Commons
Ministerial Statement
18 November 2025
China Espionage: Government Security Response
This is a welcome statement from the Security Minister, whom I hold in high regard, as does the House. He will be familiar with the report on China produced by the ISC—of which I was and remain a member—which dealt with exactly the matters that he has described: the widespread penetration of our uni…
Commons
Westminster Hall
12 November 2025
9 contributions
Carbon Budget Delivery Plan
Order. I see that quite a lot of people want to speak. I will not set a time limit, but if you can be disciplined in how long your contributions last, that would be very helpful.
Order. There is a Division in the House. We will suspend for 15 minutes, and when we return Ellie will draw her speech to its conclusion reasonably speedily.
+7 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
12 November 2025
2 contributions
Public Bodies: Governance and Accountability
I will call Valerie Vaz to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. Other Members may intervene only with the permission of the Member in charge. As is the convention with these half-hour debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
I probably ought not to say so, Valerie, but that is music to my ears.
Commons
Westminster Hall
12 November 2025
6 contributions
SEND Provision: Kent
I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions should be short—but I am a kind and generous Chairman.
I call Neil Duncan Jordan.
+4 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
29 October 2025
4 contributions
Sentencing Bill
As we return to consideration of this dreadful Bill, we debate amendments and new clauses that are designed to mitigate its worst effects, in particular new clauses 43, 21, 18, 19 and 20, which I have signed, and new clause 1.
It is early in my speech, but such is my regard for my right hon. Friend that I will.
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
28 October 2025
China Spying Case
It is true that the Government have repeatedly expressed disappointment, but—still more disturbingly, in a sense—so has MI5. It is quite unusual for MI5 to intervene, by means of a speech by its head which made it very clear that MI5 was profoundly disappointed that this matter had not gone to court…
Commons
Debate
21 October 2025
20 contributions
Sentencing Bill
We hear a lot about rehabilitation from Labour Members, and we hear a lot about recidivism. The most likely spur for recidivism is letting people out who will continue to do harm. We will be told by the Government that those people are being let out on licence, so will my right hon. Friend invite th…
The hon. Gentleman is indicating his diligence—as though any evidence of that were required—in tabling these technical but important amendments. However, will he deal with the fundamental issue? As he has just said, the Criminal Justice Act 2003—from memory, section 250—allows criminals who are rele…
+18 more contributions in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
20 October 2025
2 contributions
Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation
We now move to the wind-ups. We have plenty of time, not that that is an invitation for speeches of an undue length. Members should keep it poignant but pithy. In that spirit, I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman, Will Forster.
I call the Minister, and ask him to allow a moment or two for the mover to sum up at the end.
Commons
Proceedings
16 October 2025
Business of the House
This is the first time I have seen the Leader of the House at the Dispatch Box in his new role, and I welcome him. He mentioned religious freedom. That freedom must not be allowed to conceal the malevolence of Sharia courts, which operate in places across our constituencies—there are around 85. Inde…
Commons
Debate
13 October 2025
Digital ID
If it were not so sinister, it would be quaint to hear the Secretary of State say that it is international, novel and modern, and therefore it must be good. Try telling that to Jaguar Land Rover workers, M&S customers, or postmasters and postmistresses. Will the right hon. Lady recognise what I …
Commons
Debate
16 September 2025
3 contributions
Sentencing Bill
The truth that dare not speak its name, at least on the other side of the Chamber, is that the public know what many on this side know too: that many more people should be imprisoned for much, much longer. Successive Governments have failed to grasp that nettle, because they have given in to what th…
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way; he is always courteous in the Chamber. Let us be clear: is the Bill a result of too few prison places —I acknowledge, by the way, that successive Governments have built too few prisons—or is it driven by a certain ideology? Is it about rehabilitation,…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Westminster Hall
16 September 2025
2 contributions
Significant Energy Infrastructure Projects: Suffolk Coast
I will call Jenny Riddell-Carpenter to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. Other Members should be aware that they can contribute only with the prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. Sadly, there will not be an opportunity for the Member i…
I call the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State—no, I am underselling him. I call the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Commons
Westminster Hall
16 September 2025
8 contributions
International Day of Democracy
I remind Members that they need to bob to catch my eye—I can see they are already doing that. Let us try to get everyone in by limiting the length of speeches. I will not set a limit; I will leave that to Members’ discretion. I call Liz Saville Roberts.
