Commons
Debate
16 April 2026
4 contributions
Modernisation Committee Report: Access to the House of Commons
I thank the Leader of the House for his remarks, and fully echo both their detail and their sentiment. As he says, accessibility should never be an afterthought. In the case of the House of Commons, there is not just the common decency that goes with trying to support anyone with a disability or ano…
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am afraid you may have been slightly misled by your officials. The report mentions restoration and renewal, and specifically refers to it as something that the Committee was invited to look forward to. Therefore, it is not inappropriate to mention it.
The specific…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
16 April 2026
3 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
As the House will know, this has been a week of sporting triumph. I think of the Lionesses’ 1-0 world cup qualifier against the world champions, Italy—or former world champions, I should say—and Rory McIlroy defending his Masters title, which was another great moment. Whether or not we play, watch, …
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Debate
19 March 2026
3 contributions
Pre-1997 Pensions: Discretionary Increases
I congratulate the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on his excellent speech and on securing this debate, and all those who have participated in it. I thank the Minister for allowing me a few words.
On your behalf, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will mention your constituent Steve Mawby, becaus…
I will not detain the Minister long. If a group of trustees never pays a discretionary bonus, even though the scheme is in surplus, it starts to look like it is a policy of theirs to discriminate against a subset of their beneficiaries, and I think that is illegal. I would be grateful for his guidan…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
19 March 2026
3 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
Let me begin by paying tribute to President Zelensky. Thanks to you, Mr Speaker, he gave an extraordinary speech here this week. Like Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles”, it was a speech of poetry and hope, but also of steel. He showed that Ukraine, far from being bowed by Russia, is now sharing its ex…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
12 March 2026
3 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
Mr Speaker, let me start by associating myself with your remarks just now from the Chair. It is plain to all Members of the House that the Government Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip have badly mis-stepped. Indeed, there has been scant respect for the House more generally from the Government Whips O…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Proceedings
5 March 2026
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I will, if I may, start by adding my very warm thanks to, and recognition of, our magnificent Clerk, Tom Goldsmith. Mr Speaker has already been indelicate enough to mention Tom’s extraordinary skill at the jazz piano, but as someone who eats very much at the opposite end of the jazz food chain, may …
Commons
Proceedings
12 February 2026
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
On behalf of all Members, I thank the Leader of the House for giving us those recess dates, which will be widely welcomed.
Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the greatest of all United States Presidents, so perhaps this is a fitting moment to talk a little bit about public service. I…
Commons
Oral Questions
5 February 2026
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I do not think that this is a moment for normal business. I am sure that you, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House and all Members, will join me in taking this moment to remember the victims of Jeffrey Epstein: the young women and girls who were systematically trafficked and abused by him and his…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
29 January 2026
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House very much for the business.
As the House will know, this is the week of Holocaust Memorial Day, and I am delighted that we will be debating it in this Chamber later today. I am sure colleagues will have visited the extraordinary exhibition of shoes in Portcullis Hous…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
22 January 2026
5 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House for that update.
The House will know that I am obsessive about improving education, skills and life opportunities for young people; I know that the Leader of the House, with his own background, shares that passion. I cannot let this week pass without noting that on T…
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
15 January 2026
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House for the clarity he has given us on the business of the House, and in particular for the rescheduling of the Diego Garcia Bill immediately after it was going to be debated, following the changes made to the Hillsborough law.
I know the whole House will want to join me…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
13 January 2026
Business of the House
I thank the Leader of the House for his statement and for advance notice of it, but I think it should be noted by the House that this—I am sure he would agree—is a bit of a mess. The Public Office (Accountability) Bill was in Committee in December, and amendments should have been filed by the Govern…
Commons
Proceedings
11 December 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
A key theme of business questions has been the need for the Government and, indeed, the whole country to be resolute in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine. In that context, I know the whole House will want to join me again in expressing our profound sorrow for the death of Lance Corporal Geor…
Commons
Proceedings
4 December 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
If I may, I would like to express my personal sorrow at the death of Sir John Stanley this week. The House may not know that he was the first person to reach and to comfort the dying Airey Neave, after Neave had been the victim of a bomb from the Irish National Liberation Army, a spin-off of the IRA…
Commons
Proceedings
27 November 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I am sure colleagues across the House will want to join me in wishing a very happy Lancashire Day to Lancastrians everywhere, and perhaps most especially to the only Lancastrian Speaker of the 158 people to have held that office—there will have to be three more before it reaches the number of Herefo…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
20 November 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
May I start by recording my thanks to the Leader of the House for agreeing to the request to have the Ukraine debate on 4 December? I think we all feel warmly about that decision.
Politics at the present moment may not be enormously pretty, but it has been a week of triumph in the sporting world. W…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
13 November 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I am sure I speak for many Members when I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the whole of the Speaker’s Office for the work you have put in to make this past week of remembrance so memorable. The gardens of remembrance, the projection of images from the second world war on to the Elizabeth Tower, the wreath…
Commons
Proceedings
30 October 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House for that update.
I know the whole House will want to join me in sending our very best wishes to the victims of the hurricane in Jamaica, and now also Cuba, Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
I want to pay a personal tribute to Prunella Scales, who died this wee…
Commons
Proceedings
23 October 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
In addition to the tributes that were paid earlier this week, I believe I will be speaking for all Members in mourning the death on Monday of our former colleague Oliver Colvile. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Oliver entered the House with me in that glorious parliamentary generation of 2010. He was …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
11 September 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the new Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House for the business.
On this 24th anniversary of 9/11, I know the whole House will want to join me and, I am sure, the Leader of the House in sending our best wishes to the families and the friends of the victims of those horrendous terrorist attacks.
So, too, our best…
Commons
Proceedings
4 September 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give the forthcoming business?
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope you and everyone in this Chamber had a very good summer break, with just the right proportions of sun, sleep and family.
If I may, let me start with a double round of congratulations: first, to the Prime Minister on his 63rd birthday this week, putting him sq…
Commons
Proceedings
17 July 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?
I doubt if the Leader of the House has ever given a more popular statement to the House of Commons. More seriously, this is a welcome development as it will give guidance to colleagues and their families, and I am sure it will be widely welcomed across the House, so I thank her for that.
I understa…
Commons
Debate
16 July 2025
Standards
I thank the Leader of the House for those words. I would like, in supporting the motion, to add one small cautionary note. It has been relayed to me, both by constituency staff and by other bodies, particularly the trade unions, that there is a concern that it might be possible to connect the names …
Commons
Westminster Hall
14 July 2025
4 contributions
Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution
Will the hon. Lady give way?
The hon. Lady has made an eloquent case for how defective the legislation was. Why did the Government not oppose sections 46 and 47 when they were in opposition? Does she think that they were wrong not to oppose them? She evidently thinks that the legislation was faulty, so why did her own party sup…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
10 July 2025
2 contributions
Business of the House
Will the Leader of the House give the House the forthcoming business?
I am not going to let this moment pass—I am sure no colleague would wish me to—without again reminding everyone present that this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings. On 7 July 2005, 52 people were killed in four separate attacks and 700 more were injured, many of them grievously. I …