on the frontline, from His Majesty’s Coastguard to local emergency services. This is a challeng…

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Yesterday morning, shortly before 10 am, the container ship MV Solong collided with the oil tanker MV Stena Immaculate, which was at anchor in the North sea off the coast of Yorkshire. The Stena Immaculate was on a short-term charter to the US navy’s military sea…

The shadow Minister is exactly right: something did go terribly wrong. My thoughts and prayers are with the missing sailor’s family. The company has been informed, and his next of kin are being informed. In response to the series of questions the shadow Minister asked, we know for sure that the Immaculate was carrying …

I call the Chair of the Transport Committee.

I endorse the Minister’s thanks to the frontline workers who have been involved, and his concern for and condolences to the missing mariner’s family. While we wait for the reports on how this appalling tragedy happened, which will have to be done, will the Minister confirm how routes are being managed while the Solong …