What steps he has taken to increase health and social care coverage in rural communities.

Mr Speaker, on behalf of the Government and Labour Members, may I associate myself with your remarks? Members from right across this House will share those sentiments. As the Prime Minister made clear at Cabinet this morning, and as the Foreign Secretary is making clear in Kyiv, we will stand with Ukraine, whatever is …

In places like Na h-Eileanan an Iar, going the extra mile to provide care is part of the job, and I pay tribute to the carers in my constituency who travel miles in darkness and bad weather to deliver support for the elderly. In some parts of the Western Isles, and indeed across rural Scotland, there simply is not the …

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. This Labour Government are introducing the first ever fair pay agreement for care workers. That is better pay and conditions for care workers, and more people recruited into the profession. It is backed by £500 million, and Scotland will receive extra funding through the Barn…

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

Before we begin the debate, I would like to make a brief statement. I understand that there is huge public interest in this matter, and there has been significant coverage in the media. It is and always has been possible for the House to properly debate these matters within the framework of our existing rules, and ther…

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 the creation of the role of Special Representative for Trade and Investment and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment to t…

The leader of the Liberal Democrats is making a powerful speech. I am sure he will agree that decades of deferential and, frankly, sycophantic treatment by Parliament and state authorities are being exposed as having enabled Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to behave as though he were untouchable. I am sure he will also join…

I am grateful for that intervention. We must build a culture of transparency and accountability; I think that is essential. I hope that we as a House will look at ending the archaic “negative privilege” rules that Paul Flynn spoke about, and remove the bandages from our mouths. Today, we are free of those bandages, whe…

First, I commend the right hon. Member and his party for bringing forward the motion, and for the way that he interviewed on TV this morning. Certainly, he speaks not just for this House, but for this nation. We are all greatly shocked at what has taken place, but does he agree that King Charles, Queen Camilla, Edward,…

I think the hon. Gentleman is trying to get to a point that deeply concerns me, which is that we need to understand the extent to which the then Prince Andrew was leaning on government for things he wanted. There is an example of this in the recent Epstein files, which contain an exchange between Ghislaine Maxwell and …

Does my hon. Friend share my worry that human trafficking, of which those women were victims, is not currently subject to a police inquiry? It is absolutely right that the police will make their own decisions, but does she agree that the Government must ensure that they have the necessary resourcing so that, if they wa…

People understand that we have a living, breathing, constitutional democracy that grows as society better understands things. If the King does not want Andrew to be a prince, it makes no sense that we still have to bring in legislation to strip him of his dukedom and his earldoms, or that he remains in the line of succ…

I am reminded of the debate brought forward by the Conservatives on Lord Mandelson and the proverbial parliamentary knickers-twisting that had to happen to work out that the way to deal with the issue of the intelligence services was indeed to allow the Intelligence and Security Committee to look at the papers. Is it n…

I hear the Minister’s scepticism about a public inquiry, but the more this debate has gone on, the more I have felt that this is an issue of culture. There are things material to how we have ended up where we are that will not meet an evidentiary threshold and have not contravened any laws, but that clearly do need cha…

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 beg to move, That the Local Government Finance Report (England) 2026-27 (HC 1604), which was laid before this House on 9 February , be approved.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: That the Referendums Relating to Council Tax Increases (Principles) (England) Report 2026-27 (HC 1605), which was laid before this House on 9 February , be approved.

Before I begin, I notify the House that the local government finance report has been updated with small corrections on pages 7 and 13. These corrections have been passed on to the House in the proper way ahead of today’s debate. Like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instrumen…

Has the Secretary of State made an analysis of the division of Pride in Place funding between Labour and Reform seats versus Liberal Democrat and Conservative seats?

I thought the hon. Gentleman was going to stand up and apologise to the House for what his Government did in diverting money away from the poorest communities. I am very disappointed that he did not take that opportunity, and I suspect that I am not the only one—perhaps he will take the opportunity later on. I remind h…

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 4 February.

On World Cancer Day, we are publishing our national cancer plan to transform care for patients. It means investment in cutting-edge technology, so that our exceptional frontline staff can give world-class care. It funds more tests and scans, meaning faster diagnosis and treatment, and tailored treatment in specialist c…

Up and down the country, this Government are restoring pride in place by investing in our high streets—the beating heart of our communities—yet in Paisley and Renfrewshire South, the SNP-led Renfrewshire council has done the opposite. It has sat on its hands while the owners of the Paisley Centre, who received planning…

My hon. Friend is a superb champion for Paisley. Her constituents deserve a Scottish Government who match her dedication. For our part, we have delivered a record funding settlement. We are investing £280 million in Pride in Place across 14 Scottish communities. We have secured shipbuilding on the Clyde for over a deca…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

Before we come to the statement on commonhold and leasehold reform, I once again note, for the second day in a row, my disappointment about briefings to the media before important announcements are brought to the House. As the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee recently stated, “making the most …

My Department always strives to ensure that the House is updated at the earliest possible opportunity. I note and appreciate fully the points you have made, Mr Speaker, and will ensure that they are passed on to my ministerial colleagues. With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Governm…

I thank the Minister for his remarks and for advance sight of his statement. Progress on leasehold reform is to be welcomed. Labour promised that when it stood for election 18 months ago, so it is about time it got on with it, as the previous Conservative Government had started to do. The previous Conservative Governme…

I note the initial positive tone from the shadow Minister in welcoming the draft Bill. I am slightly reluctant, on what is usually a matter of cross-party consensus, to be too critical of him, but it is a bit rich to criticise this Government, given that the previous Government cherry-picked reform in a way that was at…

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

This Government want the best for Britain’s high streets. We know how central they are to the strength and vibrancy of our villages, towns and cities. We know how hard small business owners work, and we know how badly they were let down by the previous Government; shops were shuttered, council funding was cut, and busi…

Order. I say very gently to the Minister that it was always open to him to ask for extra time, but we cannot find any record of him having done so. He has already got to 10 minutes, and he seems to have three more pages, so I will allow the Opposition spokespersons more time as well. This is an important statement, and…

Let me apologise profusely for not letting you know in advance, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is the first time I have done one of these statements, and I will not make the same mistake again. I am glad that the same courtesy will be afforded to the shadow Chancellor, and I look forward to hearing a full 15 minutes of rem…

Order. This is not acceptable. I have to be quite honest, because the other Front Benchers need time to respond. When a statement is meant to take 10 minutes, that is meant to be 10 minutes. If Ministers tell me otherwise in advance, I am willing to work with them, but they cannot just carry on speaking. Minister, I ta…

May I apologise, Mr Speaker, for not letting you know in advance that the statement would be running over 10 minutes?

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I begin by thanking the Leader of the House, the Chief Whip, their counterparts in the other place, colleagues in my Department and in the NHS, the Bill team and parliamentary counsel, who have moved mountains to prepare this Bill in double-quick time. I once agai…

The Secretary of State is essentially talking about postgraduate training. I wonder what thought he has given to new clause 2 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) . I have spoken to students who worked really hard all the way through medical school to get the best exam resul…

I certainly do have sympathy with that argument. We have begun to move the system in the right direction in terms of giving applicants greater preference in placements, but it is not lost on me that the system of rotations, placements and jobs means doctors are moved around the country and families are uprooted. The fr…

I will give way to the hon. Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) .

A constituent of mine is studying medicine at Queen Mary University of London but at a campus in Malta. Students at the Malta campus complete the same General Medical Council-approved curriculum, assessments and licensed exams as London-based students, and graduates hold a UK primary qualification. He was given a forma…

I broadly welcome this common-sense Bill. I am left rather flummoxed that we got to this point, but here we are. It is self-evident that if we pay to train doctors, they should be prioritised and encouraged in all manner of ways to stay in the UK. I understand why we must expedite the measures: talks with the BMA are o…

What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity care.

What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity and neonatal care.

As the House knows, I am deeply concerned by the state of maternity care in the NHS that we inherited. While the majority of births go well, I know from the courage of families who have spoken up and the concern of staff that devastating impacts are arising from failures in care. That is why I asked Baroness Amos to ch…

The new maternal care bundle, to which the Secretary of State refers, is rightly aimed at reversing the recent worrying rise in maternal death and ill health. In particular, the increase in obstetric haemorrhage concerns so many midwives and doctors and the families affected. Given that the Government want to help wome…

Everyone accessing maternity care should be offered a personalised care and support plan, informed by a personalised risk assessment. That is so women have more control over their own care based on what matters to them and their individual needs and preferences, as well as to ensure that every woman understands the ris…

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s strategic partnership with the EU. The Government were elected with a manifesto commitment to reset relations with our European partners; to tear down unnecessary barriers to trade and cut costs and red tape for British producer…

We on the Opposition side of the House recognise the importance of giving young people educational opportunities, but it is vital—[Interruption.] Government Members clearly do not recognise the need for schemes to offer genuine value for money. The UK already had the opportunity to remain a member of Erasmus, but it wa…

If I have got this right, I chose not to sign up to participate in the SAFE—Security Action for Europe—fund because it did not represent value for money, and the Opposition are criticising me for that, but they are also criticising me for signing up to something that is value for money. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman a…

Young people have lost so much. The pandemic kept them in their homes when they should have been in the classroom, years of austerity under the Tories saw cuts in the services on which they rely, and a bad Brexit deal stopped the invaluable chance to study abroad in Europe. Rejoining Erasmus opens up real opportunities…

My hon. Friend is quite right about the wonderful opportunities that this presents, and not just for self-confidence; the young people I spoke to only this morning at a further education college told me that going overseas had helped them to grow as people. However, the House should not just take my word for it: the As…

With permission, Madam Speaker Deputy, I shall make a statement on industrial action by resident doctors. I thank you, Mr Speaker, business managers and the official Opposition for facilitating this evening’s statement. As we head into winter, our hospitals are running hot and the pressures on the NHS are enormous. Flu…

I call the shadow Health Secretary.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, and sincerely thank him for making me aware last night of his intention to come to the House today and make a statement. Given that the next set of planned industrial action is due just a few days before Christmas, and at a worrying time when winter pre…

First, I thank the shadow Health Secretary for the constructive terms on which he has agreed to work with the Government. That should give resident doctors across the country who receive their survey the confidence of knowing that, should they vote for this deal, emergency legislation will be introduced in the new year…

I have always been a massive advocate for all medical and nursing staff, and I absolutely understand what a difficult job our healthcare workers do, but given that flu is running rampant across the country and most NHS staff—including resident doctors, but also nurses and other staff—are suffering at this moment, will …

The reasoned amendment in the name of Mr Richard Holden has been selected.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Two centuries ago, the first passenger railway services to run in the UK symbolised the hope and ambition of a confident nation, yet today that same railway symbolises something rather different. Every cancelled service, every cramped carriage and every dodgy wi-f…

The Secretary of State is extolling the virtues of nationalisation. South Western Railway, which serves my constituents across Teddington, Twickenham, Hampton and Whitton, was nationalised earlier this year. We have only seen the service get worse and worse, with delays, cancellations and short-form trains leading to o…

The hon. Lady is right to say that South Western Railway had a difficult few months after it came into public ownership, but the problems that it is experiencing were inherited from the private sector operator. The number of new Arterio trains on the South Western Railway network has quadrupled since the train operatin…

I thank the Secretary of State for joining me at Branksome depot in my constituency to launch Great British Railways. It was welcomed by engineers, passengers, railway operators and local schools. I have a very different experience from that of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) , so will my right hon. Frie…

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

Our Budget took important measures to tackle the cost of living. That is why we have frozen rail fares and prescription charges, and cut energy bills for every family by £150. Today, we are going further. For too long, parents have been pushed into spending more on infant formula than needed, told they are paying for b…

The north-east is still picking up the pieces of the destruction and decimation of 14 years of Tory government. Men in the north-east of England still expect to live 10 years less than people in other parts of the country. Women in the north-east of England are making, on average, over £11,000 less in wages than people…

My hon. Friend talks about poverty in his constituency, and the Opposition heckle him. They should be ashamed. It is our moral mission to tackle poverty. We have abolished the two-child cap. That will be over 3,000 children, I think, in his constituency lifted out of poverty. I am very proud to be able to do that. We h…

We come to the Leader of the Opposition.

I draw the House’s attention to two minor corrections that have been made to the text of resolution 59 and the title of resolution 98. A revised version of the resolutions paper is available in the Vote Office and online. It includes a note setting out the corrections that have been made. With the exception of Front Be…

I begin by addressing the British Medical Association’s reckless call for resident doctors to strike in the run-up to Christmas. That is a cynical choice, coming as flu cases surge and we enter the most dangerous time of year for hospitals, and it is completely unjustified. After a 28.9% pay rise, the Government offere…

Does the Secretary of State agree that the hard-working staff at St Thomas’ hospital across the bridge, who deal with patients from right across the country, including many who have had surgeries and operations booked for many months, still kept the show going during the last rounds of strikes? Will he please do everyt…

I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance, and I absolutely endorse what she says about our local hospital, which I know very well. I genuinely thank frontline NHS staff, without whom the performance and improvements we are seeing simply would not be possible. Let me turn to the substance of this debate. There…

The Secretary of State knows, because his Department shares responsibility for special educational needs and disabilities education, that that is a major challenge facing the young people whose opportunity he so rightly champions. How will the announcement that the Government will take responsibility for that from 2028…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

May I congratulate the right hon. Lady on delivering her second Budget? I hope she enjoyed it, because it really should be her last. What a total humiliation—[Interruption.]

Order. Can colleagues who are exiting the Chamber do so swiftly and quietly, so that we can focus on the Leader of the Opposition?

It is a total humiliation. Last year, the Chancellor put up taxes by £40 billion—the biggest tax raid in British history. She promised that she would not be back for more. She swore that it was a one-off. She told everyone that from now on, there would be stability and she would pay for everything with growth. Today, s…

Order. The Chief Whip in particular knows that we do not allow clapping in the Chamber.

What steps his Department is taking to tackle health inequalities impacting women in the NHS.

