Commons
Proceedings
21 October 2025
Points of Order
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Oliver Colvile was loved by Members from across this House. As it will soon be the 175th anniversary dinner of the Lords and Commons cricket team, it is worth remembering one of the most famous wickets ever taken, when Oliver Colvile bowled and took that w…
Commons
Oral Questions
21 October 2025
Hospital to Community Care
Ironically, getting care out of hospitals and into the community very much depends on a functioning hospital. Last month, I met the group chief executive officer of Hull University teaching hospitals NHS trust, following news that it had been placed in segment 4 of the NHS acute trust league table. …
Commons
Debate
20 October 2025
18 contributions
Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill
My right hon. Friend has highlighted the Prime Minister misleading—perhaps I have to say inadvertently misleading —us about the cost of this, when the Government Actuary’s Department has shown that it is £35 billion. More than that, he was suggesting in his press conference that China, Russia and ot…
I bow to you, Ms Nokes. Having misrepresented—I think I am allowed to say that—
+16 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
20 October 2025
3 contributions
Alleged Spying Case: Home Office Involvement
I think the reason we are gathered here today—although I cannot see into your mind, Mr Speaker—is because of the story in The Sunday Times. That is why the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), asked this: when did the Home Secretary hear that the ca…
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Education
20 October 2025
Childcare: Affordability
The Minister is new to the Dispatch Box, so perhaps we can forgive her for suggesting that the Conservatives cut the number of family hubs, since we invented them. Focusing on the issue of cost and moving away from primary schools, private providers are finding that the jobs tax and other hits are m…
Commons
Proceedings
16 October 2025
2 contributions
Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements
The CPS has independence from Ministers; civil servants do not. The whole point of our constitution is that civil servants can never be thrown under the bus because Ministers are responsible. They own everything the civil servants do. There is no carve-out because someone has this high title of bein…
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have taken a close interest in this issue, Mr Speaker—the fact that it goes to the heart of this Parliament on the protection of Members of Parliament and the secrets that we sometimes hold. I am sure that you will share my concern that someone on their very firs…
Commons
Oral Questions
16 October 2025
Topical Questions
T2. As a committed if rather untalented member of the Lords and Commons tennis team, I am aware that the vagaries of British weather make participation difficult, particularly in autumn and winter. Will the Secretary of State allow any of the £400 million for grassroots sport to be used to create mo…
Commons
Oral Questions
13 October 2025
Homelessness
Reducing youth homelessness relies on having an effective, working housing market. Of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) understands that, and that is why she has pledged that a future Conservative Government will abolish stamp duty on primary residences. She…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
8 September 2025
2 contributions
Topical Questions
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
When I meet veterans across Beverley and Holderness, particularly at Withernsea or Beverley veterans breakfast clubs, the No. 1 issue they raise with me is homelessness among veterans—an issue that the Minister for Veterans and People will recognise. They ask what more we can do, and I share that qu…
Commons
Debate
3 September 2025
2 contributions
Hospitality Sector
My hon. Friend might have been like me: the first job I ever had was as a porter, and then a barman, at the Crown and Mitre hotel in Carlisle. These are opportunities for people who are coming into the labour market for the first time or trying to get back into the labour market. The hospitality sec…
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you have any advice for those in the hospitality industry listening to the Minister, who is so afraid to deal with the issue at hand that he has to resort to this ad hominem attack on our Front-Bench colleague.
Commons
Debate
3 September 2025
Property Taxes
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment. In the Labour manifesto on which he will remember he stood along with his colleagues, it was suggested that there would be tax rises under a Labour Government. I think the figure was £7 billion. In the event, £40 billion-worth of rises came forwa…
Commons
Proceedings
3 September 2025
Property Taxes
My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the massive impact of these tax rises on so many families and businesses up and down the country. Will he comment on how we can have a Deputy Prime Minister who has admitted avoiding paying the tax that she owed and who continues in office? And this, from a…
Commons
Proceedings
22 July 2025
Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery
I thank the Minister for his briefing yesterday, but there is a pattern developing, is there not? Some 800 jobs were created every single day in the 14 years of the Conservative Government, but unemployment has gone up every single day under this Labour Government. Some 400-plus jobs have been lost …
