Commons
Proceedings
7 July 2026
7 contributions
Early Release of Prisoners
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Government to exempt from automatic early release under the provisions of the Sentencing Act 2026 any offender who has been convicted of a sexual offence against an adult or a child, including rape and grooming, or convicted of the attempt, conspiracy, or…
Thank you for correcting me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was quoting the tweets so exactly that I forgot my responsibilities.
As I was saying, this is an ideologically anti-prison Government, and many of their policies look likely to continue under the new Prime Minister.
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
30 June 2026
Topical Questions
The Government referred the sentences of the teenage gang rapists who attacked two schoolgirls to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient, but the Government also say that they want to increase the age of criminal responsibility, and the Bar Council has said that age should be 14. That is one year old…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
30 June 2026
2 contributions
Jury Trails
The Justice Secretary and his ministerial team say that the attack on jury trials is needed to deal with the backlog in the courts. When the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) takes over and scraps the policy on jury trials, does the Minister predict that court backlogs will get worse?
I listened carefully but do not think the Minister answered my question—[Interruption.] We will see, won’t we? I am replying to the Justice Secretary’s comment from a sedentary position. I think the Minister has just made it very difficult for herself to stay in the Ministry of Justice when the righ…
Commons
Proceedings
24 June 2026
Points of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The House may be interested in this following the earlier point of order. Earlier today, the Minister for Women and Equalities accused me of “racism” in reference to comments I made about the mass Muslim prayer in Trafalgar Square.
Although the Minister di…
Commons
Debate
23 June 2026
7 contributions
Forest City: West Suffolk
I draw your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I also declare that my family and I are local residents affected by the development proposal we are about to discuss. I am grateful for this debate about the proposed Forest City, and I am espec…
I think we have just had it—the people of West Suffolk will know that local Labour representatives are in favour of Forest City, which I think is shameful.
As I was saying, the resale model removes residential land value and caps resale at inflation-indexed build cost, excluding land. Where homes c…
+5 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
4 June 2026
Point of Order: Rectification Procedure
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am an honorary member of the Jockey Club Rooms, which provides accommodation and function rooms in Newmarket. It is an offshoot of the Jockey Club, and I accepted the membership to support a valued local institution. I declared this in the Register of Mem…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
19 May 2026
Topical Questions
This weekend, two marches came to London: one was condemned by the Justice Secretary; about the other—yet another anti-Israel march—there was not a word. Once again we heard crowds of people demanding intifada revolution and other coded calls for attacks on British Jews. If the Crown Prosecution Ser…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
19 May 2026
3 contributions
Knife Crime Strategy
Last year, 6,397 knife criminals were sent to prison, and the average sentence was just over eight months. As the Government scrapped almost all sentences of less than a year, will the Justice Secretary say very clearly whether he expects as many knife criminals to go to jail next year as did last y…
That’s not even true!
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
18 May 2026
Youth Justice
It is obvious that we are now in the legacy-hunting stage of this Government. Less a range of exhausted volcanoes, more a row of trampled molehills, Ministers are desperate to be remembered for something. This morning a word cloud was published by the pollsters at More in Common. The public were ask…
Commons
Debate
25 March 2026
3 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
In a week when the Government have been reprimanded for letting foreign criminals out of prison without proper checks or safeguards, have been found to have done absolutely nothing as a firm that was due to build thousands of prison places went bust 18 months ago, and ended short-term sentences, all…
I think the Minister has been taking lessons from the Prime Minister. She may as well have been reading the phonebook in answering the question. [ Interruption. ] Well, the answer that she just gave was completely unsatisfactory. There was an attempt to delete the archive.
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
17 March 2026
Topical Questions
I join the Justice Secretary in sending condolences to the family of Jeff Blair. I also pay tribute to the shadow Solicitor General, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), for her successful campaign for a child cruelty register, and I look forward to meeting the Hudgell …
Commons
Oral Questions
17 March 2026
3 contributions
Jury Trials
Thank you, Mr Speaker— [ Interruption. ]
The Prime Minister, we learned this weekend, once said that trials without juries mean evidence is not properly tested and can lead to wrongful convictions. Was he wrong?
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Debate
10 March 2026
13 contributions
Courts and Tribunals Bill
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Courts and Tribunals Bill because trial by jury is a fundamental part of the United Kingdom’s constitution and democracy; it is wrong to remove defendants’ r…
The Institute for Government has made it absolutely clear that the figures that the Government have produced are based on assumptions that are not necessarily shared by anybody who knows what we are talking about.