Women’s health is a priority for me, for my Department and for the Government. Since I last answered questions in the House we have extended the NHS health check to include the menopause for the first time, following the brilliant campaigning of Menopause Mandate and others. We have also made the morning-after pill fre…

When my constituent Rachel attended numerous A&E departments with severe abdominal pain, swelling, fever and nausea, her fears of a ruptured ovarian cyst were repeatedly dismissed. In her day-to-day life Rachel is a professional advising on antimicrobial resistance around the world, but as a patient she felt that her c…

I thank my hon. Friend for describing Rachel’s experience. We have introduced Jess’s rule and we are rolling out Martha’s rule, so that, whether in primary or acute care, patients’ voices will be heard and they will be given the power to ensure that health professionals are listening and responding appropriately. Howev…

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

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…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the actions taken to secure the elimination of Hamas from Gaza and the preservation of the ceasefire.

The House will be aware of events over the past 24 hours in Rafah, including reports that Israeli strikes took place last night. Estimates of the death toll vary, but the suggestion is that up to 100 people in Gaza have been killed. We understand that these strikes followed an attack yesterday afternoon, where responsi…

The situation in Gaza is fragile. We all want the ceasefire to hold and endure, and for it to transition into a sustainable end to the conflict, but that requires the terms of the ceasefire to be adhered to. The scenes of masked Hamas gunmen carrying out summary executions is sickening. Their continued hoarding and dis…

We track events in Gaza incredibly carefully. I do not intend to give the House a running commentary on each and every individual incident that takes place. The situation remains volatile and messy. I hope not to disappoint hon. Members if I avoid giving very specific answers on very specific incidents. Structures are …

I welcome the statement from my hon. Friend. It is fairly clear that the Israeli Government agreed to the peace deal only because they felt they had to, not because they necessarily wanted to. After all this time, we still have not got aid flowing into Gaza in the way we would all want to see. What further action can t…

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

Hurricane Melissa is expected to make landfall in Jamaica shortly. It is potentially the most severe storm ever to hit the country. Sadly, seven people across the region have already reportedly lost their life, and thousands are in shelters as they wait for the storm’s arrival. Many people will be thinking of family an…

I thank the Foreign Secretary for that update on Jamaica and the diligence of the FCDO in preparing for events there. Tomorrow I am hosting Hong Kong Watch in Parliament as it releases its latest report on the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy. The report highlights how Beijing has increasingly sought to dismantle Hong K…

Order. Can you help me to help everybody else to get in? In topicals, we have to be short and punchy.

We strongly condemn China’s non-compliance with the joint declaration, as described in the latest published six-monthly report, which details the continued deterioration of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong. We have continually pressed China to uphold the rights of Hongkongers; its non-compliance is one of the reasons w…

I welcome the Chair of the Select Committee back from parental leave and greatly look forward to working with her again. Virtual wards allow patients to get hospital-level care in the comfort of their own home, speeding up their recovery while freeing up hospital beds for the patients who need them most. We are rolling…

The hon. Lady makes a very valid point: this is about the shift from hospital to community, which we have to drive forward. In September 2025, 12,522 virtual ward beds were available—an increase from 12,497 in September 2024. Slowly but surely, we are increasing the number of virtual ward beds and the capability of vir…

Earlier this year, I visited the “hospital at home” team at the John Radcliffe hospital, who run an incredible virtual ward. I saw them deliver care to Mavis, who is 91. She was so emotional and grateful for the work they did—we all ended up in tears. Imagine my disappointment that while I was off, we got an email from…

What steps she is taking to ensure the provision of adequate funding for pupils to study the International Baccalaureate.

Funded institutions for those aged 16 to 19 have the freedom to decide how to use their funding for the provision they offer, including whether they offer the international baccalaureate.

Varndean sixth-form college in Brighton is the only state-funded IB provider in Sussex. It has warned that, without the large programme uplift, the IB will become financially unviable. Many Mid Sussex students have gone on from Varndean to study engineering, medicine and maths at leading universities. Does the Minister…

The Government made big decisions at the spending review to increase the overall funding available to 16-to-19 courses. Next financial year, there will be an increase of over £800 million.[Official Report, 30 October 2025 ; Vol. 774, c. 4WC.] (Correction) That means that per-pupil funding is going up substantially. The…

I welcome the Minister’s support for the international baccalaureate. Ashcroft technology academy in my constituency runs a successful IB programme. Will he confirm that the programme will still be funded and that pupils can still choose to study the international baccalaureate at Ashcroft academy?

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on the adequacy of Jhoots as a pharmacy provider.

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this important urgent question. Pharmacies play a vital role in our healthcare system. They are at the heart of our high streets and are the cornerstone of communities up and down the country. That is why this Government have given pharmacies a funding boost of almost £500 mil…

I would be grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you could pass on my thanks to Mr Speaker for granting this urgent question. I thank the Minister for his response. The collapse of service provision in some places, the constant closures in others and the general governance at Jhoots pharmacy, which operates 150 branches a…

I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman has said. It is completely and utterly unacceptable if a business such as Jhoots is not paying its staff. If there are indeed these reports that controlled drugs are not being handled properly, I would strongly recommend that any mishandling of drugs be reported to the General…

I call our very own pharmacist, Sadik Al-Hassan.

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.

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

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 3—Impact assessment: children and young people in temporary foster care— “(1) The Secretary of State must, within 18 months of the passing of this Act, publish and lay before Parliament an impact assessment on the impact of this Act on children and yo…

I am honoured to open today’s debate on Report and to have served in Committee, where it was clear that Members on both sides of the House shared a commitment to high-quality mental health care for those in crisis. I thank my colleagues who also served in Committee; it was an informative and moving discussion. It is th…

Many Sunderland families, including mine, share stories of Cherry Knowle, the Sunderland borough asylum in my constituency, which opened in 1895. Severe mental illness has always been a feature of society. Thankfully, the legislative framework and services have developed somewhat since 1895, but arguably they have not …

Similarly, a community service called Mental Health Together has been introduced in my area. Does my hon. Friend agree that the whole mental health system is so complex, with different practices in different parts of the country, and that not having continuity and a standard across the country is a big issue for mental…

This is a long-overdue and very welcome Bill, but frankly it will not even touch the sides of what most of our constituents and communities need when it comes to the wider mental health landscape. I support many of the amendments to improve it, not least those laid by my hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches. I …

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 30 April.

Yesterday evening, Royal Air Force Typhoons successfully conducted strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen in a joint operation with our US allies. This action was in line with the long-standing policy of the UK Government to defend freedom of navigation in the Red sea, after Houthi attacks fuelled regional in…

I associate myself with the remarks of the Prime Minister about the professionalism of our armed forces, and I too congratulate Mark Carney on being elected Prime Minister of Canada. I also congratulate everybody who took part in the London marathon. Both my daughters have done it, but it is sadly something I cannot do…

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman is on a marathon himself. I call the Prime Minister.

I extend my congratulations to the hon. Member’s daughters for running the marathon. The Government retain the right to strike trade deals to deliver growth, jobs and opportunities for working people. We clearly set that out in our manifesto, and that is exactly what we are doing. As he knows, Parliament has a well-est…

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

I beg to move, That this House regrets the appalling state of repair of NHS hospitals across the country; notes that the NHS maintenance backlog rose to £13.8 billion in 2023-24; further notes the sustained pattern of cannibalising NHS capital budgets to keep day-to-day services running; condemns the previous Governmen…

I was with the hon. Lady almost up until that point. I congratulate her on opening the debate. It is absolutely true that the new hospital programme did not deliver new hospitals and was unfunded under the Tories. However, it is being funded now under Labour. Money is being invested in my local hospitals, in the Imperi…

The hon. Member will be aware that there were not 40 new hospitals—they were not all hospitals and there were not 40 of them. The issue here is that the start dates for work on many hospitals that need urgent rebuilding have been pushed back into the 2030s, long beyond the life of this Parliament. The people who are se…

I wonder if the hon. Member can explain to me how spending £22 billion extra on the national health service this year can in any way be described as procrastination.

Lord Darzi’s independent investigation clearly set out the impact that “capital starvation” has had on the NHS in recent years, and the importance of capital spending to fixing the health service. The report highlighted substantial shortfalls in capital investment, combined with a tendency to raid capital budgets to co…

I have to say that that was quite a segue. We are focusing on the capital estate. We all know that there were problems with the Lansley reform. In fact, I welcome the fact that it is being unravelled, and I was pretty vocal about it at the time. The savings the John Radcliffe could have realised might have been spent o…

I am so sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. In Lord Darzi’s report, there are some stark pictures of him sitting in substandard accommodation for the very sickest in our society. The Health and Social Care Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into severe mental ill health, becau…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary to make a statement about the Israeli Government’s announcement that they are expanding their military operations in Gaza.

We are deeply concerned about the resumption of hostilities in Gaza. The UK does not support an expansion of Israel’s military operations. Continued fighting and more bloodshed is in nobody’s interest. All parties, including Israel, must observe international humanitarian law. We urge all parties to return to dialogue …

The Israeli Government’s brutal decision to expand their military operations in Gaza is not about security; it is about domination and erasure. It comes on top of 18 months of collective punishment, including, since 2 March , the longest aid blockade since the war began. I welcome the Minister’s confirmation that the U…

The hon. Lady asked a series of important questions. As I have said to the House on a number of occasions, determinations of breaches of international law are for competent courts and we support those courts in their work. On weapons, I want to be clear that we continue to stand by the assessments that we made soberly …

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on NHS pensions in the light of the statutory deadline for both remediable service statements and remediable pension savings statements being missed.

I thank the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for asking this question, which gives me the opportunity to provide further information following the written parliamentary statement that I issued yesterday to update the House on the delivery of remediable service statements to affected members. I have exte…

What is going on with NHS pensions administration under this Government? I declare an interest as someone with an NHS pension. Today, the Government have missed the statutory deadline for issuing remediable service statements to doctors, and they are now pushing the deadlines back to December 2026. In mid-March, the Go…

As I outlined in my response and in the written ministerial statement, we have taken action. We were made aware of some of these problems when we came into office in July, and we have pushed the NHS Business Services Authority to move faster than it would have done under the hon. Gentleman’s Government, so that action …

I thank the Minister for coming to the House and giving her response. We all know the issues she is talking about when she mentions the state of the NHS that we inherited, and I echo that with the issues I hear about from patients and staff at Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow. On pensions, can she outline what the…

With permission, I would like to make a statement on the future of NHS England. Since coming into office, this Government have made big strides in fixing our broken NHS. Under the Conservatives, the NHS suffered years of industrial action, costing taxpayers billions and costing patients more than 1 million cancelled op…

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. It is disappointing, once again, that it was not made to the House first; in recent days, there have been numerous media briefings about this potential restructure. Under new leadership on the Conservative Benches, we believe in a leaner and more effici…

I will take the more serious questions from the shadow Minister first. On timeframes, we will work immediately to start bringing teams together, as we have done with the one-team culture we have been building over the past eight months. I want the integration of NHS England into the Department to be complete in two yea…

I applaud my right hon. Friend for his leadership and for the reduction in waiting lists, which we so desperately need. We all know that there is still a struggle with budgets in the health service—my excellently run Honiton hospital is facing a deficit for the first time in its history—so can he give more detail about…

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the need to improve procurement. One thing that Attlee and Bevan could not have predicted in 1948 is that the single-payer model of the national health service makes it ideally placed for this world of artificial intelligence, genomics, machine learning and big data. We must unl…

I start by referring to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I have done throughout the passage of the Bill. I thank Members in all parts of the House for their valuable contributions throughout the passage of the Bill to date, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia G…

Given the urgent necessity to promote growth, surely the acid test of a Bill such as this is whether it will actually make it more attractive for entrepreneurs to create jobs. What is the answer?

The answer is in the Department’s press release, which cites Simon Deakin, professor of law at the University of Cambridge, no less. He has said: “The consensus on the economic impacts of labour laws is that, far from being harmful to growth, they contribute positively to productivity. Labour laws also help ensure that…

The Minister will have seen the appalling evidence that the Business and Trade Committee took from McDonald’s, where the BBC investigation exposed allegations from hundreds of young workers who were suffering harassment, and even allegations from one worker of managers soliciting them for sex in return for scheduling s…

I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for his question. We are aiming to work on this once the Bill has passed this stage, and consultation will take place in due course. I have to say that the chuntering from those on the Conservative Benches really shows how they fail to appreciate the power imbalance that the…

Absolutely. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that we need to put a stop to. The young woman eventually reached a settlement, but it was extremely one-sided. She panicked, because the NDA gagged not just her but her partner, her best friends and her parents, but it did not gag the men or the senior executives invol…

I thank the hon. Member very much; these people are indeed incredibly brave. What we are trying to show is that it happens to men and women, it is discrimination, it is sexual harassment, and it is ubiquitous—it is happening everywhere and it is happening now. We are not seeking to silence people. In fact, new clause 7…

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting us the opportunity to debate this supplementary estimate, which provides an opportunity for all Members of this House to look at the Public Accounts Committee’s report on health and discuss how the money might be spent on different priorities. As the Chair of the Public Acc…

I thank the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee for her endorsements of the worthy work that all these individuals have put into the health service. The Department of Health and Social Care is one of the highest spending Departments in the UK, with a total departmental expenditure limit standing at a huge £21…

I do not want to give way to too many people; otherwise, you will reprimand me for taking too long, Madam Deputy Speaker. However, I am, of course, happy to give way to the hon. Lady.

