Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. Unfortunately, because of its popularity, I will have to impose a time limit of three minutes from the beginning. I intend to go to the Front Benchers at 2.38 pm.
We are going to struggle to get everybody in, so can Members please keep any interventions brief?
We begin with the Select Committee statement. Tom Gordon will speak on the publication of the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ second report of the Session “Accountability for Daesh crimes” for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, I will c…
CommonsOral QuestionsForeign, Commonwealth and Development Office13 May 20252 contributions
6. Whether his Department plans to introduce a statutory right to consular assistance.
Every year, an estimated 5,000 British citizens are arrested abroad, many of them under false pretences. Many are used as hostages and denied access to legal representation, and their families are left without information, not knowing what has happened to them. High-profile cases at the moment inclu…
The Home Secretary spoke about attracting the best and the brightest to this country. One area in which our universities do that is the medical profession. During the covid crisis and the rebuilding after it, a lot of the people on the frontline were immigrants. When she looks at the resettlement an…
A number of constituents of mine in Edinburgh West—former police officers, and former and current NHS staff—have come to me with concerns about the way the McCloud judgment on public sector pensions is being implemented, and worries that they will be negatively impacted at great cost. How will the G…
I thank the Minister for his statement. There has been a great deal of reassurance for the car industry and agriculture, but there has been no mention of the Scotch whisky industry or the drink and food industry in general. In Edinburgh, as in much of Scotland, that is a huge concern. Should we expe…
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). This is a debate that I wish we were not at. I wish there was no need for us to have this debate, but sadly there is. This is an issue that I have come to know more about personally in the last few months, after a youn…
I appreciate that the hon. Member is speaking about St George’s day and English affairs, but I would just take issue with his use of the phrase “break up” to describe the effect of devolution on our country. We devolved some of the power closer to the people so that they felt more represented. That …
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Data can be susceptible and its breach is a breach of privacy. Does he agree that one danger in new clause 21, about the data on individuals’ sex at birth, is that it risks breaching someone’s privacy if they have kept that fact private and that data beco…
CommonsOral QuestionsWomen and Equalities7 May 2025
Three years after Baroness Kennedy’s groundbreaking review on tackling misogyny in law, late on Friday, the SNP said that it would scrap its planned Bill to tackle widespread misogyny and hatred against women. Plans to tackle misogynistic harassment, the stirring up of hatred, and sending threatenin…
A constituent wrote to me recently about problems with the financial ombudsman. He waited months for it even to begin the investigation, and despite receiving an apology for the delay, when he then had a subsequent related complaint, it again took weeks before he got any reply, and that was to say, …
My constituents in Edinburgh West, like many others across Scotland and the UK, depend on energy-intensive industries for their livelihoods: defence, whisky and Grangemouth. How can the Minister reassure people who are already suffering because of high domestic energy prices that the situation will …
I welcome what the Minister has outlined and his reassurances about resilience, particularly to a cyber-attack. However, there is also the danger that if we hand over the on/off switch for vital energy supplies to a foreign country, they can be switched off without our control. What mitigations are …