House of Commons
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Speaker’s Statement
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Mr Speaker
Members will be aware of comments in the media regarding the arrest of Lord Mandelson. To prevent any inaccurate speculation, I would like to confirm that upon receipt of information, I felt it was relevant to pass this on to the Metropolitan police in good faith, as is my duty and responsibility. It is regrettable that this rapidly ended up in the media. As this is a live investigation, Members will understand that it would not be appropriate to make any further comment, and I caution Members from doing so.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Douglas Alexander)
The UK Government are working closely with the Scottish Government to deliver for the people of Scotland. Since taking office, we have provided the Scottish Government with a record budget settlement, reversing austerity and years of underfunding and ensuring that communities get the support they deserve. I met the Deputy First Minister earlier this month. Labour, as the party of devolution, is already delivering an extra £11 billion for the Scottish Government’s budget, £120 million of investment for Grangemouth and a defence dividend for Rosyth and Faslane.
Ms Minns
One example of what might politely be called ineffective relations between the Scottish and UK Governments concerns bovine electronic identification, where instead of agreeing to adopt the same radio frequency as the rest of the UK and Europe, the Scottish Government have chosen to use a high-frequency spectrum. The implications for the UK’s largest auction mart, in my constituency, will be a doubling of costs, as it has to invest in two types of scanner. Will the Secretary of State press the Office for the Internal Market to look in detail at how auction houses and hauliers such as those in my constituency will be placed at a competitive disadvantage thanks to the SNP Government?
Mr Alexander
My hon. Friend raises an important point for not just her constituents but many others. Although animal health is a devolved responsibility, I am troubled—although not altogether surprised—to learn that the Scottish Government have chosen to diverge from the approach taken across the rest of the UK and indeed in Europe, with all the consequent difficulties she describes. The Office for the Internal Market produced a report on this issue in 2025 and recognised that some businesses, such as larger livestock auctions, could face higher costs if the system were not managed well. My hon. Friend can none the less be assured that the UK Government at least remain committed to seamless trade within the United Kingdom.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
I begin by paying tribute to the former Scottish Cabinet Secretary Jeane Freeman, who sadly passed away this month. I dealt extensively with Jeane in the implementation of the Scotland Act 2016 and always found her very professional and personable. I also hope that the Secretary of State’s visit to New Zealand was particularly successful, although it did seem an extremely long way to go just to avoid Anas Sarwar.
The Secretary of State may be aware that there is a very successful HIV testing programme in England in HIV testing week. Could he make representations to the Scottish Government so that not only is there an HIV testing week in Scotland, but, radically, it is the same week as in England, so that it could benefit from national focus?
Mr Alexander
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the characteristic grace and generosity with which he asked his question. I can assure him that it was a long-planned trip to establish relations, which, frankly, should have been established some time ago by the Government in which he served. We are none the less very proud of our defence relationship with New Zealand, and I look forward to being with Anas in Paisley on Friday.
On the substance of the right hon. Gentleman’s question, I commend him for his advocacy over many years. The UK Government recently launched an HIV action plan for England with the aim of ending new HIV transmissions by the end of the decade, and our recent HIV testing week has helped to build public knowledge and understanding so that we can reconnect thousands with the healthcare they need, reduce stigma and, crucially, identify undiagnosed cases. While healthcare is a devolved matter for the Scottish Government, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, we support any initiatives that ensure that people across the United Kingdom get the testing they need.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
Transport in Scotland is devolved, but Labour’s new electric vehicle tax is not. Scotland is home to the largest constituencies by area in the UK. This will mean that many rural Scots, who already pay more for electricity at home, will pay more tax despite having less access to charging infrastructure. Can the Secretary of State say what discussions have been had with the Scottish Government on the impact of this tax and whether the Government will work with the Scottish Government to improve charging access and create a mandatory community benefit scheme for those who see the turbines of the green revolution from their windows, but not a fair reflection in their bills?
Mr Alexander
Many of us know, from the experience of family, friends and others, about the difficulty of many charging stations across Scotland, which causes the range anxiety of which the hon. Lady speaks, particularly in rural areas. The new electric vehicle excise duty introduces a fairer approach to sharing the costs generated by all vehicle drivers through wear and tear on roads and congestion.
As a former Transport Secretary, I know that, as we transition to electric vehicles, it is necessary to look at the appropriate taxation of electric vehicles. While those living in rural areas tend to drive more than those who live in urban areas, EV drivers are also more likely to have a dedicated home charger, which allows access to the lowest charging costs, thereby ensuring that EVs remain the cheaper, greener choice. None the less, I assure the hon. Lady that we talk to the Scottish Government on a range of issues.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
I associate myself with the comments from other colleagues about the sad loss of Jeane Freeman.
This has been a difficult few weeks—sorry, another difficult few weeks for Scottish Labour. For the benefit of the House, given that Scottish Labour’s senior politicians have no faith in this Government, will the Secretary of State outline the major policy differences between them?
Mr Alexander
First, as I should have done in response to the question from the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), I associate myself with his remarks in relation to the late Jeane Freeman. She was a public servant of distinction who served in both the Scottish Cabinet and the Scottish Parliament for a number of years.
The SNP spokesperson talked about this being a difficult few weeks; the terrible truth is that we have had a difficult couple of decades under the SNP. Whether it is the SNP’s failure to build ferries in relation to transport, falling education standards, or its inability to get a grip on waiting times, the real issue of concern to Scotland is avoiding a third decade of SNP failure.
Stephen Gethins
Unsurprisingly, the Secretary of State has not been able to tell me that there are any differences, because the sad truth is that when it comes to every issue, the Prime Minister’s most loyal supporters are in Scottish Labour. When it came to raising tax on small and medium-sized enterprises—no problem; when it came to scrapping the winter fuel allowance—no problem; when it came to the two-child benefit cap, they even kicked people out of the party—no problem. But when it comes to their own jobs, then there is a problem. Does the Secretary of State understand why Labour is falling so far and so fast?
Mr Alexander
The hon. Gentleman talks about sad truths; the sad truth is that one in seven young Scots between the ages of 16 and 24 are not in employment, education or training. The Scottish Government, in which he served, also uphold another sad truth: it is hard to think of a single area of Scottish public life over the past 19 years where we have seen an improvement. Scottish schools used to be the envy of the world, but the hon. Gentleman’s Government have delivered falling standards. The Scottish national health service, with brilliant staff, contrasts very badly with the level of progress on waiting lists that is being made by colleagues down here. Whether it is because of being weak on defence, inadequate on further education colleges, or generally just a secret and inadequate Government, there is a whole lot of change coming in May, I hope.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Kirsty McNeill)
I thank the hon. Member for his consistent and thoughtful engagement on the Bill. The Government are committed to delivering truth and accountability for those who were bereaved or seriously injured during the troubles, which is why we introduced the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill in October. The previous Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 delivered no real support to veterans in legacy processes. The troubles Bill will put in place deliverable protections, designed in line with our human rights obligations and in consultation with veterans, including those from Scotland. I can confirm that the Scottish Veterans Commissioner met the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in December.
Robin Swann
First, may I join the commemoration of Jeane Freeman, having served with her during her period as Scottish Health Secretary?
The question I asked was actually about whether the Secretary of State for Scotland had met the Scottish Veterans Commissioner in respect of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. That legislation will have a dramatic effect on veterans across the United Kingdom, no matter where they served, and it would be best if the Scotland Office also knew about its impact.
Kirsty McNeill
I would be delighted to meet the Scottish Veterans Commissioner but, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, the Northern Ireland Office leads on such matters. We should put on the record that we owe a huge debt to the quarter of a million Northern Ireland veterans who served with honour to bring about peace in Northern Ireland. It is the Government’s firm view that no veteran who properly carried out their duty should be forced to face an endless cycle of legal uncertainty.
Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)
Labour promised to renew the nation’s contract with those who served our country. Therefore, can the Minister set out what support the new veterans strategy will provide for the around 10,000 veterans in Glasgow?
Kirsty McNeill
This Government are firmly committed to those who have served receiving the support, respect and recognition that they deserve. Our new veterans strategy, underpinned by our commitment to bring the armed forces covenant fully into law, includes £50 million for Valour—the first ever UK-wide Government approach to veterans support. For veterans in Glasgow and across Scotland, that means clearer pathways to services, better advocacy and a system that understands and recognises their unique experiences.
Joani Reid (East Kilbride and Strathaven) (Lab)
Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Douglas Alexander)
Scotland is at the heart of keeping the UK secure at home and strong abroad. As has been referenced already, just last week I visited Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, working to strengthen our defence partnerships and increase export opportunities for the Scottish defence industry. That defence dividend has already delivered record orders worth £10 billion for the Clyde shipyards, new investments of £340 million in Rosyth and £250 million in Faslane, and a contract of £453 million for Leonardo in Edinburgh.
Joani Reid
This Government’s increase in defence spending is delivering £2 billion a year for Scotland as well as 12,000 jobs. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the greatest threat to my constituents is an SNP Government who are playing student politics with defence and will not use their existing powers to back Scottish industry, young people and our national security?
Mr Alexander
Not for the first time, I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend. The UK Labour Government have committed to the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war, totalling £270 billion in this Parliament alone. In contrast, the SNP-led Scottish Government’s position on public funding for defence is risking jobs, skills and investment in Scotland. Despite record funding provided by the UK Government, they are weak on defence and dismal on further education. Scotland deserves better than a third decade of a failed SNP Government.
Kevin Bonavia
Labour’s defence industrial strategy will strengthen our security across the whole United Kingdom and deliver an unprecedented growth deal for Scotland that includes £250 million of UK-wide investment and £182 million for skills. For me, this is personal. My grandfather worked in the Glasgow shipyards, part of a proud tradition that has served the whole UK. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a strong Scottish defence sector delivered by a UK Labour Government strengthens all of us?
Mr Alexander
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. My own grandfather worked as an engineer in Glasgow, so I appreciate the proud heritage of which he speaks. The Government’s defence industrial strategy will deliver a record boost for Scotland’s economy, creating highly skilled jobs for years to come. Alas, when the SNP-led Scottish Government stepped back, it took the UK Labour Government to step in and give young people the welding skills that they needed. As we mark the fourth anniversary of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the security challenges facing NATO are clear for almost all of us to see, yet the Scottish Government remain committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Many of my constituents work in the Leonardo factory, which the Secretary of State mentioned. They contribute hugely to this economy, but they are concerned about the contradiction between what the UK Government say and what the Scottish Government say about defence spending. Can he detail exactly how the Government will support them going forward?
Mr Alexander
I had the chance to visit the Leonardo facility with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence in recent weeks and saw for myself the transformation it had witnessed since it was originally Ferranti, with the strong support of the UK Government behind it. The hon. Member raises a really important question. The defence prime companies in Scotland cannot get Scottish Government civil servants even to explain the policy that the First Minister announced last September. That is imperilling investment, apprenticeships and jobs in Scotland. Scotland deserves better.
Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)
Does the Secretary of State agree that increased defence orders in Scotland have the potential to strengthen the defence industry and the industrial base across the whole of the United Kingdom, and will he make an assessment of the opportunities that that presents, in particular for Northern Ireland companies?
Mr Alexander
I find myself in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. With that biggest sustained increase in defence expenditure since the cold war—not simply in Scotland, where defence supports about 12,000 Scottish jobs, but in Northern Ireland, Wales and England—there are real opportunities for a defence dividend. That is why the defence industrial strategy is UK-wide and why, notwithstanding the Scottish Government’s weakness on defence and economic support, we remain committed to that strategy.
Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Douglas Alexander)
First, I respectfully remind the hon. Gentleman that it was the Conservatives who brought in the energy profits levy in 2022. Oil and gas will be a central part of the energy mix in the UK for decades to come, but it is also right to recognise that there is a transition that needs to be managed and there was an abject failure by the previous Government to manage that transition. The Chancellor confirmed at the Budget that we are ending the EPL on 31 March 2030.
Gregory Stafford
It is clear that the Secretary of State is totally uninterested in the reality of what is happening in the industry because of the EPL. A thousand jobs a month are being lost as a direct result of the Government’s decision, all the while we are importing more at a higher cost with high emissions, jobs are being lost, investments are being turned away and our energy security is being undermined. At the same time, despite what the Secretary of State says, bills are going up for my constituents. Why will he not rectify that and sort out the problem for the whole country?
Mr Alexander
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman had a chance to listen to what was on the radio this morning about bills and the progress being made. [Interruption.] Well, let us introduce some facts to the debate. This trend in the North sea did not emerge yesterday; it is a mature basin where there was a 75% reduction in production between 1999 and 2024. We have been a net importer since 2003, and we lost more than 70,000 jobs from the basin in the last 10 years of the Conservatives being in power.
Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)
I associate myself with the remarks about Jeane Freeman.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that while oil and gas will play a vital role in the UK for decades to come, we have great opportunities for Scottish businesses in renewables, including at the Methil yard in my constituency, which is ideally placed to deliver renewables infrastructure as well as vital defence contracts such as Programme Euston?
Mr Alexander
My hon. Friend is entirely right. I had the opportunity to visit the Navantia yard in Methil just a couple of weeks ago. It is just over a year ago that we as a Labour Government stepped in to secure the future of both the Methil and Arnish yards. Since then, Navantia has announced a further £12 million of investment in the Methil site, which is just another example of what is possible when a UK Labour Government and industry work together for Scotland’s benefit.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Mr Speaker,
“I would have preferred that Europe could make do with green energy, but the reality is different, and I fundamentally believe that it is better for Europe to get gas from Denmark than from countries outside our continent.”
Those are the words of the Danish Energy Minister—a Minister in a Government looking to extend licences in that country. The Danes can see what is blindingly obvious: we will continue to have a demand for oil and gas for many years, and it is better that we use our own to support our own economy, support our own workers and support the existing industry that will invest in the future. Who does the Secretary of State agree with—the Danish Energy Minister, the head of GB Energy, Scottish Renewables, the trade unions and everyone else, or his colleague the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero?
Mr Alexander
It is worth reminding the hon. Gentleman that it was actually a Conservative Government who introduced the EPL. We have been clear that the EPL will come to an end in 2030. It is also worth pointing out that oil and gas in the North sea is sold into global markets, and that we lost a third of the jobs in the North sea under the Government in which he served. I am happy to listen to other voices, but the last voice that would I listen to is that of the Scottish Conservative party.
Andrew Bowie
The Secretary of State talks about global markets. Supporting the Scottish oil and gas industry supports 90 times more jobs than imports. Supporting the oil and gas industry yields 150 times more income tax and national insurance revenue than imports. Supporting the Scottish oil and gas industry delivers 400 times more oil and gas company taxes than imports, and supporting the Scottish oil and gas industry has a gross value added of £96 million for the UK, compared with zero from imports. Everyone else understands it. Will the Secretary of State please explain to everyone in the country what on earth the Government are playing at?
Mr Alexander
There is an aching gap the width of the North sea between what the hon. Member says and what the Conservatives did. The reality is that for all his conversations and protestations now about supporting Scottish oil and gas industry workers, under his Government, we lost a third of the North sea’s workforce. They failed time and again to come up with a plan. It falls to Labour once again to clean up their mess.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Douglas Alexander)
My hon. Friend and I both know that the tartan army will be out in full force supporting Scotland’s FIFA world cup campaign this summer. The UK Government are working with partners in the host countries and the Scottish Football Association to provide guidance to supporters on travel, security and consular assistance. We are determined to help everyone have a fantastic and safe world cup, hopefully beyond the group stages.
Torcuil Crichton
Despite fears of trade tariffs, I have checked and the price of a pint of beer in Boston, Massachusetts, where Scotland is due to play its first game, is about $8. That is a bargain, because the SNP wants to charge its fans £750 a pint to have a drink with the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), who, unusually, is not in his seat today. I am always open to a pint with the Opposition, but would the Secretary of State rather have a beer in Boston with the tartan army or a pint of bitter with the SNP?
Mr Alexander
I commend my hon. Friend for his question. I am not sure that I’ll be coming down the road to have a pint with the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) any time soon. Come to think of it, I would walk 500 miles to avoid having a beer and a blether with him.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
I am quite surprised at that last question, because one of the things that Scotland qualifying for the world cup brings is a unity to the nation. We are all looking forward to Scotland competing for the first time since 1998. We will all get selfies—it will be us with the tartan army. Does the Secretary of State think that there is any chance that we will get a photograph with the Prime Minister and Anas Sarwar?
Mr Alexander
I respectfully point out that we qualified under a Labour Government this time, and the last time, when I was there in the Stade de France, there was a UK Labour Government.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Kirsty McNeill)
Scotland’s hospitality businesses, at the heart of our high streets and communities, are the engines of Scotland’s economy. The UK Government have helped businesses across the country by stabilising public finances, focusing on driving economic growth and putting more money in people’s pockets. In Scotland, of course, key levers such as rates, business development, skills and planning are devolved to the Scottish Government. Perhaps hon. Members on the SNP Benches can explain why the Scottish Government have failed so miserably to support Scotland’s hospitality sector in the way that it deserves.
John Lamont
Last week, I met Nick and Trish who own Burts Hotel in Melrose. Like many other people, they explained the immense pressure that they are under as a result of the Minister’s Government’s jobs tax and the SNP Government’s eye-watering hike in business rates. Does she think the Government’s increase in employer national insurance has helped or hindered the hospitality sector?
Kirsty McNeill
Our changes to employer national insurance were part of raising the revenue needed for the changes in public services from which his constituents and mine will benefit due to the record settlement for the Scottish Government. I will just say to the hon. Gentleman, however, that protestations of fealty to the hospitality sector would ring more true had 7,000 pubs not shut under the Conservatives.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
Any support for Scottish hospitality businesses is welcome; however, the recent Scottish Budget simply tinkers around the edges, with many businesses still in line for a 400% tax hike. Does my hon. Friend agree that a fundamental overhaul and redesign of the current system is required so that we can deliver stronger economic growth in Scotland?
Kirsty McNeill
My hon. Friend is, as usual, quite right. Scottish businesses are facing eye-watering rate hikes, while the SNP Government tinker around the edges of a fundamentally broken system. Meanwhile, Anas Sarwar has been clear: Scottish Labour would revive our high streets with a fundamental overhaul of business rates. Right now, jobs and businesses are at risk, and we want to reset the balance between our local businesses and the online giants.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Given that the Secretary of State still expects us to believe that the Prime Minister has faith in Anas Sarwar’s judgment, it is quite clear that the Labour party can still have a laugh—although it does seem to have an aversion to having fun. Why else would it be waging a war against Scottish pubs? Just like Scottish Labour’s election campaign, the sector in Scotland is hanging by a thread. Last year, one pub in Scotland closed every single week. But it is not just pubs: cafés, restaurants and chip shops all face the same. Will he and his Scottish Labour colleagues join Russell Findlay and the Scottish Conservatives in our call for pubs and hospitality businesses to be exempt from business rates rises this year, and will he do what he can to ensure that his Government stand up for Scottish hospitality? That would surely be something to raise a glass to.
Kirsty McNeill
I do not know if the hon. Gentleman heard me about the Conservatives’ record: 7,000 pubs lost under their watch. A package of support has, of course, been presented by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for pubs in England, meaning that there is already extra money for the Scottish Government to spend in this area. I encourage Scottish Government Ministers to step up support for the hospitality sector using the Barnett consequentials that this Government have already provided.
Mr Speaker
Before we come to Prime Minister’s questions, I welcome to the Gallery the Speaker of the Parliament of Fiji and the President of the European Parliament.
Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)
The Prime Minister (Keir Starmer)
Four years into Putin’s barbaric assault, the courage of Ukrainians burns bright. We are extending sanctuary to Ukrainians in their time of need and providing the weapons and aid to support them in their fight for a just peace. We are degrading Russia’s economy and planning for a ceasefire that protects Ukraine’s sovereignty. That support will never falter. Yesterday I recommitted to President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people that we stand with them in the fight for freedom, democracy and the values that we all hold dear.