On that point specifically, I was at my local hospital—County hospital, in Stafford—a couple of weeks ago, where I noticed that staff were still using paper to make notes on patients. One of the biggest barriers to the NHS being more efficient is the inability to have effective digital systems. Does the hon. Gentleman …

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. She has obviously been reading my speech— I will cover the announcement later in my speech, at which point she will hear exactly what it says. As I say, the NAO has confirmed that productivity levels have dropped by 23%. I welcome the Government’s commitment to a 10-year plan for th…

We are proving that estimates are not dull, although they have a terrible reputation for being so. Everything comes from the money, and if we do not follow the money, we do our constituents a disservice. The Government have announced an incredibly welcome £22.6 billion increase in day-to-day spend on health and social …

In our Committee hearing just this morning, we heard that all parts of the system want this. Acute care trusts recognise that they have the bulk of the investment, but they realise that unless they start pooling budgets and working in an integrated way, we will not achieve the productivity gains that we desperately nee…

I share my hon. Friend’s frustration that we are not doing more faster. Indeed, the first inquiry that our Committee has launched is on social care and the cost of inaction, because there is a cost to doing nothing, and we need to quantify that as best we can. On the three shifts, the shift to the community is incredib…

We should be celebrating examples of where this works well, not shutting them down. In Oxford, the Hospital at Home programme, run by Oxford University hospital ambulatory team, does incredible work. I visited 91-years-young Mavis the other day, who was receiving top-notch ultrasounds in her home—ultrasounds of better …

I will make progress, if I may, because the clock is ticking down. As for that £1.7 billion, once we add in national insurance contribution increases and inflationary costs, the NHS has had to ask for an additional £812 million on top, so it is already running a little behind. Next year, the increase is due to be £10.6…

The Minister will have noted, on page 53 of the estimates, a £1 billion decrease in capital spending in the departmental accounts. Will that be explained, and can the Minister explain now how new hospitals constitute day-to-day spending?

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the situation in Gaza.

We urge all parties to fully implement the ceasefire to help deliver a permanent end to hostilities. We are very concerned at reports that Israel is preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Israel must not block aid coming into Gaza. Humanitarian aid should never be contingent on a ceasefire or used as a politic…

Over the weekend, the Israeli Government took the decision to block the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The Minister talked about that aid, but it can no longer be delivered. Israel is once again using starvation as a weapon of war, and today we hear that it has also announced a so-called “hell plan” that would se…

I thank the hon. Lady for the urgent question. A halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza, such as that announced by the Government of Israel, does risk breaching obligations under international humanitarian law. To answer her question directly, the UK Government have been in touch with interlocutors to make that point…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Less than a week since I called on this House to show the courage of our predecessors, we see clearly before us the test of our times, a crossroads in our history. With permission, Mr Speaker, I will update the House on my efforts to secure a strong, just and lasting peace following Russia’s vile invasion of Ukraine. I…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement, and for our conversation earlier today. The United Kingdom is a free, democratic and sovereign country. We recognise that Ukraine is fighting for her survival and fighting to have the same freedom, democracy and sovereignty that all of us here enjoy. That i…

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her message and for our discussion this morning, and I thank her for her support for the measures that we are taking. It matters across this House that we are united on this issue, It matters to the Ukrainians and to President Zelensky. I can tell the right hon. Lady that he was…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

What steps his Department is taking to improve access to mental health services.

After 14 years of Tory neglect and incompetence, we inherited a broken NHS, and nowhere is that more apparent than in our mental health services. Too many people are waiting too long to access the care they need. To fix that, we will recruit 8,500 more mental health workers; provide access to specialist mental health p…

With the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill being amended to include a panel that will involve psychiatrists who will determine whether a request for assisted dying should be granted, as well as a number of cross-party amendments rightly calling for the involvement of mental health professionals earlier in the pr…

The hon. Lady will know that the Government’s position on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is one of neutrality. I am on the Bill Committee simply to speak about the Government’s position on the workability and operationalisation of the Bill. We look forward to seeing the amendment that will be brought forw…

Thurrock community hospital does fantastic work on integrated care, particularly on integrated mental health care. On a visit, representatives said that what makes the hospital successful is a commitment to working across integrated care boards, the local authority and other relevant partners in the community, as well …

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the Government’s work to unlock investment and secure economic growth. That is the No. 1 mission of this Government. Without growth, we cannot deliver on the priorities of the British people, cut NHS waiting lists, rebuild our schools or put more pol…

I call the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Chief Secretary told us that growth is the No. 1 mission of this Government and added, “Now we must go faster”, which I have to tell him suggests a certain lack of ambition. What we do not need is some hasty mañana moment of unquantified, vague promises of a better tomorrow; we need action now to reverse the grievo…

The House is indebted to the shadow Chancellor—Mr Melmentum himself—for his lecture on the need for speed from this Government. Let me tell him that we have done more in the last six or seven months than that lot did in the last 14 years. The shadow Chancellor asked me about our plans to work with business. The comment…

I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee.

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—Water Restoration Fund— “(1) No more than 60 days after the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for the establishment, operation and management of a Water Restoration Fund. (2) A Water Restorati…

What a delight it is to be back in the Chamber debating this transformational Bill. I will keep my opening comments brief, because I know that many want to speak, and I will respond to amendments tabled by hon. Members when closing this debate after hon. Members have spoken to them, as is established practice. I want t…

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for her ongoing discussions about drainage and local authorities and other water-related matters. On the issue of water poverty, can she confirm that, either as part of the Bill or as an adjunct to it, when water companies fail to deliver an adequate service in new build…

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and also for the many times that he has talked to me about internal drainage boards since I became a Minister. On his question, if customers are not getting the service to which they are entitled, that is absolutely something that should be taken through Ofwat and t…

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on winter pressures. I start by saying that my thoughts, and I am sure the thoughts of the whole House, are with the nurse who was stabbed in a horrific attack at Royal Oldham hospital on Saturday. Nurses are the backbone of our NHS. They should be…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

As ever, I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his typical courtesy in giving me advance sight of his statement. May I join him in saying that our thoughts are with the nurse in Oldham who was so viciously attacked? Like him, we wish her a full and speedy recovery. May I also echo his words of gratitude to NHS an…

Where to begin, Madam Deputy Speaker? The shadow Health Secretary does a really good line in diagnosing the problem as if these are somehow new facts to him, or to the country. In fact, one does not have to be a Minister of long service in this House, or indeed a Member of long service, to remember that only a short ma…

For years, like many in this House, I have seen a regular stream of local people in my surgeries and inbox who have been waiting far too long for NHS treatment. What shocks me the most, though, is when I see the same local people turn up in A&E when I am doing my shifts, having deteriorated and in even worse pain than …

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

What recent steps he has taken to increase access to GP appointments.

Today there are 1,399 fewer full-time equivalent GPs than in 2015, and NHS dentistry is at death’s door. This Government will fix the front door to the NHS. We have announced an additional £889 million in funding for general practice in 2025-26—the biggest boost in years—and we have already started hiring an extra 1,00…

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer on the critical issue of access to GPs in primary healthcare. My constituency of Barking is woefully under-served by primary healthcare, and especially by GPs. On average, each GP looks after 2,000 patients; the national average is 1,600. In particular, the area of Barking …

The situation in northern Gaza is dire. The UK condemns Israel’s restrictions on aid in the strongest terms. The scale of human suffering is unimaginable. We have been clear that this is a man-made crisis and Israel must act immediately to address it. The need for humanitarian assistance to reach Gaza is greater than e…

The hon. Member speaks passionately about a situation that so few in this House could even imagine. My thoughts are with Mohamed’s family and the many, many other women, children and civilians who are caught up in this war. I have seen for myself the injured children across the border in Sinai. They are the lucky ones …

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

May I begin by paying tribute to the bravery of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) in continuing to fight for the population in Gaza, even as her own family and friends are suffering? My Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into the Israel-Palestine conflict, and we have heard again and…

This Government have taken a very different approach from the one that came before us. We have taken immediate, rapid action, calling for a ceasefire, making decisions on arms, which have already been mentioned, increasing the amount of aid available to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, being absolutely steadfast i…

Over 450 days on, we all know the statistics—45,000 Palestinians killed, 100 hostages missing, 2.3 million people desperate—but I want to tell a single human story. I have previously spoken about my friend, consultant surgeon Mohamed, who operated on me when I had sepsis. His family are trapped in the Jabalia refugee c…

We now come to the first statement. I am sure there must be something left to say.

A happy new year to you, Mr Speaker, and to everyone across the House. With your permission, I will give an update on health and adult social care reform. I start by paying tribute to the NHS and social care staff who worked throughout the Christmas break, including by staffing our hospitals, ambulance services, care h…

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his typical courtesy in early sight of his statement, as well for his call last week. Indeed, it was earlier sight than I am used to because I was able to read most of it in the media before coming here, which was not unhelpful. I echo the Secretary of State’s comments in tha…

It seems to be the Conservative line across the board now to say, “You’ve had 14 years in opposition, so why haven’t you sorted it all out in six months?” I say gently that the Conservatives had 14 years in government, and it will take longer than six months to clean up their mess. Honestly, their contributions to disc…

Does the Secretary of State agree that his plan to transform adult social care services has already started with Labour’s Employment Rights Bill ensuring that social care workers will get fair national pay and conditions, and increased access to training and progression? Does he further agree that we will never have a …

Happy new year to everybody in the House. I would like to update the House on the flooding situation in England, and I start by extending my heartfelt sympathy to all the people and businesses affected. Having your home or place of work flooded at any time is a horrendous experience, but it is particularly dreadful at …

I remind Members that it is protocol to reference Members of Parliament by their constituency, not by their name. I call the shadow Minister.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. I put on the record my gratitude to the Minister and her whole team for hosting a constructive and helpful cross-party meeting on Friday, together with officials from DEFRA, the Environment Agency, the Met Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local…

I will try to answer as many of the hon. Gentleman’s questions as I can. I share his concern about the impact of flooding on people’s mental health, which cannot be exaggerated. Someone losing their home, or seeing it damaged, and having to move out over the winter has a devastating impact on them. I agree that farmers…

I call Tim Roca, member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on winter preparedness. Before I begin, I want to say a very special thank you to all the staff who will be keeping our NHS going over the Christmas holidays and into the new year. When I was a manager in the NHS, I worked on winter planning, so, i…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I am grateful to the Minister for early sight of her statement—as I have said before, it is typically courteous of her. I echo the gratitude that she expressed to those in our NHS, and also those in the social care workforce who will be working hard throughout the festive period. As she alluded to, the NHS is already f…

I will do my best to address that range of questions. First, as even a stopped clock is right once—[Interruption.] Yes, twice. On that basis, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. On correspondence and answers to parliamentary questions, again, the situation we inherited is not satisfactory. I apologise to all Members…

Despite York’s new emergency department, a consultant has described to me the situation in emergency medicine, where patients are waiting for days to be discharged and 50 patients are waiting to be placed on wards. We know we have inherited a broken NHS. Will the Minister say what she is doing first to enable primary c…

Order. Before I call the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) , I will make a short statement. The House of Commons respects the jurisdiction of the courts—for example, in our sub judice rule. The sub judice rule applies to all criminal cases, including cases involving espionage, w…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Government if they will make a statement on the extent of the operations of the United Front Work Department within the UK.

The first duty of any Government is national security, and we therefore welcome the court’s decision to uphold the Home Office’s position with regard to the exclusion of H6, who can now be named as Yang Tengbo. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission concluded that there was a “basis for the conclusion” that H6 “had…

I want to put two things on the record. First, it would have been easier for the Government to come to the House with a statement; obviously, there was more to say than we have allocated time for. Secondly, I say to Sir Iain: please do not tell the media what you are going to do and how you are going to do it, and do n…

Mr Speaker, I apologise if that was the case. Yang Tengbo—H6—was, in fact, not a lone wolf. He was one of some 40,000 members of the United Front Work Department, which, as the Government know, the Intelligence and Security Committee report last year said had penetrated “every sector” of the UK economy, including by sp…

With permission, I would like to make a statement on the publication of the Government’s English devolution White Paper. This Government were elected on the promise of change, and we are determined to transform our economy and our country through a decade of reform and national renewal that reverses the chaos and decli…

According to the Ipsos MORI veracity index, 41% of our constituents trust local councillors, with just 19% having the same expectation of Government Ministers. That is a reflection of the value we place on local leaders who know and understand our communities. Those local leaders will be getting a clear message from th…

I will come to some of the questions raised, but let nobody in the Chamber take lessons and lectures from the Conservatives when it comes to the perilous state that local government has been left in. Let us talk about the councils that were going bust left, right and centre on their watch. Let us talk about the fiscal …

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

I thank the Minister for the statement. It is about how we bring local leaders back to the agenda and back to the central aims that they have been complaining about over the last 14 years. It is important that any devolution reforms build trust among local people, who rely on vital services from housing and planning to…

Today marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities—or disabled people, as we often refer to that group. Language is important, so I will use both terms. “Persons with disabilities” is understood internationally, but “disabled people” is often the preferred term in the UK. This year’s theme is “Amplifying the le…

I commend the hon. Lady. The word “champion” is often used, but she has been a champion for disabled people. More work must be done to allow those with disabilities to live, work and travel independently, including through enhanced public transport with lifts and ramps for wheelchair users to get on to planes and the t…

The hon. Member will not be surprised to hear me say that I absolutely agree with him. I will come to the issues on which we need to provide challenge. Since 2010, disability hate crime has increased almost sevenfold—that is absolutely shocking. Not only are such challenges obstacles for individuals but they limit soci…

I highlight in particular the good work of those at the National Federation of the Blind, who were on the estate today campaigning on floating bus stops. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government need to ban floating bus stops?

