Commons
Oral Questions
18 March 2026
Social Media: Children and Young People
I hope this is a helpful suggestion to the Secretary of State. There have been some objections to a social media ban for young people based on the fact that it would create a cliff edge, whereby they have no involvement with it and then total involvement with it. Does she agree with me that one way …
Commons
Debate
17 March 2026
2 contributions
Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill
I am grateful to the Minister for his typical courtesy. I am sure that there will be wide agreement with his proposition that someone who is doing a ministerial job ought to be paid for it, and such jobs should not be reserved for the people who can afford not to be paid. However, on the principle t…
I am sorry to come in again. One of the things that I have never quite understood, given that the workload is broadly the same, is why there is a differential in salary between the different levels of Minister—particularly in the Lords, where their jobs are effectively the same. Why are some Ministe…
Commons
Debate
17 March 2026
Middle East
If an Iranian rocket attack—hopefully this will never happen—successfully penetrated our defences and caused severe damage and casualties on a British base, is the Foreign Secretary ruling out any response by the RAF against the source, such as a battery, from which those missiles had been fired?
Commons
Ministerial Statement
17 March 2026
Meningitis Outbreak
I have heard a suggestion that this type of meningitis is more widespread in some countries than in others. Is there any truth in that, and if there is, would there be wisdom in suggesting to young people travelling to the countries concerned that they ought to add the vaccination as a prophylactic …
Commons
Debate
16 March 2026
Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address
It is not much good blaming the process when it is as plain as a pikestaff that the Government knew that Peter Mandelson’s appointment was, to put it mildly, extremely dodgy. If there were any conversations held, over the telephone or face to face, or any private emails sent from people’s personal e…
Commons
Oral Questions
16 March 2026
Strait of Hormuz
Some things never change in naval warfare, and one of the things that never change is the unsuitability of surface vessels for forcing a way through narrow, contested straits. Over 100 years ago, the French and the British learned that when, between them, they lost three battleships in an afternoon …
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
16 March 2026
Topical Questions
T3. Successive Governments have refused compensation to the nuclear test veterans, but now the Sunday Mirror ’s investigative journalist Susie Boniface has revealed documents showing that, in fact, levels of radiation were known to be much higher than the court was led to believe in a case in 2016. …
Commons
Oral Questions
Defence
16 March 2026
Defence: UK Allies
May I build on the excellent supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) about Ukraine and counter-drone warfare? Thanks to the support given by this Government and the previous Government to Ukraine, it has become a world leader in inventing and deploying cheap …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
12 March 2026
Business of the House
May we have an update from a Health Minister on progress in the review of prostate cancer policy and whether it will focus, as it should, on such issues as targeting particularly vulnerable age groups or ethnic groups, such as black males, one quarter of whom will be affected by this disease at some…
Commons
Debate
11 March 2026
Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion
The Chief Secretary deserves our admiration for always being calm and courteous, even in the most trying circumstances, but he really must not take us for fools. Peter Mandelson had a reputation as one of the most slippery and sleazy characters in modern British politics. The Chief Secretary confirm…
Commons
Proceedings
10 March 2026
Points of Order
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not know that point of order was going to be raised until I heard it, but I myself noticed, a little bit earlier, that there was a statement entitled “Pensions Update” that was really all about the WASPI women. I for one was misled into thinking that…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
10 March 2026
Digital ID: Public Consultation
When asked by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) whether he could guarantee that a digital identity requirement would never become mandatory, the Minister said he wholeheartedly agreed, but is it not the case that the original scheme that the Government were minded to put forward was manda…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
9 March 2026
Social Cohesion Action Plan
Like a number of other right hon. and hon. Members, I come from an immigrant family and grew up in a household where a foreign language was primarily spoken by my grandparents, my father was bilingual and I was monolingual with the language of the country that my family had come into. The key to it …
Commons
Debate
9 March 2026
Middle East: Defence
I am not particularly keen on the tone of these exchanges, so may I make a positive suggestion to the Secretary of State? We have heard that Ukraine has offered to assist the United States with its specialised version of anti-Iranian drone technology. These weapons for bringing down Iranian drones a…
Commons
Oral Questions
9 March 2026
Immigration Policy
There have often been occasions on which somebody has leaked in advance the contents of a statement that they are going to make to the House of Commons, or part of its contents, but this is the first time I have seen a total revelation in the press of something that the Government had no intention o…
Commons
Debate
5 March 2026
Palliative Care
I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) most warmly on her exemplary record in campaigning for better palliative care. I will address just one segment of her panoramic presentation, namely the work done by the charity that she briefly mentioned, Together for Shor…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
5 March 2026
Energy Markets
I fully accept the argument that energy independence will be enhanced by renewable energy and in particular by nuclear energy, but everyone seems to accept that we will continue to have some dependence on fossil fuels for a considerable period of time. Although it is discouraging to hear that no mat…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
5 March 2026
Consular Assistance
When the last Conservative Government rather bizarrely chose to appoint David Cameron as Foreign Secretary in the upper House, the then Opposition—quite rightly in my view—complained about the fact that this House could not directly question the Foreign Secretary. I simply say to the Ministers, who …
Commons
Debate
4 March 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
I absolutely endorse everything that the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said about the BBC World Service. Will she, in the time available, make a brief comment about its sister organisation, BBC Monitoring? That monitoring service used to receive a modest ringfenced grant from the For…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
3 March 2026
Spring Forecast
I hope the Chancellor will accept that I have challenged successive Governments over inadequate defence spending. If she does, will she also accept that it is not a wise idea to keep comparing current defence spending with the levels of defence spending “since the cold war”? We are not in “since the…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
2 March 2026
Middle East
If a missile battery in Iran was continuing to target British bases, would an airstrike against it be offensive or defensive?
Commons
Debate
25 February 2026
Ukraine
The hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) mentioning Storm Shadow reminds me of the fact that, particularly in the early days of the conflict, there was resistance, often from the other side of the Atlantic, to supplying Ukraine with some of the longer-range missile systems that are necessary to…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
25 February 2026
Post Office Green Paper
Following an exemplary local campaign and petition, it is a relief to record that the Post Office has just reversed its decision not to reopen the post office in Lyndhurst, often referred to as the capital of the New Forest. Can the Minister explain whether there is any overall Government plan to co…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
25 February 2026
Grenfell Tower Annual Report
It is very surprising to those of us who are not experts on this matter to hear the Secretary of State say that the police are undertaking such a vast and complex investigation, because the circumstances of this uniquely terrible tragedy do not seem terribly complicated at all. Why is the police inq…