Let me also congratulate Team GB for their superb performance in the winter Olympics. They are brilliant ambassadors for our country, and I know that ParalympicsGB will also do us proud. This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Edward Argar
May I associate myself with the remarks of the Prime Minister in respect of Team GB and Ukraine?
A great former Prime Minister once said,
“You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”
Like the leader of my party today, she was a leader of principle and backbone, but we know this current Government are no stranger to the U-turn. Given that, can I gently tempt the Prime Minister to add one more to the current tally and help get Britain working again by backing the fantastic shops and businesses in Melton Mowbray town centre and in high streets across my constituency and beyond to succeed and grow by scrapping the Government’s business rate changes, which will hit so many of them hard in April?
The Prime Minister
It is good to see the right hon. Member in good form, particularly—if I may say so—after his health scare, which he and I have discussed a number of times.
The right hon. Gentleman discusses a former leader of his party. He was the former Health Minister who presided over record waiting lists; he was the former Prisons Minister who left the prisons overcrowded; and he was the former economy Minister under Liz Truss. We are picking up the mess and turning it around.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue, because the ceasefire in Gaza remains fragile, and protecting Israeli and Palestinian civilians is critical to the next phase of the peace plan. I am proud of our commitment to a two-state solution, and we will be hosting the peacebuilding conference in March to build lasting peace and security for both Palestine and Israel. Hamas must decommission their weapons and destroy their terrorist infrastructure and can have no future role in running Gaza. While aid flows have increased, the level of need is still dire. The Israeli Government must stop blocking supplies and preventing the work of international non-governmental organisations. That is unconscionable, and it is costing Palestinian lives.
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
May I associate the Conservative party with the Prime Minister’s comments about Ukraine and Team GB?
Before the Prime Minister and I became MPs, parties of every colour increased the cost of going to university. The system is now at breaking point for graduates. I believe that student loans have become a debt trap. It is time for all of us to do something about it. Will he cut interest rates on student loans?
The Prime Minister
I have to say I was glad to learn that the Leader of the Opposition has finally admitted that the Conservatives scammed the country on this— and that applies to everything that they did in government. We inherited their broken student loans system. We have already introduced maintenance grants, which they scrapped, to improve the situation and we will look at ways to make it fairer. We will do other things within the economy to help students. [Interruption.] What other things, Conservative Members ask? There was some news this morning, at 7 am, that energy bills are coming down by £117 for millions of families and young people struggling. That is guaranteed money off bills in April, driven by the action that this Labour Government have taken. We have promised to cut the cost of living—we are cutting the cost of living.
Mrs Badenoch
I asked the Prime Minister if he would cut interest rates on student loans—no answer. For the record, energy bills are still higher than when he came into office. He keeps talking about the last Government. In case he has not noticed, my party is under new leadership—a lot of people wish his was too, including his own Back Benchers.
Let us talk again about student loans and student fees, even, because to win the Labour leadership, with Labour Together, the Prime Minister promised to abolish tuition fees. In opposition, the Education Secretary said:
“Graduates, you will pay less under a Labour government.”
I wonder what happened to those people? Will the Prime Minister tell us whether graduates are paying more or less under Labour?
The Prime Minister
Many in her party are under new leadership, Mr Speaker—they are sitting on the Reform Bench. The only change the Leader of the Opposition has brought to her party is to make it smaller. She talks about interest rates on loans. Not only have energy prices come down this morning, but since we were last debating across the Dispatch Box, inflation has fallen as well, which has a huge impact on interest rates. It has fallen to 3% and the Bank of England says that it will keep on falling. That is only happening because of the decisions that we made at the Budget, opposed by the Conservatives. They talk about the cost of living: this Government are taking action. Under the Conservatives’ watch, inflation was 11%, which crippled students’ finances as their low rates went up.
Mrs Badenoch
I am amazed that while we are trying to talk about student loans, the Prime Minister has the cheek to talk about my party being smaller. His party is smaller too, including one MP who was arrested for child sex offences. Perhaps before he gets on his high horse, he should ask why his Back Benchers are saying that they are being called “the paedo defenders party”. [Interruption.] I did not say it—
Mr Speaker
Does the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) want to leave at this stage?
Mr Speaker
Just understand: it is very important that I hear the questions because I may have to make a judgment. I do not need any more shouting.
Mrs Badenoch
I know that Labour Members do not like it, but I have not said anything that is not true, have I? Perhaps they should get off their high horse and stop making stupid jokes.
Why don’t we talk about student loans? Policies that may have been fine for 2012, with low interest rates, are not fine for 2026. The fact is that graduates are paying more, not less. On Monday, the Schools Minister was asked on the BBC why Labour froze the repayment thresholds. She said that the Government have “huge pressures”. Those pressures have been created by the Prime Minister’s taxes and borrowing to pay for more welfare. Why is the Prime Minister taking from students to give to “Benefits Street”?
The Prime Minister
What a nerve! Under the Conservative Government, student loan thresholds were frozen for 10 years. They broke the system—they did it with the bloke over there, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), when they were in coalition together—and we are fixing it.
The right hon. Lady used to say, just a few weeks ago, that she was going to focus on the economy to the exclusion of everything else, so I am doing her a favour by bringing us back to the economy. [Interruption.] Yes, desperate to talk about the economy. We have taken £117 off energy bills, and inflation is going down. The other thing that was confirmed on Friday was that borrowing is coming down, and we have the biggest surplus on record. That means that we have got the economy back under control, and we are fixing the public finances. I know that the party of Liz Truss does not understand any of this, but the Leader of the Opposition should welcome those changes when she next stands up.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister says that the Government are fixing the student loans system. How? He was not even talking about this until I raised it. The fact is that those policies—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. What I said earlier goes for the row of Benches over there as well. I expect a standard of a Chair of a Select Committee, not for them to shout somebody down.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister is only talking about student loans now because I raised them. He says that the Government are fixing the problem, but the fact is that he is not. Why is it that I am willing to ditch old Conservative policies that do not work, but he wants to keep them? He is not going to do anything about it at all. On Monday, the Government voted to increase benefits yet again. The fact is that the Prime Minister is taking money out of the pockets of graduates and giving it to people who are not working. It is not fair.
It is not just that the Prime Minister is saddling graduates with debt. Yesterday, the Bank of England, where the Chancellor used to work—in customer services—said that the Prime Minister’s policies are fuelling youth unemployment. That is not coming from us; that is from the Bank of England. For the first time ever, youth unemployment is now higher here than it is in the EU. While he blames everyone else, our young people cannot get jobs; they are losing hope and even leaving the country. Will the Prime Minister tell us how he plans to deal with that?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady says that she is ditching failed Tory policies. That is a very long list—14 years of it—and it starts with the word, “Sorry”. When she says that word, we will take her seriously.
The right hon. Lady talks about the Bank of England. The Bank of England has reduced interest rates six times. We have seen a fall in energy bills. Inflation is coming down. Borrowing is coming down. She has not welcomed any of that. I know that she wanted to talk about the economy—she did not want to talk about anything other than the economy—so perhaps she will welcome the surge in retail sales as well. People are spending more on our high streets because of the action that we took. Wages were boosted for millions of workers—opposed by the Conservatives. Free breakfast clubs—opposed by the Conservatives. Free childcare—opposed by the Conservatives. On every measure that we are taking to improve the economy, what do they do? They oppose it.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister is desperate to talk about the last Government so that he can distract from the mess that he is making now. The fact is that he is the Prime Minister today. This is a man who got legislation in to fix his own pension—just his, no one else’s. He will not sort out student loans for other people. He has no plan to get young people into work. He has no plan to help graduates to get out of the debt trap. [Interruption.] Labour Members can complain as much as they like, but these are facts. There are 411 Labour MPs, and not a single one of them has any imagination. We are the ones doing all the thinking.
The Prime Minister has already made 15 U-turns. Will he make another one next week at the spring statement to fix the student loans system?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Member wants me to talk about this Government. Bills are down £117 under this Government. Inflation is down under this Government. Surplus is up, at a record. Resales—[Interruption.] She will not welcome the economic news, but the business community is welcoming the plan. Business confidence is up. The FTSE is at a record high. The president of the British Chamber of Commerce has said that this is the year our economy could turn around. The right hon. Member’s miserable strategy of talking down the economy is not working because Labour has a plan for Britain.
Mrs Badenoch
The economy will only turn around this year if the Prime Minister stops being the leader. Perhaps his party can do something about that. He wants us to welcome the economic news; I am sorry, but I am not going to welcome the fact that youth unemployment is at its highest ever. I am not going to welcome the fact that unemployment has increased every single month under this Labour Government. He is not doing anything about student loans because he is not governing, and he is not governing because he cannot govern. He is distracted by Labour scandal after Labour scandal. Even today, there is an inquiry into the inquiries Minister! That is all his party has offered since it came in.
The defining moment of this man’s premiership will not be breakfast clubs; it will be the sight of the man he appointed ambassador to Washington just last year getting arrested. No wonder Labour Members are calling themselves all sorts of things. He needs to stop moaning about us, and start fixing his useless Government. Why should the country have to put up with three more years of this?
The Prime Minister
Yet again, the right hon. Member has shown why she is so utterly irrelevant—carping from the sidelines and trying to talk down the economy. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Hello? Please, I want to hear the questions, and so do your constituents.
The Prime Minister
All the right hon. Member does is carp from the sidelines, talk the economy down and talk the country down. In the meantime, because of our work, what is happening? Energy bills are down, as announced this morning. Inflation—down. Borrowing—down. What is up? Retail spending is up. Investment is up. Business confidence is up. That is the difference a Labour Government make.
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I know how meaningful Pride in Place investment is to my hon. Friend’s constituents. We are backing communities with the funding and powers they need to invest in their priorities: unleashing jobs, growth and opportunity. In answer to his question, I can confirm that the next wave of Pride in Place will invest in an additional 169 neighbourhoods, focusing on smaller areas and looking closely at deprivation. We are reversing the austerity that ripped the heart out of our high streets and our communities, and giving local people a real say over how money is spent.
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
I join the Prime Minister in congratulating Team GB on our most successful winter Olympics ever. I also join him in solidarity with our Ukrainian allies and friends after four years of them resisting Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
The former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has raised deeply shocking concerns that Jeffrey Epstein may have used British airports, and even RAF bases, to traffic young women and girls in and out of our country. This is appalling. The Prime Minister knows that I agree with Gordon Brown that there needs to be a full public inquiry into all this. If he does not agree with Gordon Brown, will he at the very least commit to releasing the flight logs and related documents—or will he wait for the House to force the Government to do that?
The Prime Minister
I think it is important to appreciate that there is obviously a police investigation going on, and I think it is right—I am sure the right hon. Gentleman agrees with this—that that has to go wherever the evidence takes it. We have to let that investigation run its course before deciding what next action needs to be taken.
Ed Davey
I think we all agree that police investigations should take priority, but that does not rule out a public inquiry, and it certainly does not rule out releasing the flight logs, which I think really should be released.
On a different note, it has been revealed that a trustee of William Blake House, a care home for adults with profound disabilities, embezzled £1 million. There are very few homes in the country that offer this sort of care, and now it faces closure. As a father of a disabled son, I can tell the Prime Minister that this situation is one of my worst nightmares, and it is one of the worst nightmares of many parents with disabled adult children. The families of the residents have put forward a rescue plan to take over William Blake House and run it themselves. It will require His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to resolve the debt issue and the Charity Commission to appoint an independent board, so will the Prime Minister meet the families and back their plan?
The Prime Minister
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this case, which is obviously a cause of considerable concern. Of course, I will make sure that the relevant meeting is put in place for all the individuals who need it.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I am proud of the Equality Act, which was passed by the last Labour Government; we will always fight for working people. Compare that to Reform, who want to go back to the dark days, when people could be discriminated against because of who they are—ripping up protections for workers and renters, and ending the right of grieving parents to take a few days off work if the worst should ever happen to their child.
I also have to raise this: a death threat against my hon. Friend, the brilliant Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet), was shared by Reform’s deputy council leader in Lancashire. It said that she “should be shot”. When death threats were made against the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), I stood at this Dispatch Box and condemned them outright. If he has any decency or backbone, he will stand up, apologise, condemn the comments, and sack the individual in his party. Will he do so?
Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)
At the age of 14, Michel Mandarin was forcibly removed from his home, the coral atoll of Île du Coin, dumped on the quayside in Mauritius, and forced to live on food scraps out of bins. He has resettled on those islands, yet he now faces a removal order from yet another Labour Government. Maybe twice in one lifetime, he is going to be asked to leave his homeland. Can I ask the Prime Minister this? This Government are full of human rights lawyers, within and without; why do the opinions and human rights of indigenous Chagossians not matter to him at all?
The Prime Minister
So the hon. Gentleman has neither the decency nor the backbone to condemn a death threat against a Member of this House, whichever party they are in. He does not have the decency or the backbone to condemn it and sack the individual. That just shows that his party has nothing to offer the country but grievance and division. Look at its candidate in Gorton and Denton—a man who says that anyone who is not white cannot be English. No wonder he has been endorsed by Tommy Robinson. That does not represent our country, and anybody who wants to stand against that hatred and division should vote Labour on Thursday—tomorrow—in Gorton and Denton.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. We are working relentlessly to tackle the supply of illegal drugs, and expanding police powers to test more suspects on arrest. The Green party’s policy is not just irresponsible but reprehensible— a policy of legalising cocaine, heroin, ketamine and the date-rape drug GHB, a drug that we know is used to spike the drinks of women. While we are making that an offence, the Green party’s proposals would shatter lives, increase antisocial behaviour, and see drug use running rife. I have to say, as the father of a 17-and-a-half-year-old son, that the idea that the argument is being made by the Greens that when he turns 18, in just a few months, it would be lawful to provide him with heroin and crack cocaine is absolutely disgusting.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that really important case on behalf of really important victims, and I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House are with those victims. Every report of a sexual offence should be treated seriously, every victim should be treated with dignity, and every investigation should be conducted professionally. The safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), is meeting the victims, and if the hon. Gentleman gives me the full details, I will make sure that his constituent is part of and included in those meetings.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that really important case. Let me tell him that I share his deep concern, and the deep concern of the community, over the incident at Manchester Central mosque—particularly as it took place during the holy month of Ramadan—and that we will not, and must not, relent in the fight against anti-Muslim hatred. We must not.
I remember visiting Peacehaven mosque in the wake of the awful attack there, and when I did, I committed £40 million to protecting mosques and community centres. It is a shame that we have to do that, but we do have to do it, and we are establishing a new fund to monitor anti-Muslim hatred and to support victims. I want to reassure my hon. Friend and the House that we will fight hatred and protect freedom of worship in this country.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
The Prime Minister
I know that the hon. Gentleman shares our support for East West Rail, which is a vital project that will deliver better journeys and tens of thousands of jobs, and unlock up to 100,000 new homes. I agree that access to Bicester Village must be maintained—my children say that as well—and I think the company has put forward two options for replacing the crossing. I reassure him and his constituents that they will have the opportunity to express their views on what would work for them during the upcoming consultation.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, because restoring Belper mills is not just about delivering the housing that his constituents want, but about restoring an iconic world heritage site in the east midlands. We are investing over £1.2 billion in skills, supporting apprenticeships—including courses focused on heritage construction—recruiting 60,000 more construction workers, and backing new technical excellence colleges, so that we have the workforce to build the homes the country needs.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
The Prime Minister
I know how important it is that we fix the crumbling roads that we inherited from the Conservative party. The hon. Gentleman’s county council will receive over £225 million as part of our £7.3 billion investment to tackle potholes. We are also implementing tough new standards so that councils have to prove that they are fixing the roads properly, and delivering £78 billion for councils to ensure that they can deliver excellent local services.
Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
May I thank my hon. Friend for her dedicated work on this issue? We are committed to phasing out animal testing wherever possible. Last year’s strategy, backed by £75 million, will accelerate new alternative testing methods. Alongside banning puppy farming and introducing stronger standards for zoos, we are ensuring that the UK is a world leader in animal welfare.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
In 2014, a man in my constituency was ambushed, violently beaten with a pickaxe handle and left lying in the street with serious injuries. At the time of the conviction, the judge called it a “brutal attack”. Many constituents have contacted me to express their concern that the perpetrator of this attack is still a sitting Labour councillor in Keighley and was recently pictured celebrating an election with convicted crack cocaine and heroin dealers. Prime Minister, on behalf of all victims of serious crime, will you, as the leader of the Labour party, ensure that Councillor Mohsin Hussain is not permitted to stand in the local elections this May?
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Member for raising this matter. I will look into it straightaway and give him a full answer. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Fenton-Glynn, you are getting carried away with some other colleagues behind you—Mr Davies and others—but please!
Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
We inherited the highest industrial energy costs in Europe because of the failed policy of the Conservative party. Our British industry supercharger is cutting bills for major industries, but my hon. Friend is right to champion SMEs as well. I can confirm that we will appoint Ofgem to regulate and stamp out exploitation by third-party intermediaries, helping to reduce bills, and I will make sure that she gets a meeting with Ministers to discuss the issues that she has raised with me.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
Even the embarrassingly loyal Scottish Labour party seems to have lost confidence in the Prime Minister. I say to the Prime Minister, “Please don’t let that put you off coming and campaigning in Scotland on your Government’s record,” but can he tell us why it is that those who were so close to him have abandoned him, given the Government’s record?
The Prime Minister
I remember when SNP Members used to sit down here on the Front Bench, did they not, before the election, and now they sit up there, because we won the general election in 2024 with a landslide majority.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister
We are determined to halve the disadvantage gap and give all children the best start in life. I am delighted to see that a free breakfast club is opening in his constituency of Rochdale. Our actions will lift over half a million children out of poverty, and the Conservatives’ policy is to say they would plunge them straight back into poverty, which is disgraceful. Through our actions to reform the SEND system, we will create an inclusive system so that every child can go as far as their ability and talents will take them.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
Mr Speaker, you will recall that, some months ago, I asked the Prime Minister why, as the Director of Public Prosecutions, he did not bring charges against Mohammed Fayed for rape and assault, and the Prime Minister replied that this did not cross his desk. I understand that the Met police delivered two dossiers to the Crown Prosecution Service, so if the Prime Minister did not see them, who did, and could he tell the House when he expects the Metropolitan police to bring charges against those who aided and abetted Fayed?
The Prime Minister
I stand by my answer. Hundreds of thousands of files are submitted to the prosecution service every year. It is important that the investigation is going on. I cannot tell the right hon. Member when the decision will be made or what the decision will be, as he well knows, but it is important that every allegation is properly investigated and properly dealt with according to the law.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
My hon. and gallant Friend is absolutely right. Our support for Ukraine is unwavering, and yesterday I chaired the call of the coalition of the willing and announced new sanctions to weaken Putin’s war machine. The Greens, by contrast, want to pull out of NATO and negotiate with Putin on our nuclear deterrent, and Reform is still parroting Kremlin talking points after its leader in Wales was jailed for taking Russian bribes. Both of them are weak on NATO and soft on Putin.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
Points of order come after urgent questions and statements. We are not going to change the policy of the House.
Diego Garcia and British Indian Ocean Territory
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)
(Urgent Question): To ask His Majesty’s Government to give us an update on the situation with regard to the Diego Garcia American military base and the British Indian Ocean Territory, especially in light of the recent comments of the American President.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)
His Majesty’s Government’s objective has been, and continues to be, to secure the long-term effective operation of the military base on Diego Garcia. It is a base that is critical for our national security and helping to keep the British people safe. It is a key strategic military asset for both the United Kingdom and the United States. It has enabled our shared security for nearly 60 years.
When we came into government, it was clear that our ability to maintain our interest and control in the base was under threat, so this Government had to take action to protect our military advantage and to stop our adversaries gaining a hold in such a strategically important part of the world. Refusing to act could have exposed one of our most valuable military assets to China, so, as any responsible Government would, we negotiated a deal to protect our interests.