The hon. Member—a fellow member of the Work and Pensions Committee—makes a good point. I am sorry that I was unable to attend that event myself, but I will certainly give that matter some consideration, and I hope that the Government will, too. More than 16 million people in the UK have a disability—nearly one in four …

Before I begin proceedings, I would like to say a few words to help manage expectations about business today. More than 160 Members have indicated that they wish to speak in the first debate. It is not customary to impose a speech limit on private Members’ Bills, but I hope that after the Member in charge of the Bill a…

I beg to move, that the Bill be now read a Second time. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you to everyone who is attending this hugely significant debate. It is a privilege to open the debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a piece of legislation that would give dying people, under stringent criteria, c…

I have been a nurse for more than a quarter of a century, and in that time I have worked mostly in intensive care as a specialist. I have worked with compassionate and skilled, well-trained clinicians who have been taught to spot coercion—it is fundamental to our practice. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is wrong to …

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I thank him for it, and for his years of service as a nurse. I have spoken to many medical professionals about this issue, and they say that this is part of their job. They are very skilled and they work closely with patients, particularly dying patients, to assess their nee…

I thank the hon. Lady for giving the House the time to debate the Bill this morning. She references coercion, and I understand her point about the two medics, but medics will not be able to see or hear everything at all times. People will not be put beyond challenge, because subsequent to the death, if a relative claim…

The right hon. Gentleman might want to raise that issue in Committee, at a later stage. However, it is important for hon. Members to appreciate that they can vote yes today, and vote no later. I want to come on to palliative care, which is really important. The message from the sector, patients and their families is cr…

There needs to be a debate around palliative care. My concern is that we have not had any firm commitments from Government, other than woolly words, about how they are actually going to tackle the issue, and that a royal commission will push it into the long grass. I say to the Secretary of State for Health and Social …

These are conversations that I want to keep happening, but I say to those who are making the argument about the process and asking how we can make that better, what does a Bill that addresses assisted dying that they might vote for look like? If the answer is that there is none, let us be honest about that. I want to e…

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Today, across the UK, 350 young people aged 25 and under will take up smoking. It is a decision that the vast majority will later regret. They will try to quit again and again, but most will not be able to break their addiction. They will suffer strokes, diabetes,…

Can the Secretary of State imagine the plight of a shop assistant, some decades hence, when a middle-aged or elderly person presents themselves seeking to buy a packet of cigarettes? Is that shop assistant really expected to demand their bone fides?

I can not only imagine it, but I recently experienced a similar situation. There I was in Barkingside Sainsbury’s one evening, only weeks ago, buying a bottle of wine to have with dinner and, to my surprise, I was asked for my ID. I am afraid it is just a burden that those of us with youthful vim and vigour in our earl…

If only proof of age was still asked of me. The Secretary of State knows that I support the Bill and will vote for it this evening, but he will know that rural pubs are increasingly marginal in their operations. He has referred to further powers, post consultation, that may stop smoking outside in particular places onc…

I was going to address that point later in my speech, but let me address it now. It is not often that a Government comment on leaks or welcome the events following a leak; I do not want to encourage future leaks, either. However, it is well known and a matter of accurate reporting, in this case, that we were considerin…

In the spirit of cross-party working, I want to congratulate Members on the Conservative Benches for deciding, when the former Prime Minister put this policy forward, that it was a priority. It shows how important it is that No. 10 gets behind this kind of thing, and I hope we learn that lesson for the Government’s mis…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the Government’s response to the decision taken by the International Criminal Court’s pre-trial chamber I to issue arrest warrants in respect of the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Last Thursday, judges at the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and the reportedly deceased Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, commonly known as Deif, commander-in-chief of the military wing of Hamas. The ICC is the pr…

The International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for the state of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant will do nothing to help secure the release of those poor hostages, who have been held captive by Hamas for more than a year. It will not help to g…

I welcome the questions from the right hon. Member across the Benches. Utmost in the Government’s mind is the need to bring an immediate end to the conflict in Gaza and to secure the release of the hostages, whose families I have met. She knows that I am familiar with these issues from my previous life. We also need to…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to update the House on Storm Bert. The storm brought heavy rain, high winds and snow across the UK over the weekend. The flooding Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and H…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Storm Bert has had, and continues to have, terrible impacts across the United Kingdom. Our thoughts are with the loved ones of those who have lost their lives in recent days as well as the people whose homes and businesses have been devastated and all t…

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments, and I echo her good wishes to people who have been affected by the situation. She refers to funding. I politely remind her that she was a Treasury Minister in the previous Government, who underfunded our flood defences and left more than 3,000 of them—the highest level on r…

I call the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

Mr Speaker, I associate myself with your remarks about the war in Ukraine. I know the whole House stands with Ukraine as it defends its freedom and democracy. This is precisely why the Prime Minister’s leadership at the G20, and in other international fora, is vital in standing up not just for our national interests bu…

In my Makerfield constituency, Wigan council and my local NHS trust are working closely together to pioneer a health system focused on prevention and delivered through neighbourhood health centres, but they need help. What is the Secretary of State doing to improve access to primary care, especially data-driven prevent…

With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement about rail performance. I welcome the shadow Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) , to his place. I am sure the Opposition will be interested in what we have to update the House about this afternoon. After 14 years of neglec…

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for sharing an advance copy. I agree that rail performance is a key concern to passengers throughout the country, and it is a fair criticism to say that several operators have consistently underperformed. That is why, when we were in government, we took action to imp…

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for acknowledging that we provided the statement in advance, and I suggest that next time he reads it before he responds. He will have heard me say that public ownership is not a silver bullet, hence why we are setting out a substantial package of reforms. As I also mentio…

I call the Chair of the Transport Committee.

The Transport Secretary’s statement is hugely welcome. Bringing privately owned train operating companies into public ownership as well as setting up GBR will inevitably add to her Department’s workload, so what preparations is she making to manage that additional workload?

I beg to move, That this House has considered rural affairs. I am delighted that the House has this opportunity to discuss the impact of the Budget on rural communities. Let me begin by addressing what the Budget means for farming in the round. We can all agree that food security is national security, which is why we h…

What estimate has the right hon. Gentleman made of the impact on capital investment, which will be reduced as farmers consider the inheritance tax implications of those investments and adjust their plans accordingly?

The changes have been signed off by the Office for Budget Responsibility and the full impact assessment will be available when the Finance Bill is published, before they come into force in 2026.

Does the Secretary of State understand that a farmer coming towards the end of his career is hardly likely to invest either in improving his land or in the hundreds of thousands of pounds that a piece of agricultural plant costs these days, knowing that there will be a surcharge when, sadly, he deceases?

The vast majority of farmers will be unaffected by the changes, so that point will not apply. We are also rapidly releasing £60 million to support farmers whose farms have been devastated by severe flooding. That is £10 million more than the previous Government were offering and, unlike their fantasy figures, we have s…

I inform the House that I have selected amendment (a), tabled in the name of the Prime Minister. I call Helen Morgan.

I beg to move, That this House regrets that the NHS has been plunged into crisis by years of neglect by the previous Government, leaving far too many people waiting weeks to see a GP or unable to find an NHS dentist, and children and adults waiting months or even years to receive the mental health care they need; belie…

On pharmacies, a new report from Healthwatch England reveals a worrying picture of pharmacy closures and reduced hours hitting older people and rural communities the hardest. NHS Norfolk and Waveney integrated care board, which covers much of my constituency, has reported the highest number of hours lost per pharmacy. …

That is an important point. In my constituency, carers who go to pick up prescription medicines are finding that the pharmacists are not there because they are relying on locums. The pharmacy funding problem needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency, and I will say more about that later. Growing the economy is so im…

My hon. Friend is making a brilliant introductory speech. Is she aware that perhaps only a third of those leaving medical school and seeking to go into general practice are able to find jobs, partly because the additional roles reimbursement scheme—which does exist—cannot be extended to enable some of those would-be GP…

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on the previous Committee. The GPs I have spoken to point to that report as describing what they would like to see done, so all credit is due to the ideas that have come out of it. The third area I wish to mention is prevention, which is at the heart of the Darzi report. That rep…

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient waiting times.

Waiting times are wholly inadequate in our country. That is because the previous Conservative Government took a golden inheritance of the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history and left behind the worst crisis in the NHS’s history. What is more, they accept no responsibility and cannot e…

I pay tribute to my own family GP, Dr Islam at the East Hull family practice, who goes above and beyond for his patients. However, I know that GPs are troubled by the amount of time patients have to wait to see them. The disparity between GP numbers in different areas is utterly shocking. In Kingston upon Thames, for e…

May I first, through my hon. Friend, say thank you to Dr Islam and to GPs right across the country who, against the backdrop of the extraordinary challenges they are working through, have none the less managed to deliver more appointments now than when there were thousands more GPs? My hon. Friend is right to point out…

Patient waiting times are reduced dramatically through the recruitment and retention of more GPs, so will the Secretary of State welcome the work of the Anglia Ruskin medical school in Essex, and perhaps have a conversation with myself and neighbouring MPs about how that medical school could be expanded to do much more…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary to make a statement on the situation in Gaza and Lebanon.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for raising this important question. We are deeply concerned about the continuing violence; we must avoid this conflict spiralling further out of control and into a wider regional war, which is in no one’s interest. The UK was the fir…

Order. The response should be for three minutes. Please can we try to stick to that? I call Andy McDonald, who will give us a fine example of a two- minute speech.

I thank the Minister. As Israel cuts off northern Gaza from essential supplies, it continues to strike Palestinian civilians while demanding their displacement. The attacks, such as those on the al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza on Sunday night, show that there is nowhere safe to go. The sight of a patient on an IV drip…

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the number of important points that he makes. First, he referred to footage that has been circulating widely. It is one of many instances of very disturbing footage that many of us and many of our constituents will have seen. Of course, the Government look very closely at all those r…

Before I call the Prime Minister, I am sure that the House will wish to reflect for a moment on the fact that this is a solemn day. It marks the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on Israel. Dozens of hostages are still in captivity, and the conflict has claimed thousands of innocent civilian lives. Today we sho…

Today we mark a year since the horrific attack on Israel by the terrorists of Hamas. It was the bloodiest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust—a day of sorrow, a day of grief. Over 1,000 people were massacred, with hundreds taken hostage, in an attack born of hatred, targeted not just at individuals, but at Je…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. Today is the anniversary of 7 October . This modern pogrom—the worst loss of Jewish life since the second world war—was a horrendous reminder of the antisemitism in our world and the existential threats that Israel faces. Over the past year, many of the hos…

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his words. On an occasion like this, it is important that we speak with one voice across the House, and I think the whole House will agree with him that we must bring the hostages home. They must be uppermost in our minds. The Leader of the Opposition asks about the assistance i…

I beg to move, That this House has considered Lord Darzi’s independent investigation into NHS performance. I am pleased to have the opportunity to open this debate on Lord Darzi’s investigation into the national health service, not just so that we can debate the past and what went so badly wrong, but so that the House …

Lord Darzi’s report was utterly damning about the treatment of children in our health system. He said that too many children were being let down, and pointed out that they account for 24% of the population, but only 11% of NHS expenditure, and that over 100,000 children wait for over a year to be assessed for mental he…

I strongly agree with the hon. Member. I will talk about the 10-year plan shortly, but I can guarantee that children and paediatric care will be front and centre of that plan. We can do much more to shine a spotlight on paediatric waiting lists, as well as doing much more in practice. She mentioned children and young p…

Across my constituency, my constituents are struggling to see the GPs they need; indeed, we see that across the whole nation. On Friday, I visited the Park View surgery, where the GPs do not have the necessary resources and cannot move into the premises that they need to be in to treat their patients. Can the Secretary…

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course it is not just in Loughborough that we have a challenge with access to general practice; it is right across the country. I want to be clear, because GPs come in for a lot of criticism: primary care may be broken, and the front door to the NHS may be broken…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary if he will make a statement on the humanitarian and political situation in Sudan.

I would like first to welcome the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) to her place. She is a former Africa Minister, so I know she is deeply concerned about these issues. I am grateful for the fact that this urgent question has been granted; the situation could not be more urgent. Last month, I …

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. Yesterday, Parliament spent time on two terrible conflicts—that in Ukraine, and that in the middle east—but we must not allow this Parliament to forget about the increasingly dreadful situation in Sudan. I welcome the right hon. Minister for Development to her p…

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s commitment to the issue, and for her incredibly important questions. She gave the figures for those who have been displaced; indeed, Sudan is the world’s largest displacement crisis in absolute terms. Of course, some of those individuals have been displaced before. When I was in South …

This is one of the world’s worst conflicts and humanitarian disasters, but sadly it receives so little of our attention, so I welcome the urgent question and the Minister’s response. I praise the efforts of the British embassy in exile in Addis. It is clear that we need a long-term strategy to end the fighting and begi…

(Urgent Question) To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will make a statement on proposed changes to Ofsted reporting.

As the Government explained in the written ministerial statement that was laid yesterday, and as was outlined in our manifesto, single headline grades will no longer be issued by Ofsted when it inspects state-funded schools. Our landmark reform will drive high and rising standards for children, and will increase transp…

The system can certainly improve. After the terrible tragedy of Ruth Perry, changes were made, and, as the Minister said, Ofsted initiated its wider Big Listen consultation. We supported that, and I welcome much of what was in Ofsted’s announcement today, but I fear that the Government have not thought through the cons…

The shadow Secretary of State was a Minister in the Department for Education, and he knows these issues well. He also knows that the work we are announcing today is about clearing up the mess that the previous Government left. The Big Listen was announced under his Government, and his former colleague, the previous Cha…

May I thank the Minister for taking swift action? As a former teacher and children’s lead at a local authority, I know how high-stakes and low-information Ofsted judgments had started to become for local families. Indeed, having spoken to parents in my constituency ahead of my Westminster Hall debate on education for c…

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the middle east. On taking office in July, I told the House that this Government’s priority in the region will be to advance the cause of peace. That continues to be our mission on every front: in Israel, in the west bank, in Lebanon, in the Red sea and, of course…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. Over the weekend, we were once again reminded of the tragic human toll of this conflict, with Israel recovering the bodies of six more innocent hostages murdered by Hamas. The only way this conflict will be brought to an end, and for the suffering to end…

I am grateful to the shadow Foreign Secretary for the tone of his response. He will know as well as anyone that these are complex and sober questions, and it is right that the House can debate them in the appropriate tone and spirit this afternoon. I recall that Lord Cameron said that he was concerned that Israel had v…

I thank the Secretary of State for his important statement. I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that it is clear that Hamas have no humanity and no shame. Some have said that there is only a pause to vaccinate children because polio may spread beyond Gaza. With so many children killed in this war, I understand w…

I beg to move, That this House has considered technology in public services. It is the first time I have had the privilege of speaking under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful for it. May I start by welcoming the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) to his place? I had his j…

The Secretary of State is making a fine maiden speech in his start at the Dispatch Box. As a previously practising doctor, I know that one thing that could really help is using some of the AI we see coming forward in the back office. The previous Government committed to a £3.4 billion NHS productivity plan. Are the Gov…

I am grateful for that intervention and welcome the hon. Member to his place, too. The Government take extremely seriously the role that AI and digital technologies have in productivity in all public services and, as my speech unfolds, I hope that he will hear more detail about the scale of our ambition. To take just o…

This is obviously a positive debate, as there are so many benefits for us all. I could not remember 191 passcodes—I struggle to remember my own to log in every day in Parliament—but of course we have to underpin everything that we are talking about in terms of technology with cyber-security. In Cheltenham, we have a 4,…

The hon. Gentleman, who I welcome to his place, spent quite a bit of time on his intervention, but I realise that there is simply so much to talk about in his constituency. I pay tribute to the organisations he referenced, including GCHQ and CyNam. The work that they do often goes unthanked, but it is absolutely essent…

If he will set out a timeline for the potential recognition of a Palestinian state.