I am going to call people for the wind-ups just before 10.30 am. You can see what time it is, so let us try to get everyone in—be powerful and pithy, please.
+6 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
9 September 2025
8 contributions
Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
I am extremely grateful to the former Attorney General for giving way. He is right to say that the matter could have been—and still could be, as I think he will also want to confirm—brought to our Committee. If, even at this late juncture, an overture were made to our Committee—clearly, it would hav…
+6 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
4 September 2025
8 contributions
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
The hon. Gentleman’s case, in essence, is that the only form of legitimacy in the exercise of power is democratic legitimacy, but that does not square with the exercise of power in all kinds of other ways, does it? We do not elect our judges—some countries do, but we do not. We do not elect all kind…
The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. I am inclined to agree with him about the appointment of life peers who do not sit. I do not know the view of Members on the Government Front Bench on that, but the hon. Gentleman makes a good and valid argument. If people do not attend, it is sens…
+6 more contributions in this session
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
3 September 2025
Engagements
Q14. Mr Speaker, I know you will agree that flags and banners, in bringing national pride, nourish individuals’ sense of worth and nurture our shared sense of belonging. Will the Prime Minister take steps to ensure that across every part of our kingdom, alongside the crosses of St George in England,…
Commons
Statutory Instrument
2 September 2025
Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Qualifying Worldwide Revenue) Regulations 2025
I know that the purpose of these regulations is to clarify and provide for the definition of revenue in accordance with the original legislation. I simply say to the Minister that this is a helpful further step, building on the progress that my hon. Friend the shadow Minister has described. It is vi…
Commons
Proceedings
22 July 2025
Points of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will know that long ago—indeed, before we were born—tens of thousands of young men were sent to a far off place to witness the first British nuclear tests. Ever since, some of us have been campaigning for their interests. Earlier this year, the Governme…
Commons
Westminster Hall
22 July 2025
2 contributions
UK Internal Market
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Is not the real problem, as identified by the FSB and articulated by the right hon. Gentleman, that there is an unholy alliance of Eurocrats and bureaucrats, of separatists and globalist corporates, who are acting in a way that is inju…
My hon. Friend, with typical generosity, says that we are all trying to get this right. I established that that is largely true, with the possible exception of the EU itself. There are those in the European Union, stung by the wise decision of the British people to leave that awful body, who have ne…
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
Taxes
There are two fundamental macroeconomic problems facing this country. One is productivity, and the second is mass immigration, which has displaced investment in domestic skills. The Budget did nothing about those, and yet the tax system could be used to address both.
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
5 contributions
Welfare Spending
I am proud to be a member of the party of Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and Disraeli, who all understood that it is essential to free people from need, and that in that effort the state can be a force for good. But in freeing people from need we should not limit them to a life of dependency. It is entire…
rose—
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
14 July 2025
UK-France Migration: Co-operation
This is about principle and practice. The principle is that every country has the right and indeed the duty to secure its borders, and in practice ours have become porous. I agree with the Home Secretary that global instability continues to drive illegal migration, I agree with her that we need co-o…
Commons
Proceedings
10 July 2025
2 contributions
Educational Attainment of Boys
I had not intended to contribute to this debate, but the hon. Gentleman has provoked me to do so by the character of his insight. It is brave and right of him to deconstruct the nonsense about toxic masculinity, and to emphasise that white working-class boys, of the kind that are prevalent in his co…
I will praise the hon. Gentleman again. He is absolutely right about really valuing practical learning. I come from a similar background to him; I was not clever enough to be practical, so I had to become an academic. Re-establishing the idea that vocational, practical accomplishment has at least eq…
Commons
Proceedings
10 July 2025
Points of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will not know this, but I have learned that independent experts have advised that Lincolnshire police are now at real risk of having to issue a section 114 notice—the equivalent of a public body declaring that it can no longer balance its budget. It com…