This Government inherited a situation where the operation of the base was in immediate jeopardy, and negotiations on a transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius were well advanced by the previous Government. The deal delivers on our objective of maintaining the secure, effective operation of this vital military base. It would allow us to operate this joint UK-US base as we have always done.
This House knows that the Government worked tirelessly with the United States in developing and testing the treaty to ensure that it met our shared security needs. That is why it was supported by two Administrations and why Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth, and indeed President Trump himself, came out so strongly in favour when the treaty was signed in May last year. I can assure this House that nothing in the treaty has changed since the US Administration gave their original endorsement of the deal, and we continue to work with Mauritius and the United States.
The UK Government have great sympathy for the Chagossian community. They feel a deep emotional connection with these islands. We have been clear in our regrets for the manner in which Chagossians were forcibly removed from the islands in the ’60s and ’70s. We are working to resume a programme of heritage visits for members of the community.
We will continue to work with both Mauritius and the United States on the agreement. As the Prime Minister has said, we have very close relations with the United States. That relationship matters profoundly not just to our security, but to the prosperity and stability on which people here at home depend.
Nigel Farage
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, the situation in America has changed, as you know. The British Government went around America and said a whole load of things, such as that it was legally necessary to give away the Chagos Islands, which of course was not true.
“DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!”
Capital letters from the American President—he likes capital letters in his posts. All the other arguments have been well rehearsed: the fact that it could cost us up to £50 billion; and the fact that the Chagossians were not just badly treated then, but are being badly treated now. They have resettled Île du Coin and have eviction notices from this Government.
But I can tell the House this from my trip to the Maldives at the weekend—something I had not realised, and I do not know whether the Government know it either. It is the Maldives that has the historical links with the Chagos Islands, in terms of trade and archaeology. In fact, all the French did was rename the islands from the Maldivian language. There is no basis—historically or culturally, in any way—for Mauritius to have a claim on the islands.
The Maldives is upset for two reasons. There has been great stability in the region for decades. If the treaty goes through, we will finish up with a turf war in the region between India and China. Indeed, that has already started. I wish to inform the Government that, in my opinion, we are just a few days away from the Maldives issuing a counterclaim in the International Court of Justice to say that if anybody has the right to the sovereignty of those islands, it is the Maldives and not Mauritius. I urge the Government to pause all of this.
Mr Falconer
The hon. Member suggests that we have gone around the American Government. I have set out already in my response the extensive talks that we have had on this question with both Secretaries and, indeed, the President of the United States in recent months. There is no question of us going around the US Government.
The hon. Member says, “Well, what has changed?” Clearly, the view of the US President may well have changed, but the treaty has not. We have discussed the treaty in great detail in this House. The treaty emerges from talks initiated by the previous Government and completed—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, I might find the chuntering on the Conservative Benches more plausible had I not been a Foreign Office diplomat during the period when, for 11 rounds, they were negotiating this deal. I understand that right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches now wish to distance themselves from the 11 rounds they conducted, but let us at least—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. One of us is sitting down, Minister, and it is not going to be me. An urgent question has been granted and other Members want to hear it. I want to hear it, I expect them to hear it, and I expect them to hear it in silence.
Mr Falconer
Returning to the substance of the hon. Member’s question, I would just like to remind him that if he turned up with a selfie stick to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, which is a similarly sensitive military base, he would be turned away. I do not understand his surprise, or that of those who travelled with him, that when you sought over the weekend to film a video on a sensitive military site under the control of the UK—[Interruption.] It is part of the British Indian Overseas Territory, as you know. I encourage the hon. Member, and indeed every member of the public, to check British travel advice—
Mr Speaker
Order. Minister, you keep saying “you”. I am absolutely not responsible for, or was involved in, that filming. Please, I am being drawn into something that I do not wish to be drawn into at this stage.
Mr Falconer
Mr Speaker, I can only apologise. I would not seek to draw you into such a flagrant incident of ignoring travel advice.
The treaty is as it was signed. It is going through both Houses of Parliament. We are discussing it with our American colleagues. The fact that the hon. Member sought to take a selfie video on the islands does not change any of those facts.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Could the Minister please assure the House that international law will apply to Diego Garcia, by way of either the ownership or the use of Diego Garcia, either by our military or by the Americans?
Mr Falconer
I thank my right hon. Friend for the question. Of course, the UK Government abide by international law and will continue to do so.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Labour’s Chagos surrender is a shameful, unnecessary and reckless deal that will leave Britain weaker, poorer and less secure. This is not a legal necessity but a political choice made by a floundering Prime Minister, and it is British taxpayers who will be left to pay the price. No other Government would pay £35 billion to hand over their own sovereign territory and make their country less secure in the process. At a time when families are being squeezed, Ministers are asking them to subsidise another country’s budget, potentially funding tax cuts in Mauritius while taxes rise here at home. That is indefensible. Can the Minister therefore confirm that no payments will be made under the treaty of the so-called strategic partnership unless and until ratification is fully complete?
This is also a national security crisis. Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically vital military bases in the world, yet Ministers are pressing ahead before resolving the binding 1966 UK-US treaty, before addressing concerns raised by President Trump, and without guaranteeing that the lease can never collapse or be legally challenged. On the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, will the Minister confirm that article 298 provides an opt-out from compulsory dispute settlement for military activities, meaning that this is a political choice, not an unavoidable legal trap?
Will the Government suspend the Bill until the legal position with the US is settled and any amendments have been scrutinised under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act process? Will the Minister confirm whether the Pelindaba treaty would apply if Mauritius were to take sovereignty, and if so, what iron-clad safeguards protect our nuclear deterrent?
Finally, what of the British Chagossians, some of whom are now on the islands? Can the Minister guarantee that there will be no forced removal and that their rights will be protected in full? British sovereignty is not for sale, and this House should not be bounced into surrendering it.
Mr Falconer
As I have said, I would find the Conservatives’ position more plausible had they not held 11 rounds of these negotiations. The attempt by Conservative and Reform Members to act as though there was no issue to be addressed, and as though the reason they started 11 rounds of negotiations was some sort of lack of focus—[Interruption.] If there was no issue to address, I am not sure why right hon. and hon. Members in the previous Government began the negotiations. I can assure the House that the treaty will go through the full parliamentary process in the usual way, and we are discussing these questions with the Americans in the usual way.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)
Risking the accusation of creeping, Mr Speaker, may I say that it is a great pity that you are not in charge of these negotiations? The deal we have come to, or are coming to, is inexplicable both in principle and in relation to the costs to my constituents. I very much doubt that at the time of the next general election, most Labour candidates, or indeed our manifesto, will point to the yearly cost of £100 million and us giving up ownership of these islands.
I am sure that my hon. Friend knows it off by heart, but I will just remind him of page 120 of the Labour manifesto, which states:
“Defending our security also means protecting the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, including the Falklands and Gibraltar. Labour will always defend their sovereignty and right to self-determination.”
We have not even consulted the Chagossians. Will my hon. Friend not reconsider?
Mr Falconer
I would not like to accept the connection being made between the British Indian Ocean Territory and Gibraltar and the Falklands. We are four-square behind the sovereignty of Gibraltar and the Falklands, which have chosen repeatedly to remain British, and long may that continue. We are abiding by our manifesto commitments. The issues around the continued operation of the base have been discussed many times in this Chamber, and they are being scrutinised in both Chambers as the treaty goes through the full process that Parliament would expect, and that will continue.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
I am acutely aware that this urgent question comes in the aftermath of the attempt by the hon. Member for Clacton to land on the Chagos archipelago last week, and although I might admire the hon. Member’s audacity, I am deeply concerned that his actions trivialise what is indeed a deeply serious situation and potentially render the genuine grievances and injustices felt by the Chagossians as a political backdrop to his social media feed.
However, I must also acknowledge that the hon. Member’s platform has been created only because of the vacuum created by this Government, because the wheels have undoubtedly fallen off their negotiations. They have failed to secure the support and consent of Chagossians, and they now seem to have lost the support of the President of the United States too. While either one of those things might be considered unfortunate, the combination of the two looks deeply careless.
What is the status of the negotiations right now? What is the latest position of the United States? Will the Government also take on our very long-standing concerns about the rights of Chagossians? There is clearly not widespread consent here. Will they take on the points that we have made in amendment after amendment and recognise that Chagossians have the right to self-determine their own future? Will he also accept our concerns about the finances to ensure that Britain is not left as a leaseholder of these islands if a deal goes ahead without a sitting tenant?
Mr Falconer
The hon. Member refers to amendments to the Bill, and I am sure that he will understand why I will leave that to the Minister responsible for conducting the Bill through the House. On his question about the status of the negotiations, as I said, this is going through Parliament in the normal way. We are pausing for discussions with the United States, and those discussions continue.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
I know that the hon. Member for Clacton has a number of additional jobs in combination with his responsibilities as an MP, but I had not realised, until his recent adventure, that small boat captain was among them. Maybe, as a former Royal Marine, I could help him with his navigation. Could my hon. Friend the Minister remind the hon. Member for Clacton what the penalty is for taking a trip to the British Indian Ocean Territory without a permit?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend paints the hon. Member for Clacton as a captain, but I will decline the opportunity to be the sheriff on this occasion.
Mr Falconer
The hon. Gentleman says “Stop the boats”, but he did take a private jet to get there, which is not quite consistent with the small boat rhetoric we usually hear from his party.
I want to be clear that there has been an attempt to land—indeed, a successful one—on part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, and it was not an area fit for human habitation. British travel advice is very clear that one should not travel to that area. This House has discussed the sensitivity of this base and these islands on many occasions. I encourage everybody listening at home to attend to our travel advice, which is there for a reason.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
As always, this argument depends not on gimmicks but on a detailed examination of the law. On 22 May, the Government made it clear in an answer that they were bound by the international law of the sea. However, in answer to a written question on 12 February, they said that article 298 of UNCLOS—an opt-out—still applies, so the law remains the same as in 2003 and 2020. This specific question was asked by the Opposition spokesperson, and we now want an answer. This is desperately important, because this opt-out is vital for the Falklands and for Gibraltar.
Mr Falconer
The Father of the House will appreciate that I am probably not in a position to give him the full detail that he would like on the provision of UNCLOS 298. I am sure that this issue can be dealt with in the passage of the Bill, outside of the context of an urgent question.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
Can I ask the Minister to engage in a short thought experiment? If senior members of the Labour party, at the time they were in opposition, had gone to lobby a foreign Government against the best interests of the British security services, what would have been the reaction of the right-wing media and Opposition parties who have made this their pet project?
Mr Falconer
It is very good question. When I was a diplomat, we usually understood that British politicians would not seek to undermine the British Government overseas—we could argue in this place but, broadly, we would try to keep our disputes on our own islands rather than going elsewhere to prosecute them—so I am surprised to see the vigour with which those on the Opposition Benches are seeking to undermine the process we have been engaged in.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the Government pause any steps in this matter until the judicial review proceedings that are being brought on behalf of the Chagossian people have been resolved one way or another in the High Court?
Mr Falconer
I am endeavouring to answer the urgent elements of the question and leave the questions about the treaty and its passage through the two Houses to that process, as that is my understanding of how best to deal with urgent questions. I will leave the question about the judicial review, which I understand is not urgent but is related to the passage of the treaty through the two Houses, to the Minister responsible to respond in the usual way. [Interruption.]
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We need to lower the temperature—and everyone can be seated. The Minister can answer each question in full if he wishes to do so.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I have been doing the maths on the Reform leader’s weekend. He spent 23 hours in the air in his private jet—perhaps run by “Man of the People Airways”—and 12 hours on the ground. That is a day and a half or so when he could have been delivering leaflets and knocking doors for the Gorton and Denton by-election. Does the Minister share my concern that the Reform candidate is missing out on the active support of the hon. Member for Clacton and instead has to fall back on the support and endorsement of Tommy Robinson—AKA Stephen Yaxley-Lennon?
Mr Falconer
I will leave the questions about how the hon. Member for Clacton spends his time to him. It was not a serious contribution to the debate on Diego Garcia and the British Indian Ocean Territory for him to travel there at the weekend. I am sure that I and many of my colleagues will be in Gorton and Denton in the coming days.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
It is slightly bizarre to hear the hon. Member for Clacton appear to make the argument that the Maldives should own Diego Garcia.
On the question from my right hon. Friend the Father of the House, putting aside the wider Bill, as the Minister does not wish to discuss it, does article 298 of UNCLOS exempt military bases—very simply, yes or no? The Minister is a diplomat, so he knows the answer.
Mr Falconer
The reason why I do not really want to talk about the Bill is that it is not my Bill, it is quite detailed and it is going through both Chambers of Parliament. I am very happy to ensure that the relevant Minister writes and provides the answer to the issue.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
I agree with the hon. Member for Clacton about the need for proper scrutiny of the vast sums of taxpayers’ money that the Government propose to send to Mauritius, yet I am puzzled that he would travel all the way to the British Indian Ocean Territory without a permit, given that Diego Garcia is a military base. The former leader of Reform UK in Wales is spending time staring at a security fence after pleading guilty to eight counts of bribery; does the Minister agree that the hon. Member for Clacton must be curious to know what it is to stare at a security fence?
Mr Falconer
I suspect that is a question for the hon. Member for Clacton. The record of the former Reform leader in Wales is well known and understood but, having declined to comment on the Bill, I will have to decline to comment on the goings on of the Reform party.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Reports suggest that Foreign Office officials have been instructed to act as if the treaty is in full operation. That is important, because we may be days, or even hours, away from military action against Iran. The key question is whether the US has to inform the UK and then Mauritius about wanting to use the base as a site for military operations. If it does, have the American Government approached the UK about such use?
Mr Falconer
For a reason that is long and well established in this House, I will not be drawn on hypotheticals or ongoing military operations, but I reassure the House and the hon. Member that the treaty is in force only once it has passed Parliament in the usual way.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)
The surrender of British sovereign territory began under my former party and has been made only worse by this Labour Government. It is a damning indictment of the two old parties. The Minister represents the neighbouring town to mine and, when he is not jet-setting, he presumably walks the same streets and talks to the same people. How can he, hand on heart, say that his constituents should spend up to £50 billion on this policy at a time when taxes and bills are rising and everyone in this country feels hard up?
Mr Falconer
I am appalled by the right hon. Member: Newark may well be a market town but Lincoln is a city, and has been for a very long time, so I invite him to withdraw that remark. [Laughter.] I do not receive a great deal of correspondence from constituents in Lincoln on this question. Mostly, my constituents prioritise Britain’s national security. They understand, through our extensive history in Scampton, Waddington and Cranwell, the important part that Lincolnshire plays in the UK’s national security, and they would expect me and the rest of the Government’s Ministers to prioritise that at all times.
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
I think the vast majority of Members of this House can agree that the arguments for giving away our Chagos islands have been threadbare at best, which leads one to believe that there must be sensitive elements to the deal. It was, then, interesting to read what the former FCDO special adviser Ben Judah wrote:
“Once you’ve been briefed, even partially, on what it”—
that is, the base on Diego Garcia—
“does the information gives you vertigo. Both now, and in government, communicating the details to the public would be violating the Official Secrets Acts.”
Given that this deal is going to cost the British taxpayer billions of pounds, does the Minister not believe that it should be incumbent on the Government to declassify some of the information so that we here in Parliament and the British public know what we are paying for?
Mr Falconer
No. We will not declassify what we do at RAF Waddington, and we will not declassify what we do in defence of the realm. It is not a serious proposition. There are obviously mechanisms, through Parliament, by which secret material can be considered through the Intelligence and Security Committee, and we will continue to use those mechanisms.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)
I think we are getting to the crux of this issue. The Minister was in the Foreign Office when the negotiations were taking place. He should know that the Île du Coin in the Peros Banhos atoll, where Misley Mandarin, the first minister appointed by the Chagossian people, is currently situated, is nowhere near Diego Garcia. It is over 120 miles away from the military base. It poses no threat. The people on those islands pose no threat to security or to the military base at Diego Garcia. This is a sham. This Government and the last Government have been denying the truth, which is that the Chagossian people are British and should be given the same rights of self-determination that the Falkland Islanders, the Gibraltarians and all British overseas territories rightly deserve.
Mr Falconer
I am rather old-fashioned. The territory to which the hon. Gentleman refers is within the British Indian Ocean Territory. The law that applies there applies to the whole of the territory. The travel advice—I am not sure the hon. Member for Clacton acquainted himself with it before he travelled—is clear on all the islands. I understand that the hon. Gentleman was making a point about geographic distance, but the sovereignty and the law applies none the less.
On the question of Chagossian representation, the hon. Gentleman will know that there is considerable disagreement within that community, and that the prime minister to whom he refers is not internationally recognised.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
I genuinely have respect for the Minister, as he knows, but I am very confused as to the Government’s position. He will know from his time in the Foreign Office that one of the principal issues to which he refers is the fact that the previous US Administration was not comfortable with the disputed status of this territory under international law, but it is now clear that the current President of the United States has no such concerns or qualms. Given those circumstances, why are we continuing to burn capital with the current Administration, rather than saying, “Let’s put this whole thing on hold and look for a solution that might work better for both the United States Government and the interests of the United Kingdom”?
Mr Falconer
To be clear about the current position, there was support from the US Administration for this treaty, which has not changed. There clearly has been a statement from the President of the United States more recently that is very significant, and, as I told the House, we are now discussing those concerns with the United States directly. We have a process going through Parliament in relation to the treaty. We will bring that back to Parliament at the appropriate time. We are pausing for discussions with our American counterparts.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Whatever Members across this House might say, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) has done a service to us in raising this matter today, because this is a dodgy deal founded on a bogus basis, as I shall explain. When this was introduced to the House, we were told that the Government were doing so on the basis that they would be sanctioned internationally, and, in particular, they described the most proximate and potentially serious as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. In the answer to a subsequent written question, I discovered that, far from that, the stance on article 298 remains unchanged from prior declarations of 2003 and 2020. That means we can opt out. There was no obligation and no necessity.
I use these words cautiously because I know and like the Minister and I know and like the Secretary of State for Defence, but it seems to me that this House was inadvertently misled in the original statement, as is proven by subsequent answers to written questions. Will the Minister clarify that urgently, because it is a very serious parliamentary matter and a matter of national significance?
Mr Falconer
The right hon. Member is a Lincolnshire colleague, so I do not like to disagree with him, including on the value of the weekend trip taken by the hon. Member for Clacton. On the question of article 298, I can hear the strength of views across the House. As I understand it, this is a particularly complex and contentious area of law. I hear the House’s desire for further clarification from the Government, and I am sure that the relevant Minister will be very happy to write—
Mr Falconer
I am not the relevant Minister. I am the Minister for the Middle East, as hon. Member knows.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
To continue on this theme, it was only a few months ago that this House was told that if we did not approve this treaty, there would within weeks be binding international judgments against us. What international tribunal was ever capable of ruling on a military base? What tribunal were the Government talking about? We know that the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has no jurisdiction on military bases or sovereignty, so what on earth were the Government trying to persuade this House about?
Mr Falconer
Again, there is this desire to suggest that there was no issue, that the 11 rounds of negotiation started by the previous Government were done for no reason and that there was no substance behind our concerns. I quote from US Secretary Hegseth:
“Diego Garcia is a vital military base for the US. The UK’s very important deal with Mauritius secures the operational capabilities of the base and key US national security interests… We are confident the base is protected for many years ahead.”
We were engaged with a real problem, and we were seeking a real solution. If Members would like more on the particulars around article 298, which I have heard the concerns about and committed to write on, we are very happy to provide it, but this is not a new argument about this treaty.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
How much political capital are this Government prepared to burn through with a highly transactional White House in order to secure more helpful language on the Chagos islands?
Mr Falconer
This Government will seek to pursue Britain’s national interests. As the Prime Minister has made clear, we are sometimes going to disagree with our friends and allies in public, but we will seek to resolve those issues in private. The principles driving the decisions of the Ministers of this Government will be Britain’s interests and our national security.
Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his response, but I would suggest that in future the appropriate Minister, who can actually respond to our questions, is sent to the House. Here is another straightforward question for him: have the Government declined to give the US permission to use Diego Garcia and other UK bases, including Fairford, to launch strikes on Iran?
Mr Falconer
If those were disparaging comments about my preparedness, I would encourage the hon. Member to listen to my previous answers, in which I said that I will not be drawn on operational questions for reasons—[Interruption.] The question was about whether a specific RAF base is being used. Would Conservative Members have been drawn on that? I think not.
Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)
We have been saying for months that to give away the Chagos islands and pay for the privilege is complete and utter madness. Having rammed this through, we are now told that the Government are taking a “pause for thought”. Can the Minister explain why the Government signed off this disastrous and disastrously expensive handover agreement without having thought about it first?
Mr Falconer
It is interesting that the hon. Member started her question by referring to months. Going back years to when she was a special adviser in the previous Government and talks were being conducted, there was clearly recognition in the Conservative Government that there was a real issue to be addressed. You pursued talks. You took them into—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. That was two yous in one go, Minister. Have another go.
Mr Falconer
Madam Deputy Speaker, I apologise. I am failing again. The hon. Member will appreciate the scepticism on the Government Benches given that the Conservative Government started this process, two American Administrations recognised that there was a real issue to be addressed, and this American Administration supported the steps we had taken in May.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
I will push back slightly on what the Minister is saying. As we know, the discussion between the UK and the Government of Mauritius around the sovereignty of the Chagos islands started in January 2009 under the previous Labour Government. That was confirmed to me by the Minister for the Overseas Territories, so he might want to bear that in mind.
The question I want to ask is about Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser who, prior to being National Security Adviser was the Prime Minister’s special envoy to the British Indian Ocean Territories—and still is today. Prior to being appointed on 6 September, he conducted meetings with the FCDO. He confirmed that he had already seen the deal prior to being in post and was then given a hard copy of the deal when he reached Port Louis. When did he attend Port Louis? Was it prior to his appointment as the PM’s special envoy? What security clearance did he have when he saw the Chagos deal for the first time?
Mr Falconer
On the first question, as I understand it the talks first started under the Conservative Government, but I am very happy to check the Foreign Office records and come back on that question. Whether they were started in 2009 or in 2010, that was quite a long period afterwards during which the Conservative Government were in charge and this strength of feeling was not demonstrated. Indeed, other hon. Members did not raise these issues in their time in office—[Interruption.] The suggestion, if I may say so, from the Conservatives that they were vociferously against this decision—they just took 11 occasions to work that out—does not feel very plausible to me. The hon. Member asked specific questions about Jonathan Powell’s work—[Interruption.] I thought I answered the first set of questions.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. We will move on to the final question. I call Jim Shannon.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his answers. If he were a goalkeeper, he would be exhausted at this stage. Maybe he has kept the ball out of the net—we will see how that goes.
The Minister will forgive me for being a bit obtuse, but it was my understanding that the leasing of the base at massive cost to the working person in this country was to secure national interests and safety. I therefore cannot grasp why the Government are possibly working against our greatest ally in the US of A and sending an internationally resounding message that our base cannot be used if it is deemed necessary. Will the Minister please outline what discussions have been held in the past number of days to correct any belief that we do not stand fully with our American allies?
Mr Falconer
The hon. Member usually thanks me for my tone; I will reflect on that afterwards. He asked me about sensitive security discussions between the United States and the United Kingdom; I am not really in a position to be drawn. We do discuss questions of middle east security with the United States. The Foreign Secretary set out clearly at the Security Council the malign influence that Iran—I think that is what the hon. Member was referring to—has played in the region and our efforts to ensure that it does not get a nuclear weapon. A diplomatic solution is the most desirable one, and that is what we are working towards.
Sir Edward Leigh
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You or your advisers will be aware of a letter that I and my colleagues have sent to Mr Speaker about this issue, particularly pertaining to the apparent discrepancy between answers given in the House on 22 May and those to a written question on 12 February. The Minister said that he was not able to answer that, although in my long experience of this place Ministers have been bound by collective responsibility and therefore answer for the whole Government. The Minister said that he wants an answer to be given on that point. I give notice that I will give the Government time for consideration and then on Monday morning I will apply for an urgent question specifically on the discrepancies in the information given to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The Father of the House is no doubt hugely respected across the whole House. He knows that we do not discuss urgent questions publicly—let alone on the Floor of the House—so that was a slight error on his part. He also knows that the Chair is not responsible for the content of the responses provided by Ministers—if only we were—but he has most robustly got his point on the record.
James Cartlidge
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. There is concern, among Opposition Members at least, that we heard repeatedly from the Minister that he was not the correct Minister to respond to the questions we asked. Our understanding procedurally is that Ministers are accountable to Parliament and that in coming before Parliament they are here to be held to account.
The key question, which refers to the previous point of order, is about the fact that last May the Secretary of State for Defence said that Diego Garcia would be weeks away from a legal ruling unless the treaty was agreed to. Opposition Members are concerned that that is not correct and that he may have inadvertently misled the House, because article 298 of UNCLOS provides an opt-out for binding rulings in relation to “military activities”. Surely we should have a Minister in front of us who can answer our fundamental legal questions on the treaty.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for giving me notice of his point of order. The Chair is not responsible for which Minister the Government put forward to respond to an urgent question. The Minister may wish to respond at this point.
Mr Falconer
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker; I beg the forgiveness of the House. As the House knows, I am the middle east Minister. On this occasion I am the duty Minister, so I am here to answer any question that I can. Where greater precision can be provided in writing—rather than risk providing the House with anything other than the fullest possible answers—I think that is appropriate.
As it happens, the Minister responsible for the Bill is travelling back to the UK today. I am sure he would have been more than delighted to answer the urgent question but was not in a position to do so. I want to ensure that the House gets precise answers.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) might not be satisfied with the response, but that was a response none the less. We will not continue the debate.
Ben Obese-Jecty
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 9 February I asked a named day question about the role of Jonathan Powell in the Chagos islands deal, which was due for answer on 12 February. As of now, 25 February, it has still not been responded to by the Government. How can I best encourage the Government to produce timely and accurate answers to named day written questions on this subject?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench, including Ministers, heard that. It is not good enough when Members put in for bits of information and table written questions and the responses do not come back in a timely fashion. I see those on the Treasury Bench and the Ministers nodding. One can assume that a response will be forthcoming very quickly. The hon. Member has got his point on the record. We do not want to continue the debate.
Electronic Travel Authorisation: Dual Nationals
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
(Urgent Question:) To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the impact of the UK’s electronic travel authorisation rules on British citizens who are also dual nationals.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mike Tapp)
I thank the hon. Member for her urgent question. The introduction of electronic travel authorisations—ETAs, as they are known—is part of plans to modernise and digitise the UK’s border and immigration system by providing a much clearer picture of who intends to travel to the UK for short periods. ETAs will enable a more targeted approach to border control, strengthening security and ensuring a smoother travel experience.
From today, carriers will check that eligible passengers hold an ETA before travelling to the UK and will deny boarding to those who do not hold the correct permissions. British citizens, including those who hold dual nationality, do not need and are not eligible for an ETA. They must travel with a valid British passport or another passport endorsed with a certificate of entitlement to the right of abode, known as a COE.
Since the outset of the scheme, the Home Office has embedded clear messaging for dual nationals across the ETA communications campaign and published comprehensive guidance on gov.uk setting out clearly what dual citizens need to do. Since 2024, we have provided explicit written and spoken guidance to people who naturalise or register as British citizens, including through their application and at citizenship ceremonies. Since the start of the year, we have also emailed people who have registered or naturalised in the last 10 years where we hold usable contact details.
In order to support British nationals overseas—particularly those who have not held a passport for some time or have never held one—the Home Office has put in place temporary mitigating measures, which include issuing temporary operational guidance to carriers confirming that they may at their discretion accept an expired UK passport issued in 1989 or later alongside a valid non-visa national third country passport. Carriers may also choose to accept alternative evidence and can contact the Home Office’s carrier support hub, which may be able to confirm British citizenship for those with a digital record on the UK’s immigration and passport system.
It is not the intention of the ETA scheme to penalise our citizens who choose to live abroad. That is why we have given as much time as possible to allow passengers in such a position to make the necessary arrangements and why we have now put in place additional short-term measures to assist our nationals when travelling to the UK.
I finish by noting that the approach we have taken is comparable to that taken by many of our closest international partners, including the USA, Canada and Australia, who have already introduced similar systems—for example, the electronic system for travel authorisation for visitors to the United States—and we expect the EU to launch its own version. We are doing these checks to ensure that illegal migrants and foreign criminals cannot set foot here through our ports and borders by screening them before they travel. I am delivering a more secure, modern border.
Manuela Perteghella
I begin by declaring my interests as a British dual national and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on citizens’ rights. From today, British citizens are at risk of being prevented from returning to their own country because of the Government’s mishandling of the electronic travel authorisation scheme. British dual nationals cannot apply for an ETA, and they do not have a visa, so unless they hold a valid British passport they must produce a certificate of entitlement costing £589 simply to prove they are British, compared to £16 for a tourist. Carriers face £2,000 fines, so it is no good that that is left to their discretion. The result is chaos for law-abiding British citizens, and families will be separated.
Communication has been wholly inadequate. Putting guidance on a website is not a communications strategy. I understand that the people who recently naturalised were not warned in their grant letters or at their ceremonies, and there have been no clear messages at the border. When Canada introduced a similar scheme, it delayed enforcement and created a low-cost, temporary authorisation—and it worked. Why has this Government refused to adopt the same common-sense approach?
I therefore ask the Minister: will the Government postpone enforcement to prevent British citizens from being wrongly denied boarding? Will the Government introduce a low-cost, one-off travel authorisation, like Canada did, for dual nationals whose citizenship can easily be verified? Will the Government ensure urgent help through consulates, high commissions and the UK Visas and Immigration helpline? These are British citizens who have followed the rules. They deserve better than confusion, silence and a £589 bill simply to come home.
Mike Tapp
I thank the hon. Member for her response to my answer. I am clear that there has been no mishandling from the Home Office on this important issue. As I said in my speech, this has been on the Government website since 2024. We have also spent significant sums of money on getting the message out there, including through the relevant media and through communications to those who have naturalised over the last decade. Communications, as we all know in this place, can be difficult and some people can be missed. I have worked as hard as I can to get the message out there, including on Australian television.
The hon. Lady is right in saying that there is no eligibility for an ETA. That is due to the Home Secretary’s power to grant an ETA deriving from the immigration rules, which do not apply to British citizens. A passport costs £100. The turnaround times that we are seeing after the increase in demand are well within the expected limits, taking four weeks for those applying from outside the country, with the average at around nine days. That is fast. They can also apply for an emergency travel document in extreme circumstances and the turnaround times for that can be as quick as two days. There are also transitional methods in place, such as using expired passports that were issued after 1989. There has been significant communication and advice to carriers, including my meeting many of them to ensure that they fully understand the new measures in place. The carrier support line is also active, through which anyone encountering issues can make contact.
It is important that we introduce these measures. They are modernising, they are making our border more secure and they are very much in line with what other nations are doing. I have sympathy for those who may be encountering issues. On Monday next week, I will hold drop-in sessions that all Members of Parliament with specific cases—I do not want to go into too much detail on the Floor of the House—can visit.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I was contacted in the early hours of this morning by two constituents who became proud British citizens in December. They did not have time to apply for British passports—they are from other EU countries with passports from there—because they were off on an extended honeymoon in south-east Asia. They now feel that they cannot get back into the UK from their honeymoon. They are absolutely stranded. I can pass on the details of the case to the Minister’s officials, but what would he advise? My constituents need to get back into this country as soon as possible. They should not have to pay a fortune for the privilege.
Mike Tapp
My suggestion at this point is that my hon. Friend’s constituents visit the Government website and call the support line to see what advice can be offered. I cannot go into specific details right now about that case, but if she comes to my drop-in session on Monday, where there will also be officials, we can deal with that. I am also happy to speak after this urgent question.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his response.
The ETA scheme was introduced by the Conservative Government to secure and modernise Britain’s borders. Under the previous system, someone holding a passport from a non-visa nation could enter the UK for six months with minimal formality. That left the Home Office unable to distinguish between a genuine British citizen travelling on a foreign passport and someone who had simply overstayed.
The changes strengthen our borders, and I am afraid that the Liberal Democrat suggestion that three years’ notice is somehow insufficient is not serious policymaking. Most immigration and border changes take effect within months. Tax changes happen within a single Budget cycle. A three-year transition for a documentation requirement is not unreasonable.
The change does not remove rights. It does not strip anyone of citizenship. It concerns the evidence required when travelling. People have known since 2023 that change was coming, so this is not a radical change. Citizenship carries rights, but it also carries responsibilities. Maintaining appropriate documentation is one of them. If the Liberal Democrats wish to argue for weaker evidential standards at the border, they should do so plainly. What they should not do is pretend that three years’ notice is somehow an injustice.
Turning to practical questions, the Minister has set out the contingency plans to support dual nationals. Will he confirm that consular services within the Foreign Office will be properly resourced to support individuals? Will he also commit to improving the communications plan, which has been insufficient? I note that ahead of today there has been no communication on the Minister’s Twitter account, when normally he is so busy creating videos that he believes may or may not go viral.
I understand that some airlines are accepting expired British passports issued since 1989, but will the Minister confirm whether that will become a consistent approach across all airlines? That is the minimum expectation that the Government should put in place. Finally, will he also confirm what specific efforts have been made to ensure that those serving under the King’s Colour, if deployed abroad, will have no issues coming home? The Conservatives support robust improvements to ensure that we have enforceable borders.
Mike Tapp
Agreement across the House on much of this is welcome, despite the mess that we inherited from the previous Government on immigration.
On the question of consular services, yes, they are in place but they are limited. They are for the most extreme cases such as bereavements and funerals or urgent medical care. On the use of social media, this morning I posted a tweet on X, which I am surprised that the hon. Member is not monitoring; I suggest she puts me on alerts. On the advice to airlines around the passports issued after 1989, that is the advice that has been issued but we cannot control exactly what each carrier does. It is important that members of our military—I speak as a proud veteran—are served correctly by the Government, and of course they will have no issues returning to the country.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
The Minister will know that I wrote to the Home Secretary in a letter co-signed by 30 Labour MPs raising serious concerns about the new rules and how they will impact British dual nationals. The reality is that British citizens will be left stranded abroad and many will be priced out of returning home, adding them to a growing list of people who are effectively classed as second-class citizens. The Minister will also know that hundreds of thousands of people could be affected by these ill-thought-out, rushed reforms that lack any parliamentary scrutiny. I gently ask the Minister to please pause the rules to allow for meaningful consultation and proper parliamentary scrutiny and to please remove the outrageous £589 charge for the certificate of entitlement.
Mike Tapp
I reject some of the framing. This has been public knowledge since 2023, it has been on the Government website since 2024 and we have spent significant funds on media. Communication is always difficult, and if this were extended for another year there would still be people who might not know about it. Travelling to this country on a British passport if someone is a British citizen, is not controversial. We have built in transitional arrangements to make it easier for anybody who has missed the messaging to come back to the country. This has not been rushed. There are many nations around the world that have an equivalent scheme, which ensures a more secure and modern border.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) for securing this urgent question. The Government’s lack of planning and haphazard communications over these changes are totally unacceptable. Countless dual British nationals have found themselves in heartbreaking circumstances, unable to visit family members or attend weddings or funerals, or having to stump up huge sums of money and face long waits just to get back home.
Take Nick from my constituency. He found out about these regulations by chance. Had he not found out in good time, his two daughters—dual nationals—would have faced the real prospect of being stranded in France. That is a dangerous situation for someone’s children to be in. More urgently, his niece and nephew, aged just two and four, were born in Canada. They are British by descent. They do not currently have UK passports and have not yet registered with the UK passport system. These rules are literally tearing families apart. The Minister’s solution is a drop-in event a week after the fact—that is not good enough. Will the Minister explain why the Government continue to refuse a grace period for families like Nick’s? If the Minister refuses to take steps to introduce a transition or grace period, will he compensate those who are losing out?
Mike Tapp
I find the framing of this absolutely absurd—it is nonsense. There have been years in planning from the officials and Ministers. As I said, this has been in the public domain for some years. For those looking to travel for emergencies, there are emergency travel documents, and I urge them to explore that through the Government website to see if they are eligible. It is great that the hon. Member’s constituent found out in good time. That says to me that the communications in that instance did work. On the specifics of that case, I ask him to visit the drop-in with officials on Monday and we can go into that further. We should all be very proud to hold a British passport.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister says this has not been mishandled, but I am sure even he would accept there are elements that could have been done better. One of those is to do with babies. I have two constituents—a three-month-old little boy stuck in Italy, and a little girl stuck in Uruguay who was born in Whipps Cross hospital in Walthamstow—whose mothers have dual citizenship and who both want to be back in the United Kingdom within the next month. If they come home with their families, under the current policy they face being turned away or separated from their mothers on arrival. Alternatively, families who have just taken on the biggest cost of all—having a baby—will have to find hundreds of pounds to pay for a certificate that will take months to arrive. In those circumstances, will the Minister at least accept there should be a waiver on the fees for babies so that they can come back home to their country?
Mike Tapp
I thank my hon. Friend for that important point on babies. There is no exemption at this time; I am happy to meet and talk about that further. At the moment, the average turnaround time is nine days, so the four weeks should not be a problem. If there are any problems, please do approach me. We will not separate any families at the border.
Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I cannot be the only Member of this House with constituents who are dual nationals for whom the information and data requirements are making it difficult to get hold of passports overseas. In the light of those difficulties, might the Minister consider an interim measure, perhaps allowing those individuals to use an electronic travel authorisation for a limited amount of time, while they sort out getting hold of the passports?
Mike Tapp
We cannot open ETAs to British citizens for the reasons I explained in my statement. The turnaround time on these applications is good; we are looking at within four weeks and, on average, nine days, but as I have said to many Members, please do bring that specific case to the drop-in.
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
My constituent Steve Bainbridge is a dual UK-Greek national. He has raised his experience of a delay in receiving his UK passport forcing him to have to use his Greek passport to attend his daughter’s wedding in the UK. He also highlighted bureaucratic issues faced by women travelling from Greece, such as with their maiden name having to be displayed in their passport and Greek documents using a different alphabet from British ones. Will the Minister outline how, if someone’s UK passport is delayed, they can avoid having to pay several hundred pounds and facing the bureaucratic issues that Steve has highlighted?
Mike Tapp
I would urge a meeting on Monday to go through the details of this, rather than trying to break it down in the glare of the public eye.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
The Minister put the changes on the gov.uk website. Why did not he do something original, like maybe writing to people with dual nationalities across the UK? He would not have got to everybody, but there would be records in the Home Office of everybody who has been naturalised in the UK, just as there will be files relating to citizenship and immigration. Why did he not get in touch with them directly? Is this not just a result of Brexit chaos catching up with British nationals? We now have people with dual nationality paying a Brexit border tax; where does this chaos end? With chaos in holiday airports across Europe, and limits on residence in the EU, has Brexit not been absolutely fantastic for this country?
Mike Tapp
I thank the hon. Member for his question. I will ignore the rant about Brexit—we are well past that. Whenever anyone in this House, in the Gallery or at home seeks to travel, the first place they should go is the Government website, to receive travel advice. We do not hold a database of dual-national citizens, so it is difficult to reach them directly. However, we did send emails and messages out to all those naturalised over the last decade, and spent significant funds on media—and I went on Australian TV to get the message out there.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
After 40 years in the UK, it was the proudest moment of Petra Gartzen’s life when she obtained British citizenship. She is on holiday in Spain, and was shocked to discover that she will not be able to re-enter with her normal German travel document, because she is a dual national. Up until now, she has never needed a British passport or a certificate of entitlement, and she is ineligible for an ETA. She has done the right thing and applied for a British passport from Spain, which is a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare in itself. What would the Minister suggest that she does if the passport does not turn up in time for her flight home on 6 March?