If he will support the immediate recognition of the state of Palestine.

We want a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution: a safe, secure Israel alongside a viable, sovereign Palestinian state. We are committed to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution to a peace process, at a time that is most conducive to that process.

May I associate myself with your remarks, Mr Speaker, about John the Doorkeeper? Who knew that we had the same love of ’70s disco? I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. I must press him further on Government recognition of a Palestinian state. That should have been a starting point 30 years ago. I believe that re…

I know that my hon. Friend has pressed these issues, which are of huge importance to her constituents, for many years. No one has a veto on recognition. As I said, we want it to be part of a process; it does not deliver a two-state solution in and of itself. But it is absolutely right that the Palestinians are enabled …

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

The Government are reconnecting Britain with the world in European capitals, in NATO and at Blenheim, and I have been resetting relations with Europe and reinforcing support for Ukraine. I have also deepened partnerships with the global south to tackle the climate crisis and unlock economic growth, and I am taking a ba…

A builder living on Portland, a B&B owner in Weymouth and a shopkeeper on Swanage high street all pay their fair share of tax, yet some individuals take advantage of offshore tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands to avoid paying their fair share. My constituents play by the rules; we ought to know a bit more ab…

I raised this issue in opposition—I think it was the subject of the last speech I gave before the election—and it is an issue that I intend to take up with full vigour. We were concerned that parts of the last Government were turning a blind eye to these issues. I hope to come forward with further proposals in the comi…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

Before the Home Secretary makes a statement, I must advise the House that although the matter is not yet sub judice, for the purpose of the House rules Members should exercise care in what they say about a major live criminal investigation. Members should take care not to say anything in this House that might prejudice…

I would like to make a statement about the devastating attack that took place in Southport yesterday morning. It is difficult to comprehend or to put into words the horror of what happened. These were young children dancing to Taylor Swift and celebrating the start of the school holidays. What should have been a joyful…

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of her statement. This was a heinous attack on innocent children and those caring for them at the start of the summer holidays. It has no doubt left families broken and a community scarred. I am grateful to the Home Secretary for coming to the House to update us on the…

I thank the shadow Home Secretary for his words, and for his support for the families and whole community in Southport. I particularly thank him for his tribute to the emergency service workers. He will know from all his past experience the heroism they show, but that was strained beyond anything we could have imagined…

What assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the NHS dental contracting framework.

What assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the NHS dental contracting framework.

What assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the NHS dental contracting framework.

First, may I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) to the House, and say what an absolute privilege it is to have been appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care? We have our work cut out for us, with not only the worst economic inheritance since 1945, for which the Conserva…

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his place. Norfolk is a dental desert and my constituents are suffering. As well as reforming the contract, we need to train more dentists. In the east of England we do not have a dental school, but the University of East Anglia has put forward proposals for one. Will he meet me, other…

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the covid-19 inquiry. Yesterday, Baroness Hallett published her report from the first module of the UK covid-19 inquiry, which examines the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom between 2009 and early 2020. My thoughts, and I am sure the thoug…

I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster not only for early sight of his statement, for which I am grateful, but for his tone in how he addressed what is an extremely sobering report—module 1 of nine. I suspect that we will look at many more such sobering reports in the coming months. I put on the record our gr…

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response and for the tone in which he spoke. He set out what the previous Government have done, and in my statement I acknowledged that progress has been made, but I think it is also right that a new Government take the opportunity to have a fresh look at this, with fresh eyes a…

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Like everyone, my thoughts are with the many victims who tragically lost their lives. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hard-working staff at St Thomas’ hospital in my constituency who cared for so many people in their last dying days, and who cared for the fo…

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to pay tribute to the staff at St Thomas’ and other NHS staff across the country, who did so much to care for people during that very difficult period. I have visited the memorial wall in her constituency, and she is right: it is an incredibly moving and human experience. I am very ha…

Very finally, on the memorial, will the Minister implement the recommendations in the final report of the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration?

With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement on the middle east. I was very disappointed to miss yesterday’s foreign affairs debate due to the European Political Community summit, and I welcome this early opportunity to come to the House. Last weekend, I visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,…

I call the Opposition spokesman.

May I start by welcoming the Secretary of State and his team to their places? They take up their roles in one of the greatest offices of state, which is committed to shaping the future and the safety of our country. That is, after all, the foremost duty of our Government. I take this opportunity to put on record my tha…

I am grateful to the hon. Member for her remarks and for her work previously on the Foreign Affairs Committee, in which she was a stalwart champion for international humanitarian law. She raised these issues frequently in the House, challenging both sides on the issues she thought were important, and I am pleased to se…

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his position. What discussions has he had on a deal to secure the release of the hostages? Can he inform the House of the welfare of the remaining hostages?

Before I call the Secretary of State, I note that there is disappointment from the Opposition that the statement was not provided in time. The statement was not provided to my office in time either. I know we want to set off in the right way. I am sure that the officials will make note when they arrive that we need to …

With permission, I would like to make a statement about the Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. This Government were elected two weeks ago. Since then, we have lifted the onshore wind ban in England, which had been in place since 2015; consented more than 1.3 GW of solar projects, powering t…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

I would like to put on the record my disappointment not to get the statement in good time. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will want to provide us with the same courtesy that we tried to provide him when we were in government. That being said, I congratulate him on his return to government. I was sad not to see mo…

May I start by congratulating the right hon. Lady on her recent engagement? I wish her and her fiancé all the best for the future. We may disagree on some issues, but I believe this Government and the right hon. Lady can at least share a belief in long honeymoons. [Laughter.] On the right hon. Lady’s response, I have t…

I call the Secretary of State for Defence.

The question is—[Interruption.] Sorry, go ahead.

You are confusing me, Madam Deputy Speaker.

But may I say how great it is to see you in the Chair for this debate, albeit in a temporary role? And may I say, through you, that the Foreign Secretary wanted to be here for the debate, but he and the Prime Minister are hosting the leaders of over 40 European countries at the European Political Community meeting at B…

I wish the right hon. Gentleman, who was a committed parliamentarian in his shadow role, all the best in his new role, to which he brings great depth and seriousness. He has just described the strategic review and outlined the ambition to get to 2.5% of GDP. If that strategic review recommends more than 2.5%, will the …

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. I will come to exactly those points and will expand on them. An approach based on the international rules-based order and humanitarian law led to our being on the right side of the argument on apartheid in South Africa, on Hong Kong, and indeed on the war in Iraq. It …

I could not agree more. It has really concerned me how people perceive a double standard between what is happening in this conflict and what is happening between Ukraine and Russa. They are very different conflicts. As politicians, we have to bolster that international rules-based order so that people have faith that i…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The deputy Foreign Secretary is regrettably unable to respond to this question in person, as he is at the World Bank spring meetings in Washington. I will respond on his behalf. Earlier this month, we passed a grim milestone: six months since Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack on Israel. The UK Government have been work…

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting me this urgent question. Conditions in Gaza are desperate and intolerable. Famine is taking hold, sewage is pooling in the streets and the water has still not been switched back on. Almost nothing is reaching northern Gaza, where people are already dying of starvation. The healthcare…

Important points have been made. It is important to welcome Israel’s commitments to increase the amount of aid getting into Gaza, and the limited steps that have been made, but—and this is an important but—more must be done, as the right hon. Gentleman said, to realise those commitments, and we continue to urge that th…

Does my hon. Friend agree that the position of the hostages is absolutely key, and is he able to report any more progress? He has explained that Hamas have not agreed to the latest proposal, but does he agree that pressure needs to be put on them by their interlocutors who are working with them to do something solid on…

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 20 March.

I know the whole House will join me in congratulating Vaughan Gething on his election as Welsh Labour leader and expected election as First Minister of Wales, and also in offering Mark Drakeford our best wishes on his retirement. The Government I lead will always work tirelessly to benefit the lives of people across th…

The people of Clacton have had a tough time with the cost of living, and I am doing everything I can to support them. With that in mind, does my right hon. Friend agree that cutting inflation is the very best way to do that, and that today’s statistics are very welcome? Can he reassure my constituents that he will cont…

Today’s figures show that our plan is working. Inflation has fallen to 3.4% from its peak of over 11%, down by almost 70%—the steepest fall since the 1980s, and now at the lowest level since September 2021—and people’s pay packets are going further, with real wages growing for eight months in a row and taxes being cut …

We now come to the Leader of the Opposition.

(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary if he will make a statement on the security and human rights implications of Article 23 in Hong Kong.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his urgent question. Yesterday, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council passed new national security legislation unanimously under article 23 of the Basic Law. The Bill, which rushed through the legislative process, and is likely incompatible with international human rights law, will come into …

I welcome the Government’s statement, but it does not go far enough. Article 23 allows sentences of up to 14 years’ imprisonment if an individual fails to disclose that another person indicated an “intention to commit treason”, which includes peaceful protest or voicing discontent. If a journalist discloses information…

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments, which I will deal with as best I can. He indicated just two or three of the defects in this appalling legislation. He was right to identify them. He did not ask me whether the legislation is in breach of the Sino-British joint declaration. In fact, it is not; the Hong Kong…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

Urgent Question) To ask the Secretary of State if he will make a statement on the situation in Gaza and Israel.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Israel suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history on 7 October last year. The scenes that we saw on that day were appalling, and Hamas’s disregard for civilian welfare continues today, more than five months later. We remember all the time those who are still be…

Yesterday, a UN-backed report revealed the shocking reality that famine in Gaza is imminent. Half the population is expected to face catastrophic levels of hunger—the highest number of people ever recorded as being in that category under this system. Only twice in 20 years have famine conditions been reached, but what …

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions and comments, which I will try to deal with more or less sequentially. First, he asked me about the reports of famine. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, report is clear: it says that famine is a very real scenario. We are doing everything we ca…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

We now come to the Scottish National party motion on Gaza. I understand that the second motion on the Order Paper will not be moved today. This is a highly sensitive subject, on which feelings are running high, in the House, in the nation and throughout the world. I think it is important on this occasion that the House…

That is the first one to leave, then.

If you want to, do it! Finally, I should tell the House that in my opinion the operation of Standing Order No. 31 , which governs the way amendments to Opposition day motions are dealt with, reflects an outdated approach that restricts the options that can be put to the House. It is my intention to ask the Procedure Co…

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate what you have outlined, but I seek your advice, because obviously I have taken advice from the Clerks. This is the SNP’s Opposition day, and the purpose of an Opposition day is for our party to have the ability to put forward our business. We have already had a significant …

Let me just say that I think you will want to vote at some point, and clapping is not going to assist it.

Anything that creates an advance is good, and I welcome the Government move. I am afraid that I cannot support their motion in not calling for an immediate ceasefire, because it does not capture the urgency. I welcome the Government’s sanctioning of the four extremist violent settlers, because there is a link between w…

I am speechless at the way this debate began. As the House knows, there has been scant opportunity for me to tell the story not just of my family or the hundreds in the church where they are in northern Gaza, but of Palestinians on the ground and, indeed, those who lost people in the horrendous attacks on 7 October , w…

With permission, I will make a statement on the recent response to Houthi aggression in the Red sea. Freedom of navigation has been a cornerstone of civilisation since time immemorial. It underpins our prosperity and security, and is a founding principle of the international rules-based system. Since 19 October , the H…

I thank the Defence Secretary for the advance copy of his statement. We back the UK-US airstrikes that took place at the weekend to protect shipping in the Red sea. We know that the strikes were carried out against Houthi command centres and weapons stores. We accept that they were limited, necessary and targeted to mi…

First, I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support for this action. He asked a series of questions, which I will rattle through. Were the actions effective? Yes, they hit the targets. Were all the targets hit? Again, yes. We are still carrying out surveillance to find out the exact impact, but I think we can be very c…

Do the Government accept that it is difficult to deter terrorist fanatics, and that one mainly has to contain the effectiveness of what they do until they are ultimately destroyed, preferably by our regional allies? Does the Secretary of State feel that there is in fact a link to a separate conflict, and that is the co…

As ever, my right hon. Friend has absolutely hit the nail on the head. Russia and Iran are working together. Actually, the same kind of drones—sometimes the Shahed drones—that are being fired in Ukraine by the Russians, courtesy of Iran, are also being fired by the Houthis. He makes an excellent linkage point, and he i…

Today, and in British Sign Language for those watching on Parliament Live, I am delighted to deliver on the Government’s commitment to transform the everyday lives of disabled people across the country for the better. We as a Government are working to make this country the most accessible place in the world for disable…

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. The Government have had consultation after consultation, and they have published different strategies, but it sadly remains the case that we have had nothing that actually delivers a better life for disabled people. The Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto promise…

I thank the hon. Lady for what, I think, was a warm welcome in there somewhere—

Not so much, she says, so there we go. I reiterate that the disability action plan is not just another consultation, but real, tangible action to change people’s daily lives, with 13 practical actions across 14 different areas.[Official Report, 19 February 2024 , Vol. 745, c. 10MC.] (Correction) It is about building a …

Thank you, I will take that. Under our Government, the role has been mixed, which does not mean that we do not take it seriously. I take it extremely seriously. I have come to the role with my own personal experience of living with my father, who became disabled and lived under the Court of Protection. When I was growi…

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 24 January.

