Commons
Oral Questions
Home Department
13 July 2026
Asylum Hotels
I thank the Home Secretary for what she said about Ann, whom I first met more than 50 years ago. She was as formidable as an undergraduate as she became in later life as a mature politician.
I believe that nobody on the Labour Benches other than the present Home Secretary could do more to tackle th…
Commons
Debate
13 July 2026
5 contributions
Immigration and Asylum Bill
I congratulate the Home Secretary on not resiling at all from the tough stance that she is trying to take. Has she received any indication that after 20 July, a Labour Home Secretary—hopefully she herself—will be able to continue to develop this important work?
Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the problem is that practitioners of the legal system seem to believe that there are such things as absolute human rights, whereas most human rights are relative, and can be trumped by other people’s human rights, and in fact, can be abrogated? When you i…
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
9 July 2026
NATO Summit
Having criticised successive coalition, Conservative and Labour Governments for inadequate defence spending, may I yet again remind the Foreign Secretary that during the 1980s we successfully came through the height of the cold war by spending between 4% and 5% of GDP on defence, and that was withou…
Commons
Proceedings
6 July 2026
Rochdale Grooming Gang: Offender Deportation
Is it true that the diplomats in the Foreign Office who deal with Pakistan are part of the obstacle to getting rid of this loathsome individual? Does the Minister agree that it is long overdue that the moral courage—indeed, heroism—of former Labour MP Ann Cryer, who first exposed this horrendous abu…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
6 July 2026
Topical Questions
My salary is “up to” £1 billion a year, but sadly that does not make me a billionaire. [Laughter.] Does the Secretary of State accept that when checking how much money a country is spending on defence, the accepted way of doing it is by percentage of GDP?
Commons
Debate
6 July 2026
Payment Scheme
On that point, I acknowledge the huge amount of effort, attention and concentration that the Minister has put into the scheme. I am therefore slightly surprised that the Haemophilia Society, which is a great champion for the community, says that in its opinion, care provided by family members is not…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
30 June 2026
National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation
Last Wednesday, and again today, the Secretary of State expressed his shock at the number of senior clinicians who refused to take part in the Nottingham review. May I repeat a suggestion that I made last Wednesday? Those clinicians should be named publicly. That is a step that he could take straigh…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
30 June 2026
Defence Investment Plan
At last, we have agreement on a defence expenditure statistic. When the Secretary of State says that what the settlement means is that the proportion of GDP spent on defence by the end of this decade will now be higher than at any time in the past 30 years, he is quite right. The trouble is that if …
Commons
Proceedings
29 June 2026
Prisoner Early Release
One reason that the present Prime Minister has lost the trust of the public is his refusal, time and again, to give straight answers to straight questions. My Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), asked a straight question: how many rapists and how many…
Commons
Debate
25 June 2026
4 contributions
Neuropsychiatric Conditions: PANS and PANDAS
The hon. Lady mentioned the all-important fact that early diagnosis, coupled with the prescribing of a quite common antibiotic—I believe amoxicillin is one of them—can make a crucial difference. In May last year, I asked in a written question whether the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care…
I am sorry if I did not express myself clearly enough. It is not so much a question of the non-recognition of PANS and PANDAS, but whether it has been recognised that early treatment with antibiotics can make all the difference.
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
17 June 2026
Steel Tariffs
The Minister says that the concerns about fabricated steel are being taken into account. Can he be a bit more specific about why other countries have protections for fabricated steel in their economies, but we do not yet have any in ours?
Commons
Proceedings
15 June 2026
Defence Investment Plan
I know the Minister accepts that I have criticised successive Governments for not spending anything like the 4.5% that Margaret Thatcher used to spend on defence at the height of the cold war throughout the 1980s, but does he accept that the service chiefs have made an objective assessment of the Go…
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
15 June 2026
Topical Questions
How can it be justified for a unitary authority to be formed that rips the waterside away from the New Forest, and places it under the control of Labour-dominated Southampton, when the building blocks of the new unitary authorities were stated by the Government to be the existing areas covered by di…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
15 June 2026
Russian Shadow Fleet
May I wish the new Secretary of State the best of luck in his new post and express the hope that the appearance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer alongside him on his first outing is not too symbolic of what has perhaps been going on in backrooms behind the Treasury?
On the question of the seizure…
Commons
Proceedings
9 June 2026
North Belfast: Violent Attack
While I agree with virtually everything the Secretary of State said in his opening response, I really am baffled by his refusal to share with the House a piece of simple information. Did this person come legally into this country and have a five-year visa because he came legally, or was he given the…
Commons
Proceedings
8 June 2026
Water Companies
I would like to record my appreciation of the consistent campaign waged by the hon. and gallant Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), which included bringing the real-life activists on whom the “Dirty Business” docudrama series was based to the House of Commons where we could meet them. I noted wh…
Commons
Debate
3 June 2026
4 contributions
Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address
As the right hon. Gentleman is going to talk about process, I would be very grateful if he could clear up one matter. I have a high regard for the right hon. Gentleman’s integrity, and so I hope he will not dance around this subject, as has been done by others in the past.
In the first tranche of d…
rose—
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
2 June 2026
Milburn Review: Interim Report
Returning to the important points about mental health made by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), I draw the Minister’s attention to paragraphs 424 and 425 of the report, which states:
“It is mental health conditions that are now the most commonly reported health condition among NEE…
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
1 June 2026
Armed Forces Day
I fear I know the answer to this question in advance, but I shall ask it anyway. Would one way of reconnecting society with the armed forces at Armed Forces Day not be to revisit the testimony given to the then Defence Committee in March 2017 by four eminent professors of law? It showed how it is po…
Commons
Debate
20 May 2026
2 contributions
Defence Readiness
As my hon. Friend knows, the then Defence Committee did two reports into this question, and in the course of those inquiries, we interviewed four eminent professors of law, including one particularly famous left-wing one. We did not ask them what they wanted to happen; we asked them what could legal…
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) has such a sunny personality that I always feel cheered up after listening to her contributions, even when she is the bearer of somewhat disappointing news about the economy. I was also impressed by the speech of the former Secretar…
Commons
Proceedings
20 May 2026
Processed Russian Oil Products: Sanctions
Before the Minister pointed it out himself, I was going to acknowledge his long and honourable record of opposing the killer in the Kremlin when he was on the Opposition Back Benches. I have no reason to believe that he has changed his mind, but does he agree with me that this complex issue has been…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
18 May 2026
Youth Justice
May I ask the Justice Secretary to explain a bit more about the intensive community placements to which he made brief reference? Can I put to him a particularly challenging scenario? Imagine that we have, say, a single parent—a single mum—who is very much afraid of her own adolescent child. She is a…
Commons
Debate
27 April 2026
Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update
The Government are keen to emphasise their transparency in the course of dealing with the Humble Address requests and demands, so here is an opportunity to put that to the test. Last Tuesday, I put down a question for written answer by the Prime Minister:
“To ask the Prime Minister who first sugges…
Commons
Debate
27 April 2026
Dunmurry Police Station Attack
Given what the Secretary of State said about the nature of the Lurgan bomb, it sounds as if these weapons are unsophisticated and presumably not detonated remotely. This must mean that the delivery drivers were in exceptional peril, because such crude devices could have gone off at any time. Will th…