Mike Tapp
I thank my hon. Friend for her question; it is important, and well done to her for standing up so well for her constituents. Again, I ask that she drops into my session on Monday—civil servants will be there as well—and we can ensure that the right advice is issued, but at this point that there is information on the Government website, and a phone number to call for these sorts of incidents.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
I am going to take the unusual step of thanking two journalists—Lisa O’Carroll of The Guardian, and whoever writes for the BBC website—because they wrote about all this last week. That is relevant, because I have three constituents who would not have known about this, had it not been for the media coverage, and this is a really serious matter for some of them. One is in their 90s, and has had a number of strokes. Their daughter’s passport ran out last month and she, as a dual national, felt that she could not return to see her own parent. That is a family disaster for them. I take the view that one of the absolute constitutional rights of British citizenship is the right to return to your own country and not to be intimidated out of doing so. I do not particularly demand a reply from the Minister today—I have written to the Home Secretary—but will he consider allowing a simple grace period of six months. So that people can get across this, and do not have their family life disrupted?
Mike Tapp
I thank the right hon. Member for his question about his three constituents. I will let him in on a little secret: perhaps that media coverage is a result of the Home Office’s efforts to get this information out there as widely as we possibly can. There is no intimidation here. This is about a secure border and modernising. Equivalent nations around the world are doing exactly the same. On the individual circumstances he mentions, I cannot answer today, but let us get together on Monday and go through them.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
On behalf of my constituent David, I want to ask: has the ETA regime created a de facto UK passport requirement for British citizens? I also want to ask a question on behalf of my constituent Dolores, whose son, Tommy Roberts, an aspiring Royal Marine, was murdered in Bournemouth, aged 21, by somebody I will not name in this Parliament, who should not have been in this country. I thank the Minister for Border Security and Asylum for meeting me recently about this matter. We are not past Brexit, because that murder was possible as a result of a lack of intelligence sharing. Will the Minister share how, through these changes, the Home Office is taking action to stop illegal migrants and foreign criminals coming into our country?
Mike Tapp
My sympathy goes to my hon. Friend’s constituent. These changes make a more secure border. They mean that we can check whether foreign criminals are coming into the country, and if they are, we can stop them, which makes us all safer.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his answers. As always, these problems have resulted because of a realisation that the small print does not really work. Many of my constituents take flights from Dublin because they can be more cost-effective, but the need to have a British passport can be incredibly cost-prohibitive. I am trying to be helpful and positive, so will the Minister and the Home Office give consideration to providing for an ID card that could be accessed online, on production of a birth certificate, and could be provided free of charge, or at a minimal cost?
Mike Tapp
We are modernising across the board. I will not make any new announcements in response to this urgent question, but the modernisation of the border includes digitisation, which will impact all of us positively.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Helen Hayes to ask the final question.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
In 2018, in the Windrush scandal, many of my constituents suffered the detriment of being denied access to their own country. A part of the learning from that scandal is that people do not always read information that is in the public domain, and they do not always have a hotline to Home Office messaging. One of my constituents is in Australia and was due to come back, but his father has been placed on end of life care, so he has had to extend his visit. Another constituent, who was due to travel next week, only found out about the new requirements this week, and it is too late for her to apply for a passport. The scale of the cases raised today implies that there is a problem. What assurance can the Minister give my constituents that this is not another Windrush scandal in the making, whereby British citizens end up being denied access to their own country?
Mike Tapp
I take the lessons from the Windrush scandal extremely seriously. I meet the Windrush commissioner on a regular basis to ensure that we fix those wrongs, and that they never, ever happen again. I reject my hon. Friend’s framing. People can apply for a passport, a certificate of entitlement or an emergency travel document, and there is a phone line that they can contact. If she would like to meet on Monday to go through the specifics of the cases she mentioned, then I am happy to do so.
Grenfell Tower Annual Report
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Steve Reed)
I start by acknowledging the presence in the Gallery of survivors and relatives of those who died at Grenfell Tower. They have the deepest sympathies of the whole House, and our most profound respect. The fire at Grenfell Tower, which claimed 72 innocent lives, was a terrible moment in British history. We will not forget what happened that night. We must make sure that nothing like it can ever happen again.
The Government accepted all the Grenfell Tower inquiry’s findings, and committed to implementing all 58 recommendations. Everyone deserves a safe, decent home. This requires a new culture of transparency and accountability. Today I can report that we are on target to complete 70% of the inquiry’s recommendations by the end of the year. Since the inquiry published its final report, we have completed 10 recommendations from phase 2, and two outstanding phase 1 recommendations. Today, I will set out the progress that we have made on reforming the construction industry, strengthening fire and rescue services, and improving support for vulnerable people. We will complete all the remaining recommendations during this Parliament. We are also publishing the construction products reform White Paper, building on the proposals we set out in December for a new single construction regulator. Our work goes beyond the inquiry recommendations, because we are determined to secure lasting change across the whole system.
Last summer, we ensured that the Building Safety Regulator had the leadership it needs to do its job well. Lord Roe reformed the London Fire Brigade and is bringing the same determination to making the BSR work. Over time, the BSR will evolve into the regulator the inquiry recommended. We are consulting on that today. We will replace fragmented regulation with clear accountability. Everyone will understand their role and the standards that are expected of them. We have already made changes to get our own house in order. Fire policy now sits within my Department, ensuring that oversight of housing, building safety and fire is properly joined up in Government.
The construction products reform White Paper sets out ambitious plans for modernising the rules. We will make sure that products are safe, and will ensure that everyone meets their responsibilities. These reforms will mean sensible regulation, fit for the future, and confidence in the safety of our homes. We will make sure that people working in construction have the skills that they need. We support the building professions, and there will be rigorous expectations relating to competence and ethics. We have also published a formal statement setting out the path to proper professional regulation of fire engineering.
One of the clearest lessons from the inquiry was the need for better fire and rescue services. I am grateful to the National Fire Chiefs Council and the London Fire Brigade for their work on improving fire and rescue standards. A new national college of fire and rescue will ensure that these improvements continue.
Protecting people means making sure that those most at risk are never left behind. New regulations requiring emergency evacuation plans for high-rise buildings will come into force on 6 April. These will mean that vulnerable people have a plan for safe evacuation in the event of a fire.
Making sure that everyone has a safe home also means tackling wider problems in social housing. Grenfell shone a light on so many wrongs that we are now putting right. Under Awaab’s law, landlords must make urgent repairs where there are serious threats to health. People have more power to hold landlords to account, and we are giving them better access to information, so they can have more involvement in how their home is managed.
Speeding up remediation is one of my highest priorities. Work to remove and replace unsafe aluminium composite material cladding—the same type as on Grenfell Tower—has finished on 91% of high-rise residential and public buildings, with work on most of the rest well under way. We are working with developers, freeholders and local authorities to remove other types of unsafe cladding as quickly as possible, and are monitoring thousands of high-rise residential buildings to make sure that they are making progress.
We have also strengthened local resilience and emergency preparations. All five local resilience forum trailblazers have been funded, and the four chief resilience officers have been appointed. We are also setting up a national system for local areas to learn from each other, so that the lessons of Grenfell lead to lasting improvements in crisis response.
It is only right that we are transparent about how we address the Grenfell Tower inquiry’s carefully considered recommendations. We will continue to inform Parliament each quarter about progress on those recommendations. Alongside this statement, I am publishing our annual report on gov.uk. We will continue with these reports until every recommendation is complete. The Government’s new public dashboards for inquiry recommendations will continue to be updated quarterly.
Throughout this work, the Government have acted on the inquiry’s findings to address the culture that allowed failure to happen, yet we recognise that for many, something is still missing. For the bereaved, survivors and the wider Grenfell community, the need for justice is deeply felt, including decisions on criminal charges. The Metropolitan police investigation, which is independent of Government, is one of the largest and most complex in the force’s history, but I know that the slow progress is painful for those who have already waited too long for the justice that they deserve.
Nothing can erase the grief suffered by the Grenfell community. Their loss, strength and determination to change things for the better guide all that we do. Failures of government under successive Administrations made this tragedy possible. That brings an enduring duty to honour the memory of the 72 men, women and children who lost their lives. As part of that duty, I can inform the House that we are introducing legislation to provide the spending authority required to support the memorial commission and the community in building and maintaining a lasting and dignified memorial.
I know that there is still much that we need to do, but there has been real progress. The foundations for lasting change are in place: a reformed regulatory system, empowered residents, accountable landlords, stronger professions and greater transparency. Our objective is clear, and we remain true to it: never again. Never again should people go to bed unsure that their home is safe. Never again should public institutions fail in their duty to protect. Never again should the voices of residents be ignored.
The actions that we are taking honour those who died at Grenfell, support those who survived and serve our shared obligation to make every home a place of safety, dignity and trust. In that spirit, I commend this statement to the House.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and join him in welcoming survivors from Grenfell who are with us today.
The events that took place on 14 June 2017 were an avoidable national tragedy that should not have robbed 72 people of their lives, and they must never be repeated. It is right that in consultation with the survivors, the bereaved and those directly impacted, a fitting and lasting memorial is put in place to remember the 72 lives lost that day and the wider Grenfell community. We welcome the new legislation that the Secretary of State has announced this afternoon.
It is right that we remember the victims, and I thank the Secretary of State for giving us the opportunity to do that while he updates the House. The victims must be at the heart of how we remember Grenfell, and the Government must work with them in as sensitive a manner as humanly possible. We will support and scrutinise how the Government proceed with the memorial to ensure that the victims are at the heart of what he has decided. We believe that this matter should be cross-party, as it goes beyond party politics and it is simply the right thing to do.
The inquiry’s findings—decades of systematic failure, dishonesty and negligence—are a damning indictment of successive Governments, regulators and industry. The Government’s response last year was to accept all 58 recommendations, which is a step forward, and we welcome the commitment to action. I am glad to hear today that action on a few of those recommendations has already taken place.
The creation of a single construction regulator, the appointment of a chief construction adviser and the consolidation of fire safety functions under one Department are long-overdue reforms. While we welcome the formation of a single construction regulator, can the Secretary of State confidently state that he believes it will be more effective and help to safely build the homes that we need? Can he confirm that we will not be left with the potential delays that we have seen under the Building Safety Regulator?
When we were in government, we took decisive action to initiate this public inquiry immediately after the tragedy to learn the lessons and prevent it from ever happening again. We strengthened the regulatory regime and implemented the inquiry’s recommendations following the report from the first phase. It was welcome that this Government also accepted the recommendations. Will the Secretary of State publish a detailed plan on how all the recommendations are being implemented and their status? He gave us the update that 91% of high-rise residential and public buildings have had cladding removed. Will he update us with a road map for when the rest will be completed?
All building owners must step up, do the right thing and fix their buildings without delay, or face the consequences of their inaction. Those who intentionally cut corners on building safety must be held to account. The Metropolitan police and the Crown Prosecution Service should continue to pursue criminal charges against the small number of developers and contractors who knowingly and fraudulently cut corners on building safety for greed and financial gain.
The Secretary of State has promised to complete all the remaining recommendations during this Parliament. Will he lay out key dates for when key parts of that will be achieved? Will he update us on what stage he is at with the Grenfell site itself and future plans for it? How is he working with the victims’ families to support them?
Those who profited from cutting corners or were criminally negligent must face consequences—not just fines, but criminal charges where the evidence allows. We will support and scrutinise the support for victims and their families that the Government are putting forward to ensure that we get this right. I know that the Secretary of State and the Building Safety Minister, the hon. Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), want to get this right.
Grenfell must be a watershed with a legacy of safety, transparency and respect for every resident. Let me make clear the commitment of the Conservatives to work with the Secretary of State and the Government on a cross-party basis to meet that promise.
Steve Reed
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and welcome the tone that he has adopted. It is quite right that we should all work cross-party on this matter to speed up the outcomes that we are all looking for and that we work together in a way that shows respect to the families and those who lost their lives in this tragedy.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the single construction regulator. The BSR became a stand-alone body, separate from the Health and Safety Executive, on 26 January. Work is progressing on bringing into the BSR all the other aspects that will allow it to function in due course as the single construction regulator, which the inquiry identified as such an important part of fixing the building safety system. Lord Roe is overseeing rapid improvement in the performance of the BSR even as I speak.
The hon. Gentleman asked about remediation. It is welcome that 91% of high-rise residential or public buildings with unsafe ACM cladding have been remediated, but we recognise that there is further to go. Further acceleration plans are available, and I am happy to write to him if he would like access to that information.
Similarly, the hon. Gentleman asked about key dates in implementing further recommendations. We will continue to publish quarterly reports so that the whole House can scrutinise the progress that the Government are making with these recommendations. The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), and I are meeting regularly with the families and affected groups to ensure that we hear their concerns directly and can feed them straight into the system.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I call the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell)—take your time.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
As we approach the ninth anniversary of the Grenfell tragedy, bereaved survivors in the community are still rightly advocating for truth, justice and change on behalf of the 72 people who lost their lives in an entirely preventable fire. I pay tribute to all those who have joined us again in the Gallery today and those who are watching this statement. I know that the whole House will agree with the Secretary of State that criminal accountability cannot come soon enough. In the meantime, I welcome this annual report and the progress being made in many areas, from building safety to social housing management.
We know that, too often, lessons have not been learned from public inquiries and the implementation of recommendations has not been transparent and accountable. I would welcome an update from the Secretary of State on the proposal for an oversight mechanism to ensure that recommendations are actually implemented.
When it comes to the performance of Kensington and Chelsea council, many residents are highly sceptical about progress given that, according to the independent regulator, it has a seriously failing housing department and, according to the local government ombudsman, the third worst record on complaints. On the Lancaster West estate itself, there is uncertainty over the budget for completing the promised works. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will remain under close central Government scrutiny and that he will do all he can to broker a solution so that residents of Lancaster West—the people who least deserve to suffer—do not wait years more for their own safe and healthy homes?
Steve Reed
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and congratulate him on being such a powerful voice for his constituents and all those who have suffered and died as a result of the tragedy of Grenfell Tower. He has rightly earned respect from Members across the House for the dignified way in which he has carried out his role as a representative for the community.
The Government are very keen to make sure that we learn the lessons and implement the report. We will continue to publish quarterly reports to update the whole House, and indeed members of the public, on the progress that we are making. Work is continuing across Government, including in my Department, on setting up a national oversight mechanism to make sure that the recommendations of this and other inquiries do not just sit on shelves, but get implemented and inform improvement in the way that we deliver public services, including, in this important case, fire safety.
I had the opportunity to visit the Lancaster West estate with my hon. Friend. The Government have made £25 million available to allow work to continue on upgrading and improving the estate. He will be aware that we have concerns about the council’s delivery capacity and cost control. I am in contact with the leader of the council about those concerns in the hope and expectation that we can address them together, but the interests of the residents of the estate must come first for all of us.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats’ thoughts, like those of everyone in the House, are primarily on the 72 tragic losses of life that occurred in the Grenfell disaster. I welcome the spirit of cross-party discussion that the Secretary of State and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), have set out. I endorse the points made by the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell).
I welcome many of the recommendations and the actions being taken by the Government. In passing, I note that they apply to chartered architects. I have begun the training now required of all architects as a result of the Grenfell report—I declare an interest as a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects—which brings home, in a salutary way, the failure of the professions, successive Governments, industry and regulation on a tragic and horrendous scale.
One of the key recommendations in Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s report, set out in the typically neutral language of a High Court judge, is a request for the Government to reconsider
“whether it is in the public interest for building control functions to be performed by those who have a commercial interest”.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick raised similar questions on the construction product testing system. The White Paper says:
“Unethical manufacturers were able to exploit systemic weaknesses with appalling consequences”.
The follow-up Morrell-Day report on construction product testing highlighted that there were conflicts of interest. The White Paper also mentions “virtually absent” enforcement. Those are all shocking parts of this tragedy.
My first question is therefore whether that decision has been taken. We would go further and say that commercial interests have no place in building control inspection and product testing. My second question—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I know that this is a very sensitive issue, but the hon. Member has two minutes and he is now over by 35 seconds. Timing is everything, so will he please ask his next question quickly?
Gideon Amos
I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. My second question is about those excluded from the building safety fund. Tens of thousands of families are in buildings under 11 metres or living with products that might last an hour in a fire under PAS 9980—that is the wrong standard. We need all highly flammable materials and all buildings that have fire safety risks to be remediated. I ask the Secretary of State to address that question.
Steve Reed
I thank the hon. Member for his questions and for his commitment, shared by the whole House, that we need to resolve the problems that led to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. He asked about building control. We set up the independent panel under the chairmanship of Dame Judith Hackitt last year. That looks at decisions that may need to move into the public sector. The panel is due to report shortly, so I will not anticipate the findings that we can expect.
The hon. Member asked about the construction products White Paper, which was published today. I hope that he will take the opportunity to consider what it includes. I am sure that he will let me or the Minister for building safety know his thoughts on it. On remediation for buildings under 11 metres, it is important that we prioritise buildings based on safety risk, and that is what we are doing. We will of course keep that under review. There is a commitment to fund by exception those buildings under 11 metres where the risk is assessed to be high.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
In 109 days, on 14 June, the community and many of us will come together to remember the 72 people who tragically lost their lives. Almost nine years on, the Government’s acceptance of the 58 recommendations is an acceptance that the tragedy at Grenfell should not have happened. That tragedy was born out of systemic failure. I stand here today wearing my green heart to recognise the fact that the community had to come together in the aftermath of that fire. That fire happened because no one listened to them—no one believed them. I commend them on their ongoing campaign to get full justice, including criminal justice.
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. When the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee had the Grenfell community before us, we heard about the valid concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) highlighted about the national oversight mechanism. It cannot be right that the Government will mark their own work on that. The community wants full transparency.
I also thank the Secretary of State for outlining the fact that the Government will lay papers with regard to the spending authority for the memorial. If we are really to allow the community to have a lasting and fitting tribute, it is important that the memorial is built and designed with them, working with the memorial commission. Most importantly, can he confirm that the funding has been ringfenced and there will be no issues when the funding is discussed?
Steve Reed
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her questions and comments. She raises perhaps the most important point in all this, which is that no one listened to the voices of the people living in Grenfell Tower when they raised their concerns. That must never happen again. That is why the Government are seeking to strengthen the voice of tenants in social housing. Awaab’s law is one example of the way that has been achieved. It is gratifying that that, too, was done with cross-party consensus and support.
On the memorial, the Minister with responsibility for fire safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), will introduce the legislation to the House this afternoon. We expect it to proceed at speed through both Houses, so that it can support the commission and the community in funding and securing a lasting memorial that will remind us all for evermore of what when wrong and why it must never happen again.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
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 inquiry taking so long? Will he at least assure the House, and the country at large, that there is a dedicated unit within the police that is determined to bring this matter before the courts?
Steve Reed
In fact, the police are investigating an incredibly complex set of circumstances. That is why one of the biggest teams in the Met’s history is focused on getting to the bottom of this and of whether there is a need to pursue any prosecutions. It is one of the biggest and most complex police investigations ever—rightly, because we need to follow culpability, find those responsible and bring them to justice. The victims deserve that justice, but so do the survivors and relatives, so that they can at long last have closure on this tragedy, which has affected their lives. The Government will ensure that we provide the Met with the resources they require to fund the team sizes necessary to deliver that justice.
Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)
I pass Grenfell on my way home every evening, and I see the green heart move lower and lower as the building is dismantled. I wonder what will happen when the building is gone. I think about the survivors, the families and the 72 lives lost. I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, but after nine years, nobody has been arrested—somebody should have been. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) and I are often told about people who should have been arrested. The police need to arrest somebody and begin the process so that the community can begin to heal. Will the Minister push the Met to move faster?