I know that Members across the House will want to join me in offering our best wishes to His Majesty the King and Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales. This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, this afternoon I shall be meeting the extraordinary 100…

Can I echo the Prime Minister’s comments on International Holocaust Memorial Day? My constituents, like all of our constituents, rely on the Royal Mail to deliver important items of mail and packages, and for people to run their businesses, so they will be very alarmed to learn of the proposal from Ofcom that Royal Mai…

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of the Royal Mail’s universal service obligation. As the hon. Member will have heard this morning from the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) , we remain absolutely committed to ensuring…

The Lib Dem-run council in Eastleigh has just received a report from its external auditors warning of the possibility of fraud and ignoring whistleblowers who tried to warn it. Does the Prime Minister agree that Lib Dem leaders who shun accountability, shun transparency and simply say, “Not me, guv,” should start showi…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office if he will make a statement on the UK’s resilience to recent extreme weather events, including Storm Isha and Storm Jocelyn.

I begin by saying how sorry the Government were to hear that four people—two in this country and two in Ireland—sadly lost their lives due to Storm Isha. I extend my sympathy to their family and friends. At the same time, I praise our emergency and utility workers who worked so hard to help the public in very difficult…

I thank the Minister for his response. Recent days have seen the UK battered by two severe storms, first Storm Isha and then Storm Jocelyn—the 10th named storm of this winter. Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, has said that these storms are “some of the worst in the last 10 years”. Our c…

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his warm words about our emergency services and utility workers. On his specific point about flooding, he will have heard the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is responsible for this area, comment earlier in the week that, “Flooding resilience in England is …

I thank the Minister for his statement and I thank his officials in the Cabinet Office who do so much that is often unseen. On those with a higher public profile, will he join me in thanking the Environment Agency emergency response teams for the west midlands, the Shropshire fire and rescue teams, who have done such a…

I beg to move, That this House has considered the situation in the Red Sea. Last week at Lancaster House, I set out why we are living in a far more dangerous world. Members will need no reminding that we are dealing with multiple conflicts at once: Russia has increased the intensity of its attacks on Ukraine; the appal…

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his recent speech. According to the House of Commons Library, there are 12 Iranian proxy forces in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Yemen, so this is not just about the Houthis, although that is what we are dealing with now. To what extent are we able to kee…

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; he is something of an expert in this area. Iran is absolutely behind all the different proxy groups that he outlined, and many more. In a way, Iran is able to control this situation without getting too involved itself, and the world needs to wake up and recognise that. We are of cour…

I apologise for interrupting the Defence Secretary. On the shipping side of things, there has been an extraordinary reduction in confidence in that route. The only way to restore the confidence of ships to pass through the gulf of Aden and up through the Red sea is an increase in military convoys. I am sure he is comin…

As ever, my hon. Friend raises an excellent point. That is what Operation Prosperity Guardian is all about: that taskforce enables shipping to be protected to an extent. He may be getting at the broader point of whether individual ships should be protected. The view that the world has taken is that Prosperity Guardian …

It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Sir Liam Fox) , because I agree so much with what he just said, and in particular with the way he set out how Iran decides to back many different groups that will cause chaos. That root cause itself needs to be addressed. Although I am half Palestinian…

What recent steps she has taken to increase capacity in NHS dental care.

What progress she has made on introducing a dentistry recovery plan.

I am determined to ensure that everybody who needs NHS dental care can receive it. We have already implemented a package of reforms to improve access and provide fairer remuneration for dentists. That has had an effect, with 1.7 million more adults being seen, 800,000 more children being seen and a 23% increase in NHS …

I am incredibly sympathetic to what the hon. Lady says. In fact, in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West integrated care board, the number of adults seen by an NHS dentist rose in the 24 months to June 2023 from 448,000 to 485,000, with a similar increase in the percentage of children seen. The situation is …

I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer. Following my very productive meeting with her only a few days ago, will she confirm that NHS England locally has finally been unblocked and that my constituents in Clacton will soon benefit from more dentists practising on NHS patients?

I listened carefully to what the Minister said. That change has not come to Oxfordshire, for sure—it is in a dire state. An Oxford resident wrote to me saying that when his NHS practice closed, he rang a dozen others across the county. Each one said they were offering NHS services but, in fact, they were not; they were…

Overnight, at my order, the Royal Air Force engaged in a second wave of strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen. We did so because we continue to see, for instance in intelligence, an ongoing and imminent threat from the Houthis to UK commercial and military vessels and to those of our partners in the Red sea …

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

I thank the Prime Minister for the advance copy of his statement. Labour said that we will judge further action against the Houthis on a case-by-case basis, so let me be clear that we back this targeted action to reinforce maritime security in the Red sea. The Houthi attacks must stop. They are designed to destabilise …

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his statement and his support—I am grateful to him for that. He raises all the right questions about the action today, which I am happy to answer. First, the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked about the effectiveness of strikes in deterring and precisely degrading capability…

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.

I am grateful for having secured this debate, and even more grateful that the Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety is here to respond. In December, the Government announced significant changes to their house building planning policy, giving new powers and freedoms to local planning authorities, such as mi…

Local authorities are best placed to ensure that the right homes are built in the right places, so does the right hon. Lady agree that we need to protect the voice of local communities in the planning process?

It is as if the hon. Lady has read what I am about to say—she is completely right. Cutting house building in Basingstoke will better reflect the situation we have in our community, and that is what my residents want to see, not those numbers continuing to be set from Whitehall.

The right hon. Lady has outlined the way house building impacts her constituency, but does she agree that while planning policy must protect and enhance our environment, it must also focus on the needs of an area? Planners must give material consideration and weighted concern to economic development and job creation.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Each of those considerations is different in our individual constituencies, so rather than taking a sledgehammer and telling each of our local authorities how many houses to build, they should reflect the nuance that the hon. Gentleman mentions. As the Secretary of State set out …

I would like to update the House on the action that we took on Thursday night against Houthi military targets in Yemen. Since 19 November , Iran-backed Houthis have launched over 25 illegal and unacceptable attacks on commercial shipping in the Red sea, and on 9 January they mounted a direct attack against British and …

We come to the Leader of the Opposition.

May I thank the Prime Minister for the secure briefing last week and for an advance copy of his statement? Let me reiterate that Labour backs this targeted action to reinforce maritime security in the Red sea. We strongly condemn the Houthi attacks, which are targeting commercial ships of all nationalities, putting civ…

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his support for the action that we have taken. He is absolutely right to highlight the international coalition that, over recent weeks, has called out the Houthis’ behaviour, culminating in the UN Security Council resolution strongly condemning the attacks, which he righ…

The Prime Minister was clearly absolutely justified to respond as he did, particularly after the direct attack against HMS Diamond, but given that at the time of the Falklands campaign we had 35 frigates and destroyers and were spending 4.5% of GDP on defence, whereas both those figures can be cut in half to describe o…

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In line with the House’s rules, I informed the Member in question that I would be referencing him. In the statement, the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) implied that I had given a “free pass” to the terrorists who carried out the 7 October attacks. That claim is gr…

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. As loth as I am to engage in this silliness, let me be absolutely clear to the hon. Lady that not only did I not reference her, but I have on numerous occasions—[Interruption.] If she will listen to my response, I have said on numerous occasions that too many people ha…

I will allow that, on both sides, to stand on the record.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and for advance notice of it. Since 2011, the Government have recognised the convention that before troops are committed this House should have an opportunity to debate the matter. The Government have undertaken, in the Cabinet manual and in statements to this House…

Whether she is taking steps with Cabinet colleagues to help retain researchers from overseas who are working in the UK.

I hope that the hon. Members and their party will join me in celebrating just what a fantastic place the UK is for international researchers to work and live. We have one of the strongest science bases, the world’s leading universities and research institutions, and the largest ever public research and development budg…

This year, the Migration Advisory Committee will review the graduate immigration route. International research students who are currently doing PhDs in the UK are attracted to coming here because of the ability to stay on and work after completing their PhD. Will the Minister engage with the Home Office to confirm that…

In keeping the UK an open and welcoming place to do international research, in order to deliver the Prime Minister’s vision of being a science superpower, my colleagues and I regularly meet Home Office colleagues. The facts belie the hon. Gentleman’s question: 41% of postgraduate research in the UK today is being condu…

A fair immigration policy is absolutely part of an open Britain. It is right that those who come here from overseas and live cheek by jowl with those who clean their labs, drive their local buses and empty their bins do their fair share in contributing to the UK economy.

The Government’s recent spousal visa policy to increase the salary threshold is forcing academics and innovators to leave. I give the Minister the example of a British constituent of mine who is graduating from Oxford with a PhD, which is funded by UK Research and Innovation. His American wife, who is graduating from B…

I must inform the House that the reasoned amendment in the name of Keir Starmer has been selected.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I am grateful for the opportunity to move the Third Reading of this Bill. As the House will know, this Bill was introduced before the King’s Speech, in the last parliamentary Session; it is a carry-over Bill. I begin by thanking all those who took part in the con…

I know, given the nature of the debate on this Bill, that a number of colleagues would like to intervene; I will try to answer questions briefly, because I know a number of colleagues would like to take part in the debate.

Hypotheticals are not always helpful, but I beg my right hon. Friend’s indulgence in this hypothetical on that particular point about the interaction between clause 3(7) and UK foreign policy. UK foreign policy is clear that illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law. This Bil…

It is specifically the case that public bodies, including the local government pension scheme and local authorities, should not be taking decisions that conflict with UK Government foreign policy, and we are absolutely clear that it would conflict with UK Government foreign policy if they were to engage in freelance ac…

I absolutely agree. The Bill does not respect directly elected bodies and those representatives. The issue is also about the timing. The death toll in Gaza now exceeds 22,000, and over 100 Israeli hostages remain. I do not put those numbers side by side to compare, because every single individual lost or missing is a t…

The heavy rainfall following Storm Henk has affected communities across the UK, with the worst impacts being seen in widespread areas across the midlands, including in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire; in parts of the west country, including Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Warwicks…

I call the Opposition Front Bencher.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Storm Henk has wreaked havoc across the country: thousands of homes are severely damaged, businesses have been devastated, and farms and crops have been destroyed. My heart goes out to all those affected. I join the Minister in thanking the emergency services, th…

Let me pick up on the shadow spokesperson’s points about Cobra. I am absolutely right in saying that the Government held a Cobra unit Cabinet Office meeting last Tuesday to promote cross-sector preparedness action, way in advance of Storm Henk taking place, and cross-Government meetings, chaired by the Department for E…

I congratulate the Minister and his colleagues on their prompt action and the very responsive way in which they have handled inquiries from MPs throughout the House whose constituencies have been affected. The Minister did not mention Shropshire when he referred to those counties that have been eligible for the flood r…

The whole House will be gravely concerned about the desperate situation in Gaza. It cannot continue, and we are deploying all our diplomatic resources, including in the United Nations, to help find a viable solution. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her urgent question and for the private messages from Gaza that she …

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I understand how deeply distressing this is for her, with her family caught up in the Holy Family church complex. As I said in my response, I am grateful to her for the harrowing update she was able to give me direct from the Holy Family church. I am very pleased to hear that she…

While walking to Parliament yesterday, I politely challenged a driver who had selfishly parked his car in the bus lane leading on to Chelsea bridge so that he could buy a coffee at the nearby kiosk. When I suggested he move it given the traffic chaos it was causing, he blankly refused, began swearing at me, threatened …

I am appalled to hear about the way in which my right hon. Friend was treated on his way into the House of Commons. We are stressing the importance of a more surgical approach by the Israeli Defence Forces and are working towards a more sustainable cessation of hostilities. We recognise that there are too many casualti…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

I am extremely grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question, and I thank the Minister for his response. Let me begin by pointing Members towards my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I am an unpaid adviser to International Centre of Justice for Palestinians. I have spoken before in t…

What recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Israel on the number of civilian deaths in Gaza.

What recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Israel on the number of civilian deaths in Gaza.

What recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Israel on the number of civilian deaths in Gaza.

What recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Israel on the number of civilian deaths in Gaza.

What recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Israel on the situation in Gaza.

Israel has detained huge numbers of Palestinians in Gaza. The International Committee of the Red Cross has received reports of 3,000 missing between 7 October and 29 November , and many also in the west bank. We have seen the images of those men stripped on the beaches, and Haaretz has released an article showing that …

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

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Before I speak to the Bill, let me say that the House may well be aware that, tragically, there has been a death on the Bibby Stockholm barge. I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House, like mine, are with those affected. The House will understand that at thi…

I will not give way yet, as I have just started. Last year, a third of all those arriving in small boats to the coast of this country were Albanian. This year, we have returned 5,000 Albanians, and arrivals from Albania are down by 90%. But in recent years, some of the Government’s efforts to tackle illegal migration a…

I will give way in a moment. Of course, this Government respect court judgments, even when we disagree with them, but Parliament and the British people want an end to illegal immigration and they support the Rwanda plan.

The Home Secretary points to deterrence. He has often used the Australian model of offshoring detention centres as a gold standard. What are his comments, then, on the fact that Australia has recently shut down its offshore centre because of the high financial and human costs?

I am extremely grateful. Is this not just a fig leaf for a completely incompetent Home Office? I have a constituent who has exhausted his leave to remain and wants to go back to Fiji. He applied to the voluntary returns service in September and gave his passport to the Home Office in December—that was in 2022. The loca…

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the international diplomacy surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. The Government are undertaking extensive and global diplomatic engagement to get much greater aid into Gaza, support British nationals and the safe return of hostages, and prevent dangerous regional escalation. Days after Hamas’s brutal attack, the then Foreign Secreta…

I know that you continue with your best endeavours, Mr Speaker, but when it comes to a matter as important as this, I think we see why it is so problematic that the Foreign Secretary is not in this House. The scale of death and destruction seen in Gaza over the last two months has been intolerable: the children left un…

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. I recognise the enormous authority that Lord Cameron holds in these matters and the right hon. Gentleman’s request that he should be available in the House. I will do my best to satisfy him on the questions that he has asked. As he knows, Lord Cameron is keen to engag…

I am sure that the Minister will want to condemn the gratuitous signs of antisemitism that we saw on the streets again this weekend, which led to Karen Pollock from the Holocaust Educational Trust describing London as “a no-go zone for Jewish people”. I know that he will want to condemn that. On the broader issue of a …

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

May I begin by thanking and paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) , for her work as Secretary of State? Having represented for over 13 years a rural constituency that, with the Cambridgeshire fens, is well known for its farming and water management, I am delig…

I welcome the Secretary of State to his place. My constituents are particularly keen that the UK has the best possible animal welfare standards internationally, and they wrote to ask the Secretary of State what progress is being made, particularly on livestock and equine welfare.