Commons
Oral Questions
22 July 2025
2 contributions
Urgent Eyecare: East Yorkshire
6. What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of urgent eyecare in east Yorkshire.
Would it were so. My constituent Scott Young, a 34-year-old father-to-be from Beverley, was left permanently blind in one eye after NHS failures, including a two-month delay to urgent surgery following a diabetic haemorrhage, which the trust now blames on admin mistakes. When the same issue threaten…
Commons
Oral Questions
21 July 2025
Mental Health Support in Schools
Great leadership is critical to supporting children to have a healthy mental condition. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Leon Myers, the headteacher of Swinemoor primary school, on the twice-repeated outstanding rating for that school, on his focus on the traditional values of endeavour, …
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
16 July 2025
2 contributions
Engagements
Q8. I begin by warmly congratulating the Prime Minister on his first year in office. I acknowledge that the Labour manifesto was beautifully written, deeply moving and, like that other great blockbuster of hope and redemption, “The Salt Path”, a total pack of lies. With joblessness, inflation and de…
Could the Prime Minister recommend a summer recess read, in order to take all our minds off the calamitous journey on which he and the Chancellor have embarked?
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
9 contributions
Taxes
Amid the shadow Chancellor’s quite correct exposition on the subject of where the Government have gone wrong, does he not have a little pity for the Ministers on the Government Front Bench? After last week, it is quite clear that they are no longer responsible for the running of the Government, as t…
The Chief Secretary said the name of the game is to get the maximum number of seats. I gently suggest to him that that is not the name of the game; the name of the game is to serve the British people and honour the promises we make to them. [ Interruption. ] He thinks that is amusing. If he wants to…
+7 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
7 contributions
Welfare Spending
Will the Minister give way?
The Minister and Labour Members are in absolute denial about the state of the country. The Government came in with growth as their No. 1 mission, and what have they done? They have brought growth to an absolute, shuddering halt. They have done what every Labour Government do, which is to increase un…
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
15 July 2025
2 contributions
Topical Questions
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
Evidence from the National Grid, Ofgem and Imperial College London shows that locational or zonal pricing would save billions of pounds a year, lower bills and reduce the need for expensive and often unpopular grid infrastructure. Why has the Secretary of State ruled it out?
Commons
Oral Questions
15 July 2025
Net Zero Policies
Around Beverley, there are proposals for five solar farms, totalling 465 MW. Can the Minister assure my constituents that the scientific evidence that will be used to assess this will include the cumulative impact of these projects on the area around Beverley?
Commons
Westminster Hall
14 July 2025
Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution
Surely the hon. Lady has come to the crux of the point, which is that no Minister has so far been able to give us that reassurance. She sincerely states her desire not to see veterans subject to lawfare, but they have not had that reassurance. Whatever the inadequacies of the current legislation, it…
Commons
Debate
9 July 2025
17 contributions
Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate.
The Bill is being rushed through by a Labour Government desperate to paper over the cracks in an economy that they themselves have brought to a shuddering halt. So many of the questions that are coming before the House at the moment are the result of th…
As we in this Chamber know, the next wave that comes along and buffets this Labour Government from the left comes all too often from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), to whom I am happy to give way.
+15 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
9 July 2025
2 contributions
Trial by Jury: Proposed Restrictions
That is not in order.
I thank Sir Brian Leveson for his work and applaud all efforts to speed up the system, but what reassurance can the Minister give my constituents, who will see a reduction in access to jury trial as the beginning of a slippery edge leading to an ever greater erosion of one of the fundamental liberti…
Commons
Oral Questions
8 July 2025
Prison Capacity
In the light of the pressure on prison places, what assessment has the Minister made of the Government’s early release scheme, under which nearly a quarter of those released reoffended again within just one year? Does he believe that the criteria used to determine eligibility were fit for purpose, a…