Steve Reed
It is emotional to see the tower coming down slowly, brick by brick, but it is important for the community, and for all concerned about what happened, to know that the memorial commission is working with the community to secure a design for the memorial, which will be a lasting testament to what happened on that fateful night, and will honour the memory of those who lost their lives and their loved ones. My hon. Friend is quite right: nine years is a painfully long time to wait for justice. It is important, in such a complex investigation, that the police are given the time and resources they need to investigate properly, but we will of course encourage them to do that work as quickly as they can reasonably be expected to. We all expect them to bring to justice those who bear culpability for the deaths that night.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
I welcome the funding that the Secretary of State has announced to support the memorial commission. We have a shortage of skilled builders, plumbers, electricians and other construction workers in this country. Is he confident that we have a sufficiently trained workforce to carry out all the remedial works in the timescale that he has outlined? If not, what additional steps can the Government take to ensure that the works are completed on time?
Steve Reed
The hon. Gentleman is right to point to that concern, which we all share. In the most recent Budget, the Chancellor announced £600 million to fund skills training in the construction sector, so that we have the skills available not just to carry out work on the Grenfell site and remedial work on other sites affected by unsafe cladding, but to ensure that we can build homes to the higher safety standards now required right across the country.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
The tragedy at Grenfell exposed the scale and devastating consequences of the building safety crisis in this country. We have heard today that survivors and families are still waiting for truth and justice. Sadly, that crisis is still unfolding: as we neared Christmas, over 350 households in the Stratford Halo in my constituency were forced to leave their homes because of serious structural safety concerns. They were told to leave immediately, and did not know when they could return—it was terrifying for them. What will the construction reform White Paper do to strengthen standards for safe and secure homes, so that residents like those in the Stratford Halo never again have to be evacuated from their homes because their buildings are too unsafe to live in, and to ensure that developers are held to account?
Steve Reed
I am aware of what happened in my hon. Friend’s constituency recently, and how worrying it has been not just for the people living there, but for people right across the country. Just as with what happened at Grenfell, it attests to the fact that the building safety regulations and system in this country were inadequate to meet the public’s expectation, which is rightly that their homes should be safe. We have today published the construction products reform White Paper, which I hope she will take the opportunity to look at. It outlines some of the changes that we will make to products themselves. We will also continue to work on other aspects of building. The independent panel on building control, chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt, is due to report shortly and will make further important proposals on how to improve the system.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Nothing can ever undo the harm caused at Grenfell. I was in Parliament on that day, swearing in, when we saw everything that had unfolded. Nobody in my city of Aberdeen can ever get over the Piper Alpha disaster of 1988, but the resulting safety case produced by the Cullen inquiry meant that we had a much safer North sea and such a tragedy could never happen again, which brought people some solace. Will the Minister join me in urging stakeholders in Scotland to respond to the Scottish Government’s consultation on fire safety guidance, as we update the Scottish building standards to ensure that that guidance is as good as possible and all those working in that area can comply with it?
Steve Reed
I am happy to support the hon. Lady’s call for all affected stakeholders to feed in their views to the inquiry, be they in Scotland, England, Wales or Northern Ireland. The legacy of Grenfell and other tragedies, such as the one she refers to, should be greater safety from fire for everybody.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I am pleased that the Government are on target to implement the inquiry’s recommendations. Nearly nine years on from this awful tragedy, the families and survivors need truth and justice. Leaseholders in Battersea have been facing astronomical service charges, as well as costs for fire safety remediation works. In one case, leaseholders in a building below 11 metres in height are expected to pay approximately £8,000 a week for waking watches—that is shocking and unacceptable. What support and protections are in place for leaseholders? I believe that case is exceptional, so will he meet me and the leaseholders to find a resolution?
Steve Reed
I would be happy to arrange a meeting between my hon. Friend and the fire safety Minister so that they can discuss her concerns in detail, but she is quite right to point to the very severe concerns about leasehold charges. That is why the Government published a consultation last year on the costs for major works and other costs that fall on leaseholders, and we are due to publish our findings and our response to that consultation later this year.
Post Office Green Paper
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Before we begin the next statement, I remind the Front Benchers that there are time limits on each of their statements. In particular, the Liberal Democrats tend to be running over.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I know—not the present Front-Bench spokeswoman, but they have been all afternoon. Please keep within time limits.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Blair McDougall)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s response to the results of the “Future of Post Office” Green Paper. We published the Green Paper in July, starting a national conversation about the future of the Post Office, an institution that has served every community in every corner of the United Kingdom for generations. More than 2,500 people took the time to respond to the consultation, including postmasters, small businesses, service providers, community groups and members of the public. We also held dedicated discussion groups with postmasters and citizens across the country. I therefore start by thanking every respondent; their views provided a wealth of insight, and have been carefully considered.
I am pleased to announce that we are publishing the Government response to the consultation today. Our response must echo the clear call we heard from respondents. They told us that they want a strong and convenient post office network, built around permanent, full-time and full-service branches that offer a wide range of essential postal, banking and Government services. They want a Post Office that is reliable, modern and transparent, and that puts postmasters at the heart of decision making. As such, I can confirm today that the Government will keep the minimum network size of 11,500 branches and will retain all six geographical access criteria, ensuring that communities across the UK continue to have local and reliable access to postal services, including rural and remote areas.
Alongside maintaining the network requirements, we are introducing a new requirement that at least 50% of the network must be full-time and full-service branches. This requirement sets 50% as an absolute minimum, and we expect the Post Office to continue to operate substantially above it. We are setting this requirement to ensure that the full-time, full-service branches remain the backbone of the network for the foreseeable future, as those are the branches that deliver the greatest social value and the strongest customer service. At the same time, we are not blind to the challenges facing the Post Office, and have built in an evidence-based process so that we know when it is the right time for Government to look at the post office network again.
However, stability requires investment. That is why over the next two years, the Government will provide up to £483 million to support the transformation of the Post Office, on top of network subsidy funding to support the costs of delivering Government policy, which will be £70 million in financial year 2026-27. This investment funding will modernise branches across the country. It will support new in-branch technology and the delivery of new products and services that will make sure the Post Office can do what its customers need it to do, while keeping its identity and its role at the centre of so many UK high streets. The funding will also enable a major technology transformation programme within the next five years that will transition operations away from Fujitsu and ultimately replace the Horizon system. Postmasters must be able to trust the technology that they use; it should make their jobs easier and help them spend their time doing what they do best, which is serving their local communities. The days of the Post Office relying on outdated systems must end, and this programme lays the ground for a modern, resilient and fit-for-purpose organisation.
The consultation reinforces the importance of the Post Office for post, of course, but also for banking and access to Government services. I would like to address some specific points about each of those areas. First, on postage, respondents told us that they value the Post Office as a multi-carrier parcel hub and want more choice and convenience in how parcels are sent and received. We will support the Post Office’s efforts to innovate in this space while ensuring that essential services remain accessible.
Secondly, on banking, the public were clear that the Post Office plays a critical role in ensuring communities have access to cash and in-person banking. Being able to access essential banking services such as cash withdrawals and deposits is valuable to many Post Office customers, in particular small businesses, and respondents expressed an appetite to increase their offer. Last month, the Government held discussions between the Post Office and the banking sector to explore where they may be able to work together on a commercial and voluntary basis to better meet the needs of individuals and businesses. Those discussions were based around areas of mutual interest such as banking services, financial inclusion, modernisation, and the importance of continuing to improve financial crime safeguards. Those conversations are ongoing.
Finally, on Government services, colleagues will know that many services have moved online. However, respondents told us strongly that vulnerable, digitally excluded and rural customers continue to rely on the Post Office for in-person services. In that spirit, we have established a cross-Government group to look at developing a common physical front door for Government services, expanded assisted digital support, and new propositions such as prescription collection and identity verification.
At the heart of the Green Paper and of today’s Government response is the need to strengthen the relationship between the Post Office and postmasters. The Horizon scandal was one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern British history, and while the Government remain focused on delivering redress to victims as rapidly as possible, we must also ensure that the culture that enabled those wrongs can never return. The Post Office has already taken steps to rebuild trust, including the postmaster panel, a new consultative council, embedding postmasters in key teams at the Post Office’s head office, and the election of postmaster non-executive directors to the board.
However, we agree with respondents that more is needed. As such, I can confirm today that the Post Office will develop a culture strategy with measurable objectives that covers employees, postmasters, strategic partners and customers. The Government expect that plan to be in place by this summer. To ensure that these reforms genuinely meet the needs of postmasters, the Government have commissioned an independent external evaluation of the initiatives the Post Office has implemented to strengthen postmaster engagement, which will report later this year.
Our long-term goal is a Post Office that is financially sustainable, adaptable to changing markets and less reliant on Government funding, but this transition must be responsible and realistic. Respondents were clear that stability comes first, particularly while the Horizon inquiry continues. That is why the Government will provide £37 million of funding to the Post Office in the next financial year to support with the costs of administering redress and responding to the inquiry. While the Green Paper explored long-term governance ideas such as mutualisation or a charter model, the Government will not make any decisions on structural reform until after the final report of Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry. In the meantime, we will work with the Post Office to ensure that the organisation demonstrates financial discipline, generates a trading profit by 2030, and continues to reduce reliance on taxpayer subsidy while protecting access for communities that depend on it.
This Green Paper process and the thousands of responses we received show the enduring importance of the Post Office to the life of this country. The Government’s response sets a clear direction: we are maintaining a strong and accessible network, backing postmasters through major investment and cultural reform, modernising services for a digital age, and setting the Post Office on a path towards long-term financial and operational stability. The Post Office must be modern, resilient and trusted, shaped by the communities it serves and built around the people who run it. With today’s response, we take a major step towards that future.
I commend this statement to the House.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and—I do not often say these words—I warmly welcome the decision that he has announced. It seems that the Government have abandoned the risk, posed by their earlier proposals, that they would shutter thousands of local post offices, especially in rural areas. It is a great relief to those in villages and high streets that the Government have listened to the people who engaged with the consultation and the 180,000 who signed our petition, and have heard the calls from the readers of The Mail on Sunday, the Express, The Daily Telegraph and other media outlets, all of whom were outraged by the possibility that the Government would close their much-valued local post offices.
By keeping the minimum network size at 11,500 branches, as it was throughout the 14 years we were in government, and by retaining all the geographical access criteria, the Minister has avoided a U-turn. In fact, I would describe what he has done as avoiding a chasm that was opening up in the road in front of him, and avoiding it niftily. The campaign that we led showed how important it is to voice the concerns of the vulnerable, those who are digitally excluded and the small businesses that rely so much on our precious post office network. May I add my thanks for the hard work of every postmaster and postmistress in Britain who keeps that network going?
However, it is not all sweetness and light for me today. The post office network, like so many retailers, faces a tax hike—in this case, a hike of £45 million—because of the national insurance increase. Many post offices are also seeing increases of more than 100% in their business rates. The chairman of Post Office Ltd, Nigel Railton, made it clear that it was precisely because of the rising costs resulting from the changes in national insurance and the national living wage that the business needed a fresh start. We cannot claim to support the backbone of the network while breaking its back with tax hikes. The Conservatives have always stood up for our nation’s high streets, and we would introduce a permanent 100% business rate relief for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses whose premises are under the rateable value threshold of £110,000.
I have a few questions for the Minister. He announced a requirement for at least 50% of the network to be full-time and full-service. I believe that the number today is 79%. Is that not a downgrade, and what does he expect from the other 29%? Will he confirm that no small rural branches will be consolidated and replaced by city-centre hubs under the guise of this new 50% full-service requirement? Will he please expand on the minimum service that he would expect those smaller branches to deliver?
The Minister committed himself to a technology transformation programme to replace the Horizon system within the next five years. I heard about the first two years of funding, but will he give us some details about how the current system will be maintained after those first two years? He mentioned the importance of the post office network, given the number of banks that are closing branches all over the country. Has a new, specific agreement been made with the banks to provide additional support for post office branches in areas where banks are closing? What update can he give the House about the discussions with Fujitsu and its financial contribution towards Post Office redress?
The Minister has clearly been forced to listen. He has been forced to do a pre-U-turn on the proposals to reduce the size of our precious post office network. He has been forced to admit that our high streets deserve better than the managed decline that was a risk under those earlier proposals, and this is a victory for all our constituents.
Blair McDougall
I think that if I am praised much more from the Opposition Benches, I will be drummed out of the Brownies.
I welcome the hon. Lady’s response to my statement. I believe that there is consensus across the House on the important role that post offices play in our communities, and particularly in our high streets and remote villages. I join the hon. Lady in welcoming the campaigning of Mail and Express readers, who have voiced very clearly the importance of post offices to their communities. In my capacity as both postal services Minister and small business Minister, I also echo her words about the essential function of post offices in providing a place for small businesses to drop off their takings.
The hon. Lady referred to the costs faced by the Post Office, which is a point well taken. The Government are putting £483 million into the transformation of the Post Office to ensure that it has a financially sustainable future as a business on our high streets and in our villages. She asked specifically about support for the IT transformation. Of the more than £500 million that the Government have committed to transformation, including the money already spent before the Green Paper, £136 million is committed to technology and to replacing the Horizon system, which is a major priority for us. However, that transformation investment—beyond what we are putting into IT—will also enable the Post Office to do new things. The debate about the Post Office often concentrates on the idea of its being the last place to do things, but, having talked to the management of Post Office Ltd, I am greatly encouraged by their wish for it to be the first place that people think of in connection with cash and other high street services.
The hon. Lady asked about the additional 50% trigger, and, entirely fairly, raised the question of what it would mean for rural areas. The criteria for access to the full set of services that a branch provides are being maintained, so those protections are still there. This is very much an additional protection, rather than an alternative to the protections that were already there for rural post offices. For example, “drop and collect branches” that do not offer the full service are included in the 11,500 criterion, but are not included in the access criteria. This is about protecting access to as full a range of services as possible.
Finally, let me respond to the hon. Lady’s question about Fujitsu. When I met Fujitsu representatives shortly before the end of last year, I made very clear our belief that—as they have said themselves—they have a moral responsibility to contribute substantially to the costs of redress. They have said that they wish to wait until Sir Wyn’s inquiry before making a decision on that, but we will continue to have those discussions.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement. May I raise two specific issues relating to post offices in my constituency?
First, Mosborough post office, a fairly small but growing business, is on the margins of viability. Will the Minister think again about how small post offices in communities that rely on them can be supported? Secondly, the Lloyds bank branch in Woodhouse—the last bank there—has closed. Woodhouse is an old mining community. We thought it was an ideal place for a banking hub, and we had someone willing to run it: Richard Trinder, the sub-postmaster at Handsworth post office. However, the plan was turned down because the banks were not prepared to fund it The Minister mentioned discussions with the banks and the Post Office about a voluntary agreement. Will he have a look at what he might do to enforce such agreements, and change the criteria for banking hubs when they could be vital to local communities?
Blair McDougall
My hon. Friend has made some important points, particularly about the smaller post offices which, as he says, are often the ones that struggle and may be less able to invest directly to tackle some of their problems. The money that we are putting into network transformation is important because it can enable those that may be struggling at the moment to become viable businesses. Just before the end of last year, Treasury Ministers and I chaired a banking roundtable. As my hon. Friend says, we are talking about a voluntary relationship, but all the banks recognise the critical importance of the post offices and of access to banking services for their customers, especially in the light of recent high street bank closures. That recognition is, obviously, shared by the Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Sarah Olney
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and I promise to set a good example for colleagues by keeping my response brief.
As the Minister has laid out, the responses to the consultation underscored the importance of post offices as community hubs that provide vital services, not least to NHS patients through the delivery of important medical correspondence. Some 99.7% of the population live within three miles of a post office, and 4,000 of these branches are open seven days a week. That is an increasingly important statistic, given the rapid closure of high street services such as banks over the past decade. The Minister has said that at least 50% of the network must be full-time and full-service branches. Many people rely on the post office to provide vital services, so can the Minister confirm that we will not see a reduction in the number of full-time branches and that he will ensure that opening hours continue to meet the needs of working people?
The Minister also referred to the important community banking service that post offices provide, but he did not provide specific assurances to the House about other services provided by the Post Office, such as Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency services and Passport Office services. He mentioned expanded digital services, but these will not help many of our constituents who live in remote areas with poor broadband access or difficult phone service access. Can he provide a commitment that the Post Office will continue to provide physical services for people who will have difficulty accessing DVLA and passport services digitally? Can he confirm that these will remain in post office branches beyond March 2026, and will he commit to multi-year contracts, in particular with the DVLA?
Blair McDougall
I thank the hon. Lady for welcoming today’s statement. On the additional protection that we are bringing in, I reassure her that in addition to maintaining the network of 11,500 post offices, the access criteria stipulate that 99% of the UK population must be within three miles of a post office outlet, 90% must be within one mile, 99% of those living in deprived urban areas must be within one mile, 95% of the total urban population must be within one mile, and 95% of the total rural population must be within three miles. Then we have the additional protection, particularly in rural areas, that 95% of the population in every postcode district must be within six miles of a post office. They will all be maintained, which should reassure her.
The hon. Lady makes a point about ensuring that post office hours match people’s lives, which is something that postmasters are doing already. I visited a post office in Acton that stays open at weekends and till 11 pm, so that other retailers, such as grocers, can come and put in their takings.
Finally, we recognise the importance of post offices for vulnerable people and those who, for whatever reason, might struggle with the choices that many other people are making about accessing Government services online. That is one of the key reasons why we are keeping the network at the level it is at the moment. As I mentioned in my statement, we are also doing work across Government to look at the idea of a single front door for face-to-face Government services and the role that the Post Office can play in that. We are looking to enhance the role that the Post Office plays.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
I welcome the announcement of £483 million to invest in our post offices around the country, and I join the Minister in thanking our postmasters and postal staff, particularly those at the Southbourne Grove, Malmesbury Park, Hengistbury Head and Sea Road post offices in my constituency. What happens at Royal Mail affects our postal services—it is unavoidable—so I am concerned about the adoption of the optimised delivery network in Bournemouth and more broadly. The Minister and I were recently at a meeting with the Post Office in which we had a private discussion about its future. Does he agree that the work of the Government in this area is key to building pride in our communities, tackling antisocial behaviour and having a diverse mix of offer on our high streets? That is the only way in which we will truly regenerate our high streets in Bournemouth and across the country.
Blair McDougall
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for campaigning for his own high streets, and particularly for his local post office network. He is absolutely right to say that our response recognises the importance of post offices as anchors in high streets—they help drive footfall. The community hub model that the Post Office is piloting is an example of how we can build on that and expand post offices’ role as anchors in high streets, but he is right: this has to be seen across the wider effort that we are undertaking to make high streets somewhere people choose to go, to make them more attractive and to make them places where people choose to shop. High streets and high street businesses are not just part of the community; they are where our communities are made.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
Kingswinford is the largest town centre in my constituency, but it has been without a post office since the Midcounties Co-operative closed the store in which the post office was located. That loss has become even more significant since Lloyds bank announced this month that it was closing the only bank in the town centre. The Minister has spoken about retaining a minimum post office network, but what will the Government do to help re-open post offices in town centres that do not currently have a post office, such as Kingswinford?
Blair McDougall
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point: it can be really devastating when a post office closes, particularly in a small community. There will always be churn within the network—there will be businesses that succeed or fail as post offices. Our job is to make sure that the overall criteria are there and that the overall level of access is there for people.
The hon. Gentleman asks what we can do to bring businesses and post offices back to areas such as Kingswinford. The transformation investment that we are putting in is so important, because that is what makes the overall business profitable, but it also enables the Post Office to give a better deal to postmasters, which makes it a more attractive business to open in communities like his.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
High streets in towns like Long Eaton have come under growing strain in recent years, not least because of widespread bank closures, but around one in five people is still not using online banking—a group that disproportionately includes older and disabled residents. I am fighting hard for the establishment of a banking hub in Long Eaton. Given the clear need for accessible financial services, what role does the Minister envisage for post offices in supporting the regeneration of high streets in Erewash, and what support is he providing to strengthen the Post Office’s financial services?