Animal welfare is an extremely important issue. That is why we introduced the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill in the King’s Speech. We were only able to do that because of our exit from the European Union. It is right that we put in place a ban to stop the export of livestock and horses for slaughter. My hon. F…

I welcome the Secretary of State to his place. He will have seen the BBC “Panorama” investigation that exposed how this Conservative Government have turned a blind eye to corruption and cover-ups at the heart of the water industry. Consumers are left facing higher water bills, while water bosses profit from pollution. …

With permission, I will make a statement about attempted cyber interference in British democracy. I know hon. and right hon. Members across this House will recognise the seriousness of this issue. The Government have long highlighted the threat to the UK and our allies from malicious cyber activity conducted by the Rus…

I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The news that the Russian intelligence service is behind an effort to target Members of this House and the other place, civil servants, journalists and NGOs is not just concerning; it is an attack—not only on individuals, but on British democracy, on bot…

I am grateful for the tone and constructive content of the right hon. Gentleman’s response. He is right to say that 2024 is a bumper year of elections, involving some 70 elections and billions of people across 40 countries. This is a matter of trust and confidence, which is why we have made this statement now, to ensur…

The Intelligence and Security Committee was one of the first to sound the alarm on this issue in its Russia report. More recently, we have highlighted the risk that China poses through interference in democratic discourse, for example, in think-tanks and universities. Will the Minister update the House on what action t…

The business for the week commencing 11 December will include the following: Monday 11 December —Second Reading of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill. Tuesday 12 December — Second Reading of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. Wednesday 13 December —Second Reading of the Finance Bill. Thursday 14 De…

Let me first pay tribute to two Labour giants who have passed away in the past week. Alistair Darling was one of the guiding hands in the last Labour Government. He was one of only three Ministers who served in the Cabinet throughout the entire period, most notably as Chancellor during the global economic crisis. His c…

I join the hon. Lady in paying tribute and sending my sympathies to the families of Alistair Darling and Glenys Kinnock. I did not know Glenys Kinnock, but I did know Alistair a little, and we will miss his very dry sense of humour. I am sure that all our thoughts are with their friends and families. I also wish Mr Spe…

Last night, the Labour-led administration at Staffordshire Moorlands District Council voted to increase council allowances by 44%, at a cost of £400,000 to council tax payers. Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate about local authority spending and how we can make sure that council tax payers get value for m…

As my right hon. Friend asked her question, there were audible gasps across the Chamber. That is an incredible lack of local political leadership. Council tax payers in her district will be disappointed to hear that news. If she were to apply for a debate, I am sure that it would be well attended. I am sure that everyo…

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the BBC. The BBC is a great British institution and plays a vital role in our culture and creative economy. It broadcasts our values and identities all over the world, reaching hundreds of millions of people every day. In January 2022, the Gover…

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Working people listening to the Secretary of State’s pitiful comments on support with the cost of living are not fooled. They see exactly what this is. We have had weak, mealy-mouthed platitudes that will make no material difference to their lives. Thirty-three pence a month per household is what I understand to be the…

I think the shadow Secretary of State needs to live in the real world like the rest of us. People are struggling with the cost of living, and the Government have continued to take steps to protect them. She needs to live in the real world, in which the media landscape is changing. It is totally inappropriate just to si…

I call the Father of the House.

What steps she is taking to improve the commissioning of primary care dental services for vulnerable people.

May I, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, wish Mr Speaker a very speedy recovery? As Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, I want to reform our NHS and social care system to make it faster, simpler and fairer. Dentistry is a critical part of that. Integrated care boards are responsible for identifying areas of…

I am glad that the Minister mentioned ICBs. Liverpool has a very high percentage of children with dental decay, and tooth extraction is the most common hospital procedure for five to nine-year-olds at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, yet there was a £10 million underspend for primary care dentistry, and instead of invest…

I am delighted to be able to inform the hon. Member that NHS England has provided guidance for ICBs that requires dental funding to be ringfenced, with any unused resources redirected to improve NHS dental access in the first instance. Interestingly, ICBs will report their expenditure against the dental ringfence to NH…

But the underspend is not being used on dentistry—

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State to make a statement regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

A tragedy is unfolding in the middle east. Israel has suffered the worst terror attack in its history, and Palestinian civilians are experiencing a devastating and growing humanitarian crisis. As the Foreign Secretary made clear, last week’s agreement was a crucial step towards providing relief to the families of the h…

Given recent events, it is surprising and regrettable that neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary is making a statement today. The reality is that this conflict has sadly reached another phase, and many more innocent lives will be lost if we do not act now. We urge the Government to continue to push for a…

I am grateful for my counterpart’s constructive tone. We are in agreement: we are pushing for a further pause, which we regard as imperative. The success, as it were, of the last one showed the utility of a pause in terms of the increased flow of humanitarian support, and we continue to strain every sinew in our diplom…

I call the Father of the House.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on legal migration. Migration to this country is far too high and needs to come down. Today, we are taking more robust action than any Government have before in order to bring it down. Since my first day in the Home Office, just three weeks ago, I …

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of the statement. Today’s statement is an admission of years of total failure by this Conservative Government—failure on the immigration system and failure on the economy. It is another example of the total chaos at the heart of this Government. Net migration has trebled sin…

I was waiting for the policy announcement from the Labour party, and sadly I am still waiting. The right hon. Lady talks about skills training. Hers was the party which, in government, dissuaded people from investing in their own skills, telling people that the only good job was a graduate job, undermining apprenticesh…

I am very pleased to welcome about four and a half of the five announcements that my right hon. Friend has made, particularly the crackdown on abuse of the dependants route, which has proved a weakness in the system over recent years, and the increase in the family visa rate. He was told that this will cause apocalypti…

The current one-size-fits-all, top-down approach to data protection that we inherited from the European Union has led to public confusion, which has impeded the effective use of personal data to drive growth and competition, and to support key innovations. The Bill seizes on a post-Brexit opportunity to build on our ex…

I share the hon. Lady’s appreciation of the importance of data adequacy with the European Union. It is not the case that we have to replicate every aspect of GDPR to be assessed as adequate by the European Union for the purposes of data exchange. Indeed, a number of other countries have data adequacy, even though they …

I can guarantee that there is nothing in the Government’s proposals that we believe puts data adequacy at risk. That is not just our view; it is the view of all those we have consulted, including the Information Commissioner. He was previously the information commissioner in New Zealand, which has its own data protecti…

Will the Minister confirm that no services will rely on digital identity checks?

I will come on to that, because we have tabled a few amendments on digital verification and the accreditation of digital identity. We are proposing a voluntary framework. We believe that using digital identity has many advantages, and those will become greater as the technology improves, but there is no compulsory or m…

The Minister says, “We do not wish”. Is that a guarantee from the Dispatch Box that there will be absolutely no deviation that causes a material difference for businesses on EU data adequacy? Can he give that guarantee?

We welcome such measures, but is the Minister aware of the case of Breck Bednar, who was groomed and then murdered? His family is campaigning not just for new clause 35 but for measures that go further. In that case, the coroner would have wanted access to Breck’s online life but, as it currently stands, new clause 35 …

Before I ask the Home Secretary to move the Second Reading, just another little reminder that as well as being here at the beginning to listen to the opening speeches, it is important that those who are participating not only stay in for the majority of the debate but get back in good time for both the Opposition and G…

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Victims of crime must have justice, and lawbreakers must face the consequences of their actions. This Criminal Justice Bill will give the police the powers they need to crack down on criminals and ensure that those who pose the biggest threat to the public are imp…

I thank the Home Secretary for giving way. It is so good to see him in the Chamber now. Could he tell us what the percentage increase has been in knife crime since 2015?

I do not have the figures to hand, but the—

The right hon. Lady has made an intervention. Let me make some progress now—[Interruption.] If she had the answer, she could have just stood up and said it rather than making this rather performative intervention. I will make some progress. We have also taken the fight to the county lines drug gangs and to antisocial b…

I thank the Home Secretary for giving way again; I will not test his patience too much more. However, I should point out that we have been working on this since 2018, when I started this campaign. I have met countless Ministers over the years and not once did nuisance rough sleeping come up as the issue. Nuisance beggi…

Mr Deputy Speaker, since my statement to the House on 18 July , the Government have consulted extensively to secure evidence and ideas on international development that will transform our world. I pay tribute to the team of 15 officials who have worked night and day and most of their weekends for nearly six months on t…

I thank the Minister for his statement, for advance sight of the White Paper, and for our frequent conversations about it since I was appointed to my post. The catastrophe in Gaza is a strong reminder not just of the need for humanitarian assistance and expertise, but of the heavy responsibility that we all face to pla…

I thank the hon. Lady for her co-operation and her kind personal remarks. She will know that, in order to get buy-in from our friends and experts around the world and from the civil service, the White Paper needed to run to 2030. In the unlikely event that my party is not in government after the next election, any othe…

I welcome the White Paper and its focus on using ODA to leverage private sector investment in the way that my right hon. Friend has described. Whether the MENTARI programme for energy transition in Indonesia or the guarantees that the UK provides to the African Development Bank on climate finance, does he agree that it…

My right hon. Friend knows a great deal about this area from his past ministerial posts, and he is absolutely right. The key trick is to secure the status money, whether provided by the multilateral banks or the development finance institutions, and to marry it with the private sector and the $60 trillion of pension fu…

I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected amendment (r) in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) , which will be moved at the start of the debate, and amendment (h) in the name of Stephen Flynn, the Scottish National party leader, and…

I beg to move amendment (r), at the end of the Question to add: “and submit to Your Majesty that this House wishes to see an end to the violence in Israel and Palestine; unequivocally condemn the horrific terrorist attack and murder of civilians by Hamas, call for the immediate release of all hostages and reaffirm Isra…

Eight Justice Secretaries—it has been a struggle to keep count of their changing. We have had eight Home Secretaries in less than eight years and, even worse, two of them were the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) . She was so unsuited for the job of Home Secretary that she was sacked twice: …

The first duty of any Government—its most serious and solemn responsibility—is to keep its people safe. Since 2010, overall levels of crime are down by more than 50%. Domestic burglary is down by 57%, violent crime by 52%, vehicle-related theft by 39%, and the number of young people admitted to hospital following an as…

Let me correct the Secretary of State. He may not recall, but I tabled one of the first amendments on reform to introduce a stalking law. That same amendment was eventually taken up in the other place by the Labour lords, and the Conservative Government agreed to it. I am very glad that they did, but he should not take…

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

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 2—Economic impact assessment for Wales— “Within three months of the passage of this Act, the Minister for the Cabinet Office must lay before Parliament an assessment of the impact of the Act on the economy in Wales.” New clause 3—Assessment of the imp…

I beg the hon. Member’s pardon—Chris Stephens.

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I forgive you for that after your excellent address to the all-party parliamentary group on Cyprus last night; it was an excellent event. I rise to speak to the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) . I indicate now that I …

I commend the hon. Gentleman on the way he is making his comments. Does he agree that it is positively dangerous to do what this Government are doing when we see the huge rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia? Just now, our communities need us in Parliament to be showing a lead and to be united on this, and not to do s…

Whether he has received reports on the potential role of Iran in providing financial and other support for Hamas for terrorist attacks on Israel.

Whether he has received reports on the potential involvement of Iran in providing support for Hamas for terror attacks on Israel.

Hamas is responsible for these appalling terrorist attacks. We know that Iran has been a long-term funder and supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran’s support for these militant groups has a destabilising impact on regional and international security, and we remain ever watchful of its action…

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for that answer. Iran’s fingerprints are all over Hamas’s brutal massacre in Israel. Iran’s blatant arming, funding—worth $100 million a year—and training of terror groups around the region is no secret. Hamas’s leaders have even publicly lavished praise on Iran and the Islamic Re…

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s assessment of Iran’s malign influence. The Government and the FCDO are well aware of this, and I can assure him that we have been clear-eyed throughout the work we do with regard to Iran and its influence in the region. We will remain ever watchful. I am sure that no reset is re…

Mr Speaker, last week I visited the middle east, bringing a message of solidarity with the region against terror and against the further spread of conflict. I met with the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority to co-ordinate our response to the crisis before us, but also to renew t…

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Prime Minister for the advance copy of his statement. The brutal attack in Israel just over two weeks ago was the darkest day in Jewish history since the holocaust—two weeks of grief for the innocent people who lost brothers, sisters, children; two weeks of torture for the familie…

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his constructive comments and his support. Just to recap, on humanitarian aid, by announcing an additional £20 million today, we will be doubling our aid to the region, where we are already one of the leading contributors of any country in the world. The Development Minister, my…

Did my right hon. Friend get any impression from his discussions with Arab leaders that they understood the purpose of Hamas terrorism to derail their efforts to find a better way of living in the middle east? Was he satisfied that they were sufficiently aware of the benefit that Russia hopes to derive from all this an…

The attacks in Israel last weekend shocked the world. Over 1,400 people murdered one by one; over 3,500 wounded; almost 200 taken hostage; the elderly, men, women, children and babes in arms murdered, mutilated, burned alive. We should call it by its name: it was a pogrom. The families of some of the missing are in the…

I thank the Prime Minister for the advance copy of his statement and for the updates the Government have provided to Labour Front Benchers over the past few days. Last Saturday, Israel was the victim of terrorism on an unimaginable scale: the senseless murder of men, women, children and even babies; the horrors of host…

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his remarks. Let me say at the outset that this is an unprecedented and extraordinarily difficult situation. It is likely to remain difficult for all of us in the days and weeks ahead, but we must always have at the forefront of our mind that responsibility for this crisis lies …

I call the Father of the House.