+11 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
3 February 2026
Separation Centres Review
I thank the Justice Secretary for advance sight of his statement, and I welcome the publication of this important review. The Government commissioned Jonathan Hall to produce his report following the very violent attack on three prison officers last April by Hashem Abedi—the man behind the Mancheste…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
3 February 2026
Victim Support Services: Funding
The Prime Minister said that passing the Hillsborough law would be one of his first acts in office, but last month the Government arranged to bring the Bill to the House for its remaining stages twice, only to pull it at the last moment on both occasions. The Prime Minister has made a promise to the…
Commons
Oral Questions
Justice
3 February 2026
2 contributions
Changes to Jury Trials
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
I have been reading the Labour party manifesto, but without much luck. Can the Justice Secretary tell the House on which page the promise to restrict jury trials appears? Was it on the same page as digital IDs and all the tax rises?
Not waving but drowning. Forty of the right hon. Member’s colleagues—the number is rising—say that restricting jury trials is “madness”. He says that he will not listen to them, judges, lawyers or the victims of crime, so perhaps he will listen to these esteemed voices.
“Jury trials will always be …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
29 January 2026
2 contributions
Prison Capacity: Annual Statement
This is my first chance to speak about prisons as shadow Justice Secretary, and I want to get straight to the point: prison works. By taking dangerous and repeat criminals off the streets, prison works. By punishing people who have done wrong, prison works. By sending a clear message that if someone…
That is true. But I agree that those numbers remain too low, because we should be deporting all the foreign criminals in our prisons. Can the Minister confirm that that is also his aim, and can he tell us how he will stop the European convention on human rights getting in the way? The Opposition are…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
19 January 2026
Public Office (Accountability) Bill
What an absolute shambles. The Government have had long enough to work this out: the campaign for a Hillsborough law started 10 years ago, in 2016; Labour MPs started campaigning for it a year later, in 2017; in 2022, the Prime Minister adopted it as a formal Labour policy; in 2024, he put it in his…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
15 January 2026
Business of the House
People in West Suffolk are furious at the prospect of the county council elections being cancelled yet again, and I reiterate my opposition to that decision. This morning, the BBC reported that Suffolk county council had requested that the elections be cancelled. That is completely untrue, as the co…
Commons
Oral Questions
15 January 2026
Topical Questions
I commend the Football Foundation for its brilliant work with grassroots sport and its help to develop the brilliant facilities at the New Croft at Haverhill. As Newmarket football club looks to get a new pitch, will the Secretary of State join me in sending the message to the foundation’s chief exe…
Commons
Debate
14 January 2026
West Midlands Police
Will the Home Secretary confirm that the Prime Minister was also told that a ban was likely in advance of the announcement? The Home Office and No. 10 were in touch according to the official documents. Was she told of the intelligence of 5 September that armed Islamists intended to attack the Israel…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
14 January 2026
Engagements
Q12. The police fabricated intelligence to get Israelis banned from Villa Park, as demanded by Islamists. That is not an isolated case. Forces cut deals with dodgy mosques and refuse to arrest preachers who incite violence; the Crown Prosecution Service uses the Public Order Act 1986 as an Islamic b…
Commons
Westminster Hall
13 January 2026
3 contributions
Universities: Statutory Duty of Care
I am pleased to respond to this debate on behalf of the Opposition. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on leading it; I also pay tribute to the families who have brought their tragic stories to hon. Members, which have informed the debate. That is how serious problems, such …
I thank the hon. Member for sharing that very sad story. I reiterate that I know the bravery that it takes for families to share these stories, and the importance of hon. Members repeating them so that we can fully understand this problem. Although my party’s position is not yet fully established on…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Transport
8 January 2026
Economic Growth: Transport System
Communities near Cambridge, such as the towns and villages of West Suffolk, need better transport connections, especially given the new housing developments. The wider east needs the Ely-Haughley upgrade, and we need a dualled line from Cambridge to Newmarket and a new rail link to Haverhill. Will t…
Commons
Oral Questions
Home Department
5 January 2026
Topical Questions
On 7 October the police told a private meeting that they planned to ban Israeli fans from Villa Park. That was, to quote the minutes,
“in the absence of intelligence”.
On 9 October they accepted that they needed to find a more clear rationale for the decision already made. On 16 October they said …