Blair McDougall
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the campaigns that he runs in defence of his local high streets. Just before the end of the year, we brought together Post Office Ltd and the high street banks to begin a discussion about the future of banking and financial services within the Post Office and the role that it plays, not just in ensuring that people have access to banking services but in bringing footfall to local high streets. The revenue that the Post Office receives from the financial services and banking side of its business has doubled over a period in which its revenue from delivering letters has declined, so we are absolutely clear about the importance of the Post Office’s banking services to the future of local high streets.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
I have a particular interest in this matter, because the world’s oldest post office is in Sanquhar, in my constituency, which has operated continuously since 1712, despite some scares in recent years. The Minister would be very welcome to visit it. I urge him to get some urgency into the discussion with the banks, because there is significant confusion between the banking hub legislation and rules and the role of the Post Office. For example, in Sanquhar, although the Bank of Scotland has provided a banking adviser to come to the community following the closure of its branch, it will not allow that person to meet people within the post office. Likewise, in Moffat, where we had a bank closure, the post office will not operate a vital cash machine that is required in that community. Will the Minister increase his efforts to get the banks and post offices together to get a co-ordinated approach?
Blair McDougall
I was going to make a cruel joke about the right hon. Member remembering the opening of that post office, but I am too fond of him to do that. He pays tribute to it, and I would gladly visit, perhaps on the way back to my constituency from Parliament one weekend. I have relatives in his part of the world, so perhaps I can double up on my reasons to visit.
As I have mentioned, we absolutely understand the centrality of banking services to the sustainability of the Post Office. We had that roundtable, and even though the banking framework has just been renewed, we have already started conversations on this. Ultimately, those will be conversations between two commercial entities, but we are facilitating them, because we recognise their importance.
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
Last year, I ran a community campaign to save Westbourne post office, which mobilised thousands, and the post office was kept open. I also put pressure on Post Office Ltd to reopen a full service post office in Bournemouth town centre after the WH Smith closed, and one is opening in May. Residents should not have to fight so hard for their post offices. They provide a vital lifeline, especially for older and more vulnerable residents, allowing them to access government services, and for our local businesses, as we have heard. How will the Minister ensure that post offices remain a fixture on our high streets, and play a crucial role in revitalising our high streets and town centres?
Blair McDougall
My hon. Friend is a constant campaigner on behalf of local post offices, and I am not surprised that she had that victory. I look forward to visiting her constituency, and she can perhaps introduce me to the local postmasters while I am there.
I have mentioned the transformation programme that we are funding, and while there will always be churn in the network, with some businesses closing and some opening, that should be part of a natural cycle, rather than because of business distress. The transformation programme is about making sure that there is good postmaster remuneration, so that businesses succeed, and I will continue to work with my hon. Friend to make sure that the post offices in her constituency—and everywhere—thrive.
Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s commitment to retaining the minimum network size of 11,500 post office branches. The Minister will know that I have campaigned extensively on this issue, not least because I do not have a single bank branch in my entire constituency. There is a particular need for post offices in rural areas where other service provision is limited. What support will be given to rural villages like Kelsall and Threapwood, where the post offices are closing? Despite every effort, there has been no possibility of reopening a branch in those villages.
Blair McDougall
I remember responding to a debate in which the hon. Member campaigned vociferously on behalf of post offices in her constituency, and I think today is tribute to the campaigning done by her and by other Members on these issues. I remember her telling me that her constituency not only does not have a post office, but does not have a McDonald’s, which is extraordinary. Again, we are maintaining the access criterion that means that the Post Office has to maintain accessibility for people in rural areas, but ultimately it is by making businesses profitable and making the remuneration for postmasters attractive that we will achieve what she seeks to achieve.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
In a previous statement, I learned that the directly managed post office in Wester Hailes in Edinburgh South West was to close. It was a really concerning time for the community, but Mohammed Arshad and his sons Aamir and Adam stepped up and absorbed the service into their shop, Plaza News. Residents now have longer opening hours in which to access services, and they can do their banking, pay bills and get their passport checked. It is the most British of places; people queue to send their parcel via Royal Mail, Parcelforce, DPD or, if they are feeling brave, Evri, while browsing wool, knitting needles and knitting patterns in the aisle. It is a fantastic place. While news of the transition was concerning, particularly when it first broke, I really think that the community has ended up in a better place. Can the Minister reassure Mohammed and his sons that what has been announced today will enable them to serve their community more, rather than less?
Blair McDougall
I am very happy to reassure Mohammed and his sons about that, and to thank them for the work that they do for the community. My hon. Friend mentions the post office staying open for longer; that is typical of postmasters, who are not just running a business, but have a really clear sense that they are serving their community. That is why getting this right, and succeeding with the vision that we have set out in this Green Paper, is so important.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I welcome the statement, and I welcomed the opportunity to meet the Minister to discuss these issues. A lot of people are talking about either reopening post offices—indeed, the Post Office want to see them reopen—or avoiding closure, and he knows that it all comes down to remuneration. As he will have heard, a post office operator needs to sell at least 450 stamps every hour just to achieve the national minimum wage level of remuneration. That clearly is the reason why in Porthleven and Newlyn, where the Post Office want to reopen post offices, no one is interested in taking on those services. What can the Government do to ensure that the remuneration is sufficient to ensure that the network targets he has outlined can be achieved?
Blair McDougall
I thank the hon. Member for taking the time to meet me to make the case for post offices in his area, which he did with some passion. From conversations not just with him and other hon. Members, but with postmasters, I am left in no doubt about the importance of ensuring that the Post Office improves renumeration for post offices, because that is how we will ensure that the network thrives and survives. We are putting half a billion pounds into network transformation, so that all the businesses, including those in hon. Members’ constituencies, are sustainable.
Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)
I welcome the statement, and the Government’s response in the Green Paper, particularly the commitment to 11,500 branches—branches will be focused on high streets—and the focus on accessibility. In the light of that, does the Minister agree that it is ridiculous that the Uxbridge post office branch is set to close in May? Today, we found out that TG Jones, the current operator, has withdrawn from the contract for a future branch, and has ended its search for a replacement. Will he join me in urging Hillingdon council to pull its finger out, stop blaming others, and do all that it can to secure a new site, using its own assets if necessary, and in urging the Post Office to ensure that we maintain a post office in Uxbridge town centre?
Blair McDougall
I will perhaps use more parliamentary language than my hon. Friend did, but I absolutely would encourage everyone to work together to ensure that his constituents have access to postal services. I recognise that, while there is obviously good news today about maintaining the overall size of the post office network and the access criteria, that is little comfort for those in a community where there is such churn in post office services. I will very happily work with him on the issue that he raises.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
In rural areas, the loss of post offices is an issue, but it is also an issue in cities, particularly when the local transport network does not necessarily link people with the post office. My community is still reeling from Spar closing the post offices in its shops. Will the Minister give us some comfort by saying that he believes that the remuneration package being offered will not just keep postmasters in the job, but encourage new postmasters to take up the job, particularly given that, as has been stated, we face another round of Bank of Scotland closures?
Blair McDougall
The hon. Member makes a really important point about the impact of the closure of a post office on an area. As I have said, we are maintaining the overall network, but there are still areas where there are issues. The Government obviously do not directly set the remuneration, but we are supporting the Post Office in ensuring, through its transformation, that it is profitable enough to make running a post office business more attractive. Ultimately, that is the long-term answer to the issues in her constituency, and all hon. Members’ constituencies.
David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement, in which he referred to post offices being multi-carrier parcel hubs. One such carrier is Evri, and I visited its depot in my constituency of Hemel Hempstead last week with the GMB London region rep Danni Egan. I met dedicated couriers who were doing vital and often undervalued work. How do the Government plan to support private couriers, and companies that are willing to work alongside trade unions to ensure that these workers, too, get better pay and conditions?
Blair McDougall
My hon. Friend is always a doughty fighter for the rights of working people. The employment rights Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden), just disappeared from the Chamber, but was here a moment ago; she has brought through important changes to make sure that when it comes to people’s working environment, there is a floor of decency. Ofcom is looking at other private parcel couriers and the service that they provide, and I will certainly work with my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) on these issues.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
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-ordinate the disappearance of banks with the emergence of banking hubs and the expectation that post offices will take on some banking responsibilities? Would it be a possible source of income for post offices if they could charge the banks in exchange for undertaking to take in cheques on accounts held with those banks? At the moment, I believe it is very hit and miss which banks allow people to pay their checks into a post office, and which do not.
Blair McDougall
Most banks do provide services, although I know there have recently been issues around Lloyds and the availability of cheque-cashing. I am really pleased to hear that the Lyndhurst branch has been saved, and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and campaigners on that. The banking framework is an increasingly important part of post offices’ income, and at the heart of that is the relationship whereby the post office is paid for providing services that have disappeared because of a lack of high-street bank branches. That is very important to the financial stability and future of the Post Office.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
One of the key services that the Post Office supports in North Norfolk is our bank hubs. These are crucial to our market towns, which have lost high-street banks, and to those living in nearby villages. However, I am frustrated about the number of banks that fail to provide crucial services in these hubs. I note the Minister’s comments about the voluntary and commercial basis of participation, but has he considered reviewing the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, with a view to widening the requirement to include access to banking services? That would be of huge help to my rural residents and businesses.
Blair McDougall
The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. I have only been a Minister for four months, but I have already learned that it is not a great idea to trespass too far into Treasury Ministers’ territory; however, I will certainly discuss the point that he raises with colleagues there, and obviously our overall strategy is to make sure that there is access to financial services through the post office in as wide a range of communities as possible.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his statement, and welcome his commitment to maintaining a minimum network size of 11,500 branches and all six geographical access criteria. Currently, 79% of the network is a full service branch, so why have the Government set the new 50% requirement, which is so much lower than that? Is that to allow the Post Office to downsize by stealth?
Blair McDougall
No, it is not, because all six of the criteria remain, and they will guarantee access to the fuller range of services that the Post Office provides. I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
I do not think it will have surprised any of us to hear the Minister talk about the response from our communities, who say how much they value services in a physical post office. My constituents in High Lane and around the Fiveways in Hazel Grove still mourn the loss of their post office branch, but when I talked with Post Office Ltd and local retailers after the closures, they said that it was just not viable to offer those services, as the remuneration, and the business model, just did not fit in with their needs. The Minister talked about the desire to reduce the reliance on Government funding, and about looking at additional services, like prescription collection. Will he say a little more about where he sees the business model going for the Post Office, so that we can ensure that running a post office or delivering post office services is viable, and so that my constituents get the services that they need, where they need them?
Blair McDougall
Obviously the business model of the Post Office is a matter for the Post Office, but it would say to me that it is about continuing that central role of banking and financial services through the Post Office, and about experimenting with new models like the hub of the high street, where post offices can partner with other organisations that perhaps do not want the full expense of their own high street presence but can use the vast network of the Post Office. Finally, it is about the technological transformation that we are funding, which will improve the customer experience and improve the renumeration for sub-postmasters.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s announcement today that they are going to maintain 11,500 branches, but in my constituency, outreach services that were only available maybe for an hour or two each week anyway in Cockshutt, Clee, Weston Rhyn, Knockin, West Felton and Ruyton XI Towns have all been lost because of the retirement of a single postmistress in Trefonen. The current criteria have not protected those services, and the distance criteria are not incredibly helpful when there is no public transport that can be relied on, and for a business it is an incredible waste of time to have to get in the car and drive three or maybe six miles to another post office to post something. What can the Minister say to my constituents who are faced with long journeys to get to post offices? What likelihood is there of a post office reopening in their area, and how will that help them deal with these access problems of public transport and efficiency when they are running their businesses?
Blair McDougall
The hon. Lady makes a really important point, and an hon. Friend asked earlier whether this is part of a wider need to regenerate high streets. It is also true that it has to be part of a wider strategy to support rural businesses like the ones the hon. Lady mentions. I have spoken many times about what we are going to do to improve postmaster remuneration through the transformation investment that we are putting in. Perhaps before I sit down and we move on to the next debate, I can also say some words of encouragement: there is a new generation of postmasters coming through, and not only is it a fantastic business opportunity for people, but it is an extraordinary opportunity to serve their community and become a key and valued figure, particularly within communities like the hon. Lady’s.
Bills Presented
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Are you trying to object, Sir Roger? Marvellous.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 389) with explanatory notes (Bill 389-EN).
Chalk Streams (UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site)
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to take the necessary steps to nominate the UK’s chalk streams as a serial UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site.
My Bill concerns a rare natural resource of universal value. We in the UK are custodians of 85% of the world’s chalk streams, our equivalent of the Great Barrier Reef. They are timeless jewels of our natural heritage, yet we are allowing them to be drained dry and to have raw sewage dumped on them by water companies that put profit before people and the planet. My Bill would ensure that we finally give chalk streams the same reverence and protections that we give to our greatest cathedrals or monuments. Our streams and rivers are just as much a part of our national identity and international significance.
A number of these rare and beautiful ecosystems run through my constituency of South Cambridgeshire, including Hobson’s brook and the Rivers Cam, Granta, Shep, Rhee, Mel, Wilbraham and Orwell. They stretch far beyond my constituency, from east Devon through the North Wessex Downs and the Chilterns, up to the Norfolk coast, with a southern spur through the South Downs and into Kent, and a north-eastern block in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
There is nothing more British than standing beside a sparkling river with kids paddling and playing Pooh sticks. As the world around us changes, such scenes have brought joy to generations before us and should bring joy to many generations to come, but our responsibility is far greater still. Article 4 of the UNESCO convention places a duty on our Government to ensure the identification and protection for all humanity of our natural heritage, of which chalk streams are the national jewel. This is a huge opportunity for the Government to advance their Pride in Place programme—pride locally, nationally and internationally.
We are here today in one of our world heritage sites, the Palace of Westminster. We are proud to have 32 world heritage sites in the UK, yet only four are natural world heritage sites. My Bill requires the Government to remedy that and to nominate the network of chalk streams as a serial natural world heritage site. The whole process necessarily takes a few years, but as I shall explain, the goal is clear, the justification is strong and the work must start now. To approve a site for natural world heritage status, UNESCO must be satisfied that it is of outstanding universal value. In David Attenborough’s words in his BBC series “Wild Isles”, they are
“one of the rarest habitats on Earth”,
supporting extraordinary richness and diversity of life, with more plant species than any other type of river in the UK, providing a critical habitat for rare species, such as water voles, white-clawed crayfish, brown trout and a unique chalk stream subspecies of the Atlantic salmon, alongside many specialised invertebrates.
There are only 260 chalk streams worldwide. Their number is small due to the unique conditions and alchemy needed to form them. They exist only where water filters slowly through chalk aquifers and emerges at springs crystal clear, mineral rich and at a near constant temperature throughout the year. Or rather, that is what used to happen. Today, our chalk streams are in a perilous state. Climate change is one of the greatest threats to our nature and wildlife. Extreme droughts are exacerbating the damage already being done. We are letting our streams be drained dry because of untrammelled growth and allowing water companies and agricultural run-off to create a chemical cocktail of sewage and slurry. Wildlife is suffering. The chalk stream Atlantic salmon is close to extinction in some rivers and rising temperatures threaten the survival of trout. That is why this House should make a clear commitment to restoring and conserving these rivers.
The Government have themselves recognised the value of chalk streams, and a Minister once observed that,
“If our chalk streams were buildings, they would be UNESCO heritage sites.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2023; Vol. 831, c. 2269.]
Exactly so. UNESCO designation will help to galvanize protection, public engagement and investment in their recovery. The nomination process will take time. Inclusion on the UK’s tentative list is the first step. For that, further research and monitoring, conservation planning and preparation of the case for nomination are needed. A fundamental requirement is the engagement of local government and stakeholders, and networking among them across the broad geographic span of the chalk streams.
In fact, that work has already begun in many communities where they treasure the value of a healthy chalk stream for their physical and mental health and recreation. They are monitoring water quality, acting as stewards in cleaning and maintaining them, and fighting for their survival. These armies of volunteers and civil society groups are incredibly capable and connected, and include the Wildlife Trusts, the national Catchment Based Approach chalk stream restoration group, WildFish and River Action UK. In my constituency—here with us in the Gallery—there are the Cam Valley Forum, the Cam Catchment Partnership, the friends of the River Shep, the Granta and Fulbourn Fen, and the Cambridgeshire climate and nature forum.
We need to see the Government step up and follow through on their assertions about their commitment to chalk stream conservation, because commitment to protection at the national level is an essential prerequisite for nominating a site for world heritage status. The UK has maintained certain legal protections. However, of the 200-plus chalk streams, only 11 are designated as sites of special scientific interest and only four as special areas for conservation. Much more needs to be done to ramp up the action to stop the sewage dumping and the abstraction that we have talked about. That is why I am joining many voices in calling for the listing of chalk streams, alongside ancient woodland, as irreplaceable habitat, which they certainly are, in the national planning policy framework, in line with the Government’s concession and promise during debate in this Chamber to
“make clear, unambiguously, our expectations for how plan makers and decision makers should treat chalk streams.”—[Official Report, 13 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 407.]
We should also be ringfencing substantial financing from the water restoration fund.
As a nation that prides itself on its love of nature and is preparing to celebrate the 100th birthday of nature’s greatest advocate, Sir David Attenborough, we have a responsibility to act. It is a global responsibility handed to us by the rocks beneath our feet. Let us embrace it and celebrate it. Let us be the global custodians of our very own equivalent of the Galapagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef and the rainforest. This Bill would start the journey to secure UNESCO recognition for one of the rarest habitats on Earth. We hold 85% of the world’s chalk streams. With that privilege comes responsibility. Let us rise to it. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Pippa Heylings, Dr Roz Savage, Victoria Collins, Charlotte Cane, Liz Jarvis, Dr Danny Chambers, Vikki Slade, Alex Brewer, Olly Glover, Simon Hoare, Carla Denyer and Chris Hinchliff present the Bill.
Pippa Heylings accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 27 February, and to be printed (Bill 387).
Ukraine
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the situation in Ukraine.
Yesterday marked a milestone that none of us wanted to see: four years of Putin’s war on Ukraine; four years of his brutal full-scale invasion of that sovereign nation, a proud country that has fought back against Putin’s attacks and—let us not forget—suffered 12 years under the pain of occupation. This week we stand with the families mourning loved ones, the troops fighting on the frontline and the millions displaced from home, yearning for the opportunity to return.
Four years ago today, a dozen Ukrainian border guards on Snake island—a tiny, isolated island in the middle of the Black sea—were surrounded by Russian sea and air forces. When the Russians radioed to demand their surrender, the Ukrainians told the ship’s command to get lost—in fact, they told them so in stronger terms that I cannot repeat in the House this afternoon. That defiance has driven Ukrainian resistance to Russia every day of the conflict since.
That defiance burned fiercely in Kyiv last month when I met emergency workers, military chiefs, Ukrainian Ministers and President Zelensky himself, because Ukrainians—civilians and military alike—are still fighting with the same courage and determination that inspired the world in February 2022.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
I am sorry that this intervention is so early, but I just wanted to reflect that I was in Kyiv at the same time as the Secretary of State, and I thank him for his visit. We were there at the same time to see the apartment block where emergency responders were hit with a double-tap strike—that is, they had gone to respond and to rescue those affected, and then they too were hit. The Secretary of State is aware of the desperate need for air defence missiles and the lack of Patriots going in. I know he will address this. Can he say whether that is being raised with the utmost urgency? We need to defend Ukraine’s skies.
John Healey
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his visit to Kyiv. The fact that Members across the House have been regularly to Ukraine lifts the morale of the Ukrainian people and reminds them that the UK stands with them as strongly now as four years ago.
The hon. Gentleman is right. The night before I arrived in Kyiv, 90 Shahed drones had hit the city, 21 of which had been targeted directly at residential accommodation. The block that he and I both visited, which had had its side ripped open by one of the drone strikes, had been hit twice, an hour and a half apart, deliberately, so that the emergency workers who had gone in to help those suffering after the first strike were then hit and, in one case, killed by the second. This is an indication of cynical and illegal tactics and the war crimes that Putin is committing in Ukraine. It reminds us that we must redouble our determination to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.