The House will be grateful to both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for the lead that they have given in today’s statement. This is not the time to point out the faults of Benjamin Netanyahu. What we have to say is that the inexcusable terror attack on Israelis was intended to bring awful harm to the…

I beg to move, That the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2023, which was laid before this House on 6 September , be approved. Before getting into the detail of the order, I take this opportunity to apologise to the House and to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the fact that news of my de…

The decision has not been taken in isolation; it builds on a strong response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and Wagner’s wider destabilising activity, including extensive sanctions. Decisions on whether and when to proscribe a particular organisation are taken after extensive consideration and in the light of a full…

Before we proceed, I must now announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the draft Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023. The Ayes were 434 and the Noes were 10, so the Ayes have it. [The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

I thank the Home Secretary for her remarks. I wish to begin by paying tribute to the exceptional men and women who serve in our intelligence and security services, in Government and in our police, as they all work tirelessly to keep our country safe. Two days on from the anniversary of 9/11, I also wish to remember the…

I completely support my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary in proscribing Wagner Group. As she said, they are instrumental in Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine. They are almost certainly complicit in war crimes of the sort that we have seen described throughout this horrific conflict, and it…

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Naturally, I and the Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s decision to proscribe Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organisation, but I hope the Home Secretary hears some of the frustration about how long it has taken. When President Zelensky first addressed the House of Commons on…

I agree with everything that the Home Secretary has said. We are taking a lead, and that is brilliant. Has she had specific conversations on this matter with her counterparts and also with the EU? The EU can also proscribe and designate Wagner as a terrorist organisation, which itself has financial implications. Will s…

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions that there will be laid before this House by 13 September 2023 the following papers – (a) submissions from the Department for Education to HM Treasury related to the spending reviews in 2020 and 2021…

Order. She is not giving way. Perhaps she will give way later.

We would remember the lesson from the pandemic that every school day matters. We would be ensuring the continuity of education for every child in school. We would be ensuring in-person learning for all our children. We would be doing that right now, and we would not be looking for plaudits, blaming others, or demanding…

Is it not always the case that when the Conservatives are in power, our schools crumble? In 1997 one in five schools were inadequate and needed to be rebuilt by a Labour Government. Because the Conservatives slashed the rebuilding programme, under this Government we are in the same dire situation again, and the only pa…

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Like him, I remember the transformation that that Labour Government delivered. I will come to that in more detail during the debate.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the steps that my Department is taking to support education settings to respond to the risk of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, commonly known as RAAC. Before I go into specifics, I want to be clear that absolutely nothing is more impo…

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. I will turn in a moment to the sorry story of how we got here, but let me first ask the House to reflect on two things. First, the safety of children and staff in schools today should be our highest priority, and while the voices of children are rarely …

I thank the hon. Lady, and of course that is me, but what matters is what you do. When I was given new information and had to consider the impact that this would have on our schools and children, I took action even though it was politically difficult. Yesterday, when the hon. Lady was asked about Wales and RAAC, she wa…

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think I answered the hon. Lady’s question. The information will be published this week. Everything will be fully funded: the mitigation, any revenue that is required on a case-by-case basis, and also the rebuilding of the schools. When it comes to doing a good job, I make no apologies…

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to put the safety of children first and to take a cautious approach, but I know from speaking to headteachers in my constituency that her Department has been speaking to schools about RAAC and how to mitigate it not just for weeks or months, but for years. One of my schools, in …

I beg to move amendment (a) to Lords amendment 23.

With this it will be convenient to discuss: Lords amendment 151, and Government amendment (a). Lords amendment 153, and Government amendments (a) to (c). Lords amendments 115 and 117, and Government motions to disagree. Lords amendment 159, and Government motion to disagree. Lords amendment 161, Government motion to di…

It is a pleasure to bring this Bill back to the House. It is crucial in ensuring that we can bear down on kleptocrats, criminals and terrorists who abuse our open economy, while also strengthening the UK’s reputation as a place where legitimate business can thrive. I am pleased to say that the Bill is now in a better p…

I will speak in detail to the various amendments, including the non-Government amendments, one of which is on the threshold that the hon. Lady refers to. If I may, I will defer addressing that until later in my remarks. The Government have also introduced reforms to the identification doctrine for economic crimes to ma…

May I thank the Minister? He always brings his points of view to the Chamber with clarity and helpfulness, and that is appreciated by everyone, including me. We as a party are of a mind to support the Government on this Bill tonight. I want to ask a question that is probably very specific. It relates to Northern Irelan…

As the Foreign Secretary set out on Monday in response to this latest egregious action in Hong Kong, we will not tolerate any attempts by the Chinese authorities to intimidate individuals in the UK. The UK will always defend the universal right to freedom of expression and stand up for those who are targeted simply for…

I know the House will understand that as a matter of long-standing policy, we do not comment on the detail of operational matters. I hope colleagues will understand the risk of compromising the integrity of security arrangements for those who are here in the UK. As I say, we will continue to afford them the opportunity…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

The bounties placed on the heads of those fleeing Chinese Communist party repression and autocracy are not just outrageous but a blatant violation of international law. They also expose the lies of Xi Jinping when he says that he is respecting freedoms within Hong Kong. We must take a stand against transnational repres…

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee that these bounties are extraterritorial and therefore have no rights or legitimacy here. As I have stated, we must always protect and allow the voices of those here with us to maintain that freedom of expression. We speak regularl…

Finn Lau, Christopher Mung and Nathan Law are three incredibly brave individuals who stood up for democratic values while the Chinese Communist party rode roughshod over them in Hong Kong. They sought refuge in the UK because they thought they would be safe. Chillingly, Beijing is trying to do all it can to interfere i…

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

The business for the week commencing 10 July will include: Monday 10 July —Debate on the first special report of the Committee of Privileges, followed by remaining stages of the Electronic Trade Documents Bill [Lords], followed by Second Reading of the Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill. Tuesday 11 July —Consideratio…

I call the shadow Leader of the House.

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I would like to address the Standards Committee report published this morning on the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) . I am shocked and saddened at its findings and my thoughts—and, I hope, the thoughts of the whole House—are with the vi…

May I start by saying how delighted I was to attend yesterday’s service of thanksgiving and dedication for His Majesty King Charles III at St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh. I thank all involved in what was a magnificent day. I add my voice to the many tributes that have been paid this week to all those who work in and al…

I beg to move, That this House has considered building safety and social housing. Six years on from the night of 14 June 2017 , we remember all those affected by the fire at Grenfell Tower. Six years on, 72 months on, 72 lives lost, and thousands more—bereaved families and residents in the north Kensington community—wh…

As the Secretary of State has said, it is now six years since the Grenfell fire, but new data gathered by Inside Housing shows that only a fraction of high-rise social housing blocks—fewer than one in five—have been retrofitted with sprinklers or fire alarms. A lack of funding is a key reason for that, so can the Gover…

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that. I know he has a lifelong interest in social housing and cares very deeply about the fates of tenants in those conditions. I would never say that we have done everything that we should. I do believe that significant progress has been made, not least in remediati…

I absolutely would never do anything to undermine the position of the Building Safety Regulator. Indeed, I have been working with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Health and Safety Executive to make sure that we have the right team in place, the right person as regulator and the right powers f…

The Secretary of State talks about the remediation of buildings. He knows the interest of a company in Glasgow South West that does great work in removing cladding and so on, but it has come across stumbling blocks with insurance companies and insurance premiums. Could he say a bit about the discussions he has had with…

With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the threat that Iran poses to the United Kingdom and the actions that His Majesty’s Government are taking to counter it. Since protests began in Iran in September last year, the Iranian regime has dramatically increased its attempts to silence dissent, whic…

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving me advance sight and notice of his statement. In the last year, the charge sheet against the Government of Iran has grown and grown. They have funded violent militias across the middle east. They have supplied drones to Russia that menace Ukraine’s cities, kill civilian…

I echo the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about the Iranian people. I have said it before, but I will say it again: our quarrel is not with them. As he says, Iran is a country with a huge and fabulous history, and a sophisticated people, but, sadly, they are being let down badly by those in positions of leadership. Th…

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I welcome this new geographically autonomous sanctions regime, which is an important step in demonstrating that defence is not an escalation and we will be strong at home. I also welcome the referral yesterday of Iran to the International Court of Justice as a result of the shooting down of the Ukrainian aircraft in 20…

I beg to move, That this House supports the work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association; asks for parliamentary time at the earliest opportunity to change the status of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association from a UK charity to an international inter-parliamentary organisation; and calls on the Government t…

Yes. Many Members here today will have known the value of meeting incoming delegations and being part of outward delegations. It gives us, as parliamentarians, an understanding of the world in which we are operating, in the same way that other organisations do, including the Inter-Parliamentary Union—we are pleased to …

I will call the Front-Bench spokespeople at the end of the debate.

I am sorry to tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I have been an abject failure, but it is okay because it is not I who is going to be blamed. Sadly, it is going to be the Minister and the Secretary of State, and it is going to be on their watch that CPA International has to leave London. Even back in 2006, when I visite…

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) on securing his debate. I want to make three specific points regarding the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association: first, the governance arrangements; secondly, the role of inter-parliamentary organisations; and, finally, the work that t…

I beg to move, That this House condemns Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine; stands in solidarity with Ukrainians in their resistance to Russia’s invasion of their sovereign state; recognises the enormous damage that Russia’s invasion has caused to Ukraine’s infrastructure, economy and institutions; commends the recen…

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful point. I sympathise with what he is saying, but I am also if not concerned then questioning about some of his calls. The way I hear it is that he is calling for reparations. After the first world war, huge reparations were put on Germany and we know where that ended up…

This is a debate about repurposing. The hon. Gentleman might remember that after the first Gulf war, oil revenues were used to rebuild much of Kuwait. That is the central point that this debate is about. There is a consensus globally on the issue, with the Canadians, the United Nations and US Senators making progress i…

I am grateful to the Opposition for selecting this subject for debate. I cannot be here to make a full contribution, but I just want to ask the right hon. Gentleman a simple question. During a recent debate in this place, we pretty much came to a consensus that the first stage is to look to repurpose the frozen assets:…

The right hon. Gentleman is right. He is right about the football team we both support—it is not the only thing he is right about, but he is right about that—and he is right that more than $300 billion of Russian state assets have been frozen by our global partners, with £25 billion here in the UK. The central point is…

I inform the House that I have selected amendment (a), which is in the name of the Prime Minister.

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. As the only veterinary surgeon in the Commons, I am passionate about all aspects of animal health and welfare, and I seek your advice. The Opposition motion that we are about to debate seeks to take control of the Order Paper and timetable a Bill, the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals…

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving notice of his point of order. The motion seeks to take control of the Order Paper on 12 July , so that the House can consider a Bill on animal welfare on that date. If the motion succeeds, the content of that Bill could then be scrutinised on that date, according to the ti…

I beg to move, That— (1) On Wednesday 12 July 2023 : (a) Standing Order No. 14(1) (which provides that government business shall have precedence at every sitting save as provided in that order) shall not apply; (b) any proceedings governed by this order may be proceeded with until any hour, though opposed, and shall no…

I thank my hon. Friend for outlining so many successes of a Labour Government and commend him for reintroducing the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill today. Does he agree that, if Government MPs try to vote down the motion, they will be voting to continue puppy smuggling, puppy farming, pet theft and live animal expor…

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

I beg to move, That this House notes with concern the scale of the mental health crisis facing the country with patients suffering with mental health issues waiting more than 5.4 million hours in accident and emergency last year; further notes with concern the mental health crisis facing young people with nearly 400,00…

I am very pleased with the way my hon. Friend has started her speech, because she is absolutely right. Alongside the additional healthcare staff needed and the many measures that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and I have been spelling out for the health service, the society that has been cre…

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he is right. I will talk about the need for mental health not to exist in a silo later in my remarks. Frankly, it is the problem of every single Government Department. One in four people experiences a problem with their mental health each year in England. One in six people e…

The shadow Minister makes an accurate assessment of the size of the mental health crisis facing our nation, but her words would have more resonance if she and her party had not voted in lockstep with the Government for the disastrous lockdowns that damaged mental health, especially that of our young people. Will she ap…

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. The Bill seeks to address a technical legal issue identified by the Home Office with a long-standing policy that operated from 1983 until the early 2000s under successive Governments of both parties, relating to the criteria for determining whether European econom…

I strongly agree with the hon. Lady. The Home Office would argue that her constituent has always been British and should be considered so, but there has been a degree of legal doubt following the recent case, so it was right that we brought forward this legislation at the earliest opportunity and that it is retrospecti…

I warmly welcome this piece of legislation. I have a constituent whose son falls into this category and it was frankly alarming for him to be told that his citizenship was in jeopardy. It is really good that the Government have acted so swiftly and I urge everyone in the House to support this legislation. I hope that w…

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. She has raised the case to which she referred with me to represent her constituent. As she says, being a citizen of this country is an important and special status, and nobody should be in doubt about whether that is truly legally sound. The Bill puts that beyond doubt, and I am p…

Hopefully the Bill will proceed with support from both sides. On a directly related matter, the Minister will be aware that there are thousands of citizens across the United Kingdom, many of them in Northern Ireland, who were born a few miles across the border in the Irish Republic after 1948 but who are currently not …

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the changes to the student visa route.

Net migration is too high, and the Government are committed to bringing it down to sustainable levels. The most recent official statistics estimated that net migration in the year to June 2022 was at 504,000. This is partly due to temporary and exceptional factors such as the UK’s Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes. Last ye…

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and while I thank the Minister for his response, it is disappointing that the Home Secretary is not here, and that we have had to ask an urgent question rather than a statement being made to the House. International students make an invaluable contribution to ou…

No, we will not devolve immigration policy to the Scottish Government: it is right that the UK benefits from one immigration policy and that is the way it will always continue to be under this Conservative Government. I am afraid that the hon. Lady was misguided on a number of fronts. First, it was this Government who …

When we invite people to our country, it is important that there is good provision of housing, school places and healthcare, but there are huge stresses on the system. Can the Minister give the House some guidance on how much the capital and revenue set-up cost is for a migrant family coming in? When we were in the EU …