I will move on to the question of air defence later, but the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) is quite right: he and I were both told, when out in Kyiv last month, that it is President Zelenksy’s first priority. As the hon. Gentleman will have seen, when I chaired the Ukraine Defence Contact Group at NATO headquarters two weeks ago, I announced that Britain was committing an extra £500 million package of air defence systems and missiles in order to meet the urgent need that he and I both saw that day.
President Putin postures as a strongman. He wants the world to believe that Russia has unstoppable momentum on the battlefield, that the Ukrainians have no choice but to concede on his terms, and that we, as Ukraine’s western allies, have grown weary. But he is wrong, wrong, wrong. This was a war that Putin thought he would win in a week, but four years on, he has achieved none of his strategic aims. Instead, he has inflicted terrible suffering on his own people, as well as Ukraine’s. He is failing.
Of course, Ukrainian troops are certainly under pressure on the frontline, but Russia has now been fighting in Ukraine for longer than the Soviet Union fought Germany during the second world war, its forces are advancing more slowly than those in the battle of the Somme, and nearly one and a quarter million Russians have been injured or killed. The average casualty rate for Russian troops is now 1,000 each day, every day, and the average life expectancy of a conscript deployed to the Russian frontline is now less than five days.
Putin is desperate to avoid a second Russian mobilisation, and because of that he is turning to more desperate measures to plug the gaps. He is increasingly heavily reliant on foreign fighters. He has already called on 17,000 North Koreans, who are fighting for him on his frontline, and he is now preying on thousands of men from Latin America, central Asia and Africa, sending them to their deaths on his frontline.
But Putin’s war machine continues to be degraded, and his war economy continues to be damaged. In Russia, 40% of Government spending now goes on the military. Manufacturing is falling at its fastest rate, oil revenues are plunging and food prices are soaring. Make no mistake: Putin is under pressure. He targets Ukrainian cities, civilians and energy supplies and, during the coldest winter for a decade, he has killed Ukrainian children in their beds, destroyed hospital wards and plunged entire cities into darkness.
For 2026, the Government’s mission—Britain’s mission—for Ukraine is simple: support the fight today, secure the peace tomorrow, and step up the pressure on Putin.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I do not know whether President Putin follows these debates, but I would like him to know that the Secretary of State speaks for our entire nation. We are completely united on this. Will the Secretary of State make it clear that we are equally robust on not having any ceasefire on the basis that currently unoccupied territory is ceded? That would be an absolute disaster and would simply encouraged Putin to go further. It is very important that our adversaries know that the House is completely united on this.
John Healey
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. As Father of the House, he is able to speak for the House and for all sides, and he speaks for our nation.
On supporting Ukraine’s fight today, spending on military assistance is at its highest ever level this year. Two weeks ago, I convened and chaired the 33rd meeting of the 50-nation-strong Ukraine Defence Contact Group, alongside the German Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius. We worked to make the meeting a big UDCG with big commitments for 2026. For the UK’s part, I announced a new package, worth half a billion pounds, of urgent air defence support, which, as I said to the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins), is President Zelensky’s top priority. In total, the UDCG raised nearly $40 billion in new pledges of aid for Ukraine. The Ukrainians there called it the best UDCG yet. It also sent the clear message to Moscow that we are more united and more determined than ever to support Ukraine.
Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend has been a steadfast champion of this country’s support for Ukraine, alongside his predecessors—the country is indeed united. Will he pay tribute to those in our defence industry, including in my constituency, who have been manufacturing the Storm Shadow missiles that have been used on the frontline in Ukraine, and to all the other support they will give in future?
John Healey
I will indeed. We are proud of our British defence industry. It equips our armed forces, it has helped to equip the Ukrainians and it has helped to provide the essential aid to keep the Ukrainians in the fight for the last four years, and my hon. Friend’s constituents who work at MBDA in Stevenage are playing a really important part in that. Ukraine reminds us of a deep lesson that we had overlooked for too long, which is that when a country is forced to fight or faced with conflict, its armed forces are only as strong as the industry that stands behind them. We take great pride, on all sides of the House, in the great innovation of British industry and in what its workers are able to do.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
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 inflict pain on Russia in its centre. Now that President Trump’s contribution has been reduced to supplying weapons that the Europeans have to pay for before they can go to Ukraine, do we have greater freedom to supply longer-range, more effective weapons to Ukraine, or are we still somewhat beholden to the wishes of people on the other side of the Atlantic?
John Healey
The principle on which we have donated British-made weapons to Ukraine has been consistently for the defence of Ukraine. That is how Ukraine has been using them, and using them effectively.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I appreciate the tone of the Secretary of State’s speech and offer him my wholehearted support. Will he say a little more about the valuable work under way in our tech industry on defence technology and how he is modernising procurement to encourage those vital companies to come forward?
John Healey
I know that my hon. Friend has some advanced defence tech firms in his patch. There are things we can do in this country that are valuable to Ukraine, and I will come on to a particular joint programme we have with Ukraine in a moment, but I have to say to my hon. Friend that the Ukrainians have the most creative, combat-experienced defence industry and armed forces in the world at present, and we also have a great deal to learn. It is important that we are able to welcome Ukrainian firms that wish to set up new factories and plants in the United Kingdom. I know that the shadow Defence Secretary has welcomed such a Ukrainian company into his constituency—it is set to open this week, I hope.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
On the subject of tech, the Defence Secretary may be aware of NP Aerospace of Coventry, which, among other things, manufactures body armour. The Secretary of State will be aware that the Ministry of Defence is at the moment purchasing body armour that is fitted to the female form—not for the British Army but for Ukraine. That is perfectly fine, but will he ensure that the British Army, too, puts out a statement of requirement for body armour for women, since it would be inappropriate if, at some point in the future, British servicewomen found themselves serving side by side with Ukrainian servicewomen without having the high-tech body armour that the Ukrainian servicewomen have? Madam Deputy Speaker, I have to declare an interest as the father of two servicewomen.
John Healey
First, I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s two daughters for serving this country. Secondly, I hope that he was able to visit that Coventry firm’s exhibition in this House yesterday to see for himself what it produces. Thirdly, I hope he agrees—I think he does, by his intervention—that first and foremost our duty is to support Ukraine, but I am very conscious of his broader point. We procure for Ukraine and we learn lessons. We need to ensure that our own forces are equally well equipped for the future.
On securing the peace for tomorrow, we all welcome the US leading the push for peace, and no one welcomes those efforts more than Ukraine. When the peace comes, which we all hope to see this year, Britain will be ready to help secure that peace for the long term. I am proud to serve in a British Cabinet under a Prime Minister who was the very first world leader to commit troops on the ground in Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire. Following the Paris summit that he co-chaired last month, the work of the coalition of the willing is more advanced now than ever. Yesterday, he chaired a meeting of 36 coalition leaders, who confirmed that Ukraine can go into 2026 confident in the knowledge that when the war ends it will have security guarantees, a big prosperity agreement and a path to EU membership.
The coalition of the willing’s multinational force for Ukraine will deploy when peace is agreed to secure Ukraine’s skies and seas and to regenerate its armed forces for the future. Both the British Army and the Royal Air Force are now conducting exercises in preparation, and I have already accelerated £200 million to ensure that our forces have the kit they need to deploy.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
When will this House see the force structure of the British component of Multinational Force Ukraine so that we can properly scrutinise it?
John Healey
The detail of the structure and the deployment will become clear and depend on the context and detail of the peace agreement. In the context of a decision to deploy, the Prime Minister has said that the House will have the chance to debate and vote on that deployment, and I suspect that we will be able to set out the detail at that point. The hon. Member and other experts in the House will then have the chance to examine and debate it and, I trust, give it their approval so that any British forces will be deployed into Ukraine in the context of a peace deal with all-party support.
There is no more serious a decision for any Defence Secretary or any Government than committing our armed forces on operations, but I want to be the Defence Secretary who deploys British troops to Ukraine, because that will mean that we will have a negotiated peace and that the war will finally be over. Britain has been united for Ukraine from day one. The House, as the Father of the House said, has been united for Ukraine from day one.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall this week is called “Voices from Ukraine”. It is a collaboration between my constituent, the sculptor Stephen Duncan, and celebrated Ukrainian sculptors Oles Sydoruk, who is serving on the frontline in Ukraine, and Borys Krylov. It is an extremely moving set of meditations on both the horror of the conflict and the resilience of Ukrainian people and their identity, which Putin is so viciously seeking to erase. Will the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute to those talented and courageous artists in recognising the value of the arts and culture in how societies come to terms with difficult conflicts and trauma, and encourage all hon. Members across the House to go and view that important work this week?
John Healey
My hon. Friend is to be applauded for having sponsored the exhibition. I am delighted that she could tell the House about it this afternoon. I pay tribute to her and to the artists for what they are doing and how they are conveying the experience of their countrymen and women to wider audiences.
I will go one better: because the debate started rather earlier than we might have expected, I will join my hon. Friend at the exhibition before it finishes at 5 o’clock this afternoon, and I encourage all other hon. Members from both sides of the House to do the same.
I am glad that my hon. Friend raised that wider question, because I speak as Defence Secretary but also with pride about the warmth, the welcome and the solidarity of the British people. Four years ago, British people started to open their homes to Ukrainians, and Britain welcomed 170,000 Ukrainians into our own homes. Many are still with those same families. Community, charity, faith and trade union groups have all raised funds or collected supplies, and often driven those supplies out to Ukraine. Our defence industrial links, which several hon. Members from all sides have raised this afternoon, continue to deepen, and we will soon start to jointly produce, in the UK, the new Ukrainian Octopus interceptor drones.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
A number of Members have drawn attention to manufacturers in their constituencies. I pay tribute to Chess Dynamics in my constituency of Horsham, which designs and builds world-leading tracking devices—they are absolutely state of the art.
I too was in Ukraine last year and, in addition to our support, I was struck by the solidarity of the Ukrainian people and their commitment to the war—despite comments to the contrary. Does the Minister agree that, ironically, in trying to destroy Ukraine, Putin has achieved the building of a fantastic new national identity?
John Healey
The hon. Gentleman is right, first, about the outstanding firm in his Horsham constituency and, secondly, about the impact of Putin on Ukraine. It has not built a new sense of national identity because that was strong before Putin’s invasion—as I said, Ukrainians have suffered and fought occupation by Russian forces for 12 years—but it has deeply strengthened that identity and the determination that Ukraine will remain a sovereign nation in future. Whatever briefings Putin gets in the Kremlin, he is being misled to think that he is winning. He is failing, and it is our job, with other allies, to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.
Part of that is the military aid that this country has been providing to Ukraine, but it is also action on other fronts. The Government have frozen nearly £30 billion of Russian assets in the UK and imposed over 3,000 sanctions on Russian individuals, organisations and ships, including a package of 300 new sanctions announced yesterday by the Foreign Secretary. We know that Russia’s vast shadow fleet bankrolls much of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, and sanctions by the UK and our partners have already forced around 200 ships to anchor out of use. We have seen the impact on Russian oil reserves, which fell by a quarter last year, but we need to do more and shift up a gear, with our militaries playing a greater role. That work has begun.
The UK has already supported both the US and France in conducting maritime interceptions. At the Munich Security Conference, I chaired a meeting of the joint expeditionary force nations, with Defence Ministers brought together to discuss conducting further operations against shadow shipping vessels. Today, I confirm that the MOD is now leading a new joint operational taskforce to advance those plans.
After four years, weariness with the war would be understandable, but in Britain our solidarity endures. It is a solidarity grounded both in deep respect for Ukrainian courage and in clear recognition that the defence of Europe starts in Ukraine. The British people understand that the cost of conflict always outweighs the price of preventing war. Four years ago, Putin’s invasion sent inflation into double digits; indeed, our energy prices are still 40% higher and our food prices are still 30% higher, as we all daily pay the price of this war.
The British people also know that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he will not stop in Ukraine. They see the Ukrainians fighting for the same values that past generations in Britain have fought for: the right of a free people to decide their own country’s future. Like the Father of the House, I am proud that Britain remains united for Ukraine, I am proud that President Zelensky calls us one of his very closest allies and I am proud of the UK’s leadership on Ukraine, started under the previous Government and stepped up further under ours.
Let me end where I began, by paying tribute to the people of Ukraine. Four years ago, we all remember those expert commentators largely being in agreement: Kyiv would be captured, Zelensky would flee, the Ukrainian command would collapse and a pro-Russian regime would be installed while the world watched on. If this war has taught us anything, it is never to underestimate the will of the Ukrainian people. They remain outnumbered and outmatched in every domain, and yet they have recently retaken territory, they continue to strike deep into Russia and, in some parts of the frontline, over 25 Russians have been killed for every Ukrainian life lost.
After four years of this brutal Russian aggression, of unbreakable Ukrainian courage and of enduring solidarity with those who stand with them, this must be the year that peace is agreed. Our UK promise to Ukraine is this: we will keep up the pressure on Putin; we will stand by and support the Ukrainian armed forces; and when peace comes, we will help secure it and ensure that it lasts.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
This is a critical time for Ukraine. As we mark the fourth anniversary of the war, the UK must continue to proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with our Ukrainian friends. Four years on from Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we all think of the innocent lives caught up in this terrible conflict—the innocent civilians, the families of brave servicemen and women, the Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia, all those who have suffered life-changing injuries and those who have lost their homes.
At the start of this conflict, the then Conservative Government led by Boris Johnson, with cross-party support in this House, rallied the world behind Ukraine. We supplied weapons, provided humanitarian aid, championed their cause and opened our homes to those fleeing Putin’s brutality. We must never forget that this war was started by Vladimir Putin, supported by an axis of authoritarian states seeking to extinguish democracy on our continent. Russia’s increasing reliance on Iranian drones and weaponry underlines that this conflict is no longer confined to one border; it is part of a wider alignment of regimes determined to undermine the rules-based international order. We must remain united in defending shared values and the principle that aggressors should never succeed. It is crucial that there is a clear united front in support of Ukraine.
Recent Russian attacks including those on Kyiv, which last year also damaged a British Council building, underline why the UK and our allies must urgently deliver the military support that Ukraine needs. Putin still aims to subjugate Ukraine; the Euro-Atlantic alliance must ensure that he fears the consequences. Russia’s response to recent ceasefire proposals shows why the west must remain resolute. Britain and our allies must continue maximum pressure on the Kremlin while supporting Ukraine on the battlefield. As always, it is ultimately for Ukraine as a proud and sovereign nation to decide its own future. Any settlement must secure justice and lasting peace for its people. Territorial concessions would reward aggression. Putin has shown repeatedly that he is not serious about peace, and Britain must lead the way on sanctions and international pressure.
I am fortunate to have had the privilege of visiting Ukraine twice, first in 2021 during my time as a Foreign Minister and again in 2023 with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and I look forward to returning again soon. I am conscious that not just Front-Bench colleagues but many colleagues from across this House and the other place have travelled to Ukraine, and it is such a strong and clear symbol of our unwavering support. For me personally, each visit has left a deep and lasting impression. I remember standing alongside Ukrainian leaders at the launch of the Crimea platform in 2021, reaffirming the UK’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. However, when I returned to Ukraine in 2023, it was a different country—a country living with the daily realities of war. I met parliamentarians, civil society leaders and local officials, many of whom had lost loved ones, yet their resolve was, and still is, undiminished. That spirt—defiant, democratic and determined—must guide our response in this House.
One of the gravest crimes committed during this war is the abduction and forcible deportation of Ukrainian children, which I know hon. Members from across the House take incredibly seriously. Thousands of children have been taken from their families and communities, transferred to Russia, or Russian-occupied territory, stripped of their identity, subjected to so-called re-education and, in many cases, illegally adopted. This is not an unintended consequence of war; it is a deliberate policy designed to erase Ukraine’s future. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants in response to these crimes, but words and warrants alone are not enough. In summing up, will the Minister set out what concrete steps the Government are taking, with allies and international partners, to secure the return of those children, and to ensure that those responsible are pursued without delay or hesitation?
John Healey
I am really impressed and pleased that the right hon. Lady has laid such stress on Putin’s abduction of Ukrainian children and his attempt to brainwash them, about which there are strong sentiments from Members of all parties. Will she recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) is in Ukraine at the moment, and has just been presented with the Ukrainian Order of Merit for her work on exactly this concern?
Wendy Morton
If I am honest, I did not appreciate that the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) had just received that award and that recognition, but it is absolutely fitting. It demonstrates to the people who badmouth hon. Members and say that we do nothing that there are many good people in this place. She deserves that honour. I know many other hon. Members are very committed to Ukraine; a number of them are in Ukraine or on their way back. Some of them may even be heading to this Chamber—only time will tell. It is unusual for a shadow Minister to take an intervention from the Secretary of State, but I am pleased that he brought this important matter to our attention.
Starting under the last Conservative Government, the UK’s support has been world-leading. It has given £3 billion per year in military aid since 2024, £12 billion in total, including humanitarian assistance, and advanced weapons, from Storm Shadow missiles to Challenger 2 tanks. Operation Interflex has trained over 50,000 Ukrainian recruits on British soil. We hosted the 2023 Ukraine recovery conference, raising over $60 billion towards reconstruction. The 100-year partnership, negotiations on which commenced under the Conservative Government, demonstrates our shared commitment to enduring co-operation on trade, security, education, science and culture.
We know that sanctions work. We also know that Russia’s economy is under severe strain. That pressure must continue, including targeted pressure on refineries in China, Turkey and India that are buying Russian oil. Mobilising frozen Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s war effort is crucial. The £2.26 billion UK loan from immobilised Russian assets is welcome, but more must be done, and needs to be done immediately. What further progress has been made on unlocking additional Russian assets, and why has more decisive action not yet been taken? The UK should lead on innovative, legal solutions with our allies and the City of London, to make more resources available to Ukraine right now.
Like us, the United States has been deeply invested in this conflict. American security is tied to Ukraine’s survival, and US military support has been indispensable. How are the Government ensuring close co-ordination with the US and other NATO allies on military aid, sanctions, and strategic support?
Dr Murrison
It appears that we are being teed up for some sort of deployment to Ukraine at some point in the future. Does my right hon. Friend recall that in a similar debate on 3 March 2025, the Prime Minister said that he was working with the US to provide
“security guarantees that are worthy of the name—that is, one that has a forward-leaning European element, but a US backstop and US backing”?—[Official Report, 3 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 41.]
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be utter folly to deploy British troops without those US guarantees?
Wendy Morton
My right hon. Friend speaks with not just eloquence, but so much experience. We should all listen to colleagues who bring that expertise and knowledge to this place. I absolutely agree; it would be madness to do that. That point further demonstrates the importance of working really closely with our allies as we continue to support Ukraine in its endeavours and its fight.
We must confront the growing threat posed by Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, which the Secretary of State mentioned. These vessels are not only a sanctions loophole, but a direct security threat to our shores and those of our allies. Reports of ship-to-ship transfers, insurance evasion and deceptive practices are deeply concerning. If Russia can bypass the oil price cap through this illicit network, the effectiveness of our sanctions regime will be undermined. I hope that later today, the Minister can outline what further action the Government are taking, alongside partners in the G7 and NATO, to crack down on the shadow fleet, tighten enforcement in UK waters and financial markets, and ensure that British insurers, ports and service providers are not inadvertently enabling sanctions evasion.
As we mark the fourth anniversary of this brutal invasion, our task is clear. We must provide Ukraine with the tools to defend itself, maintain crippling pressure on Putin and ensure that peace is built on justice, not concessions. Ukraine’s fight is our fight. If we stand firm, we strengthen our own security; if we hesitate, we embolden aggressors everywhere. I am in no doubt that this House will speak with clarity this afternoon. However, the test for the Government is whether their actions will match the scale of the words, and I really hope that the Minister will give us that assurance. Britain’s support is not symbolic; it is concrete—it is military aid, humanitarian help, sanctions enforcement and diplomatic leadership. We must continue to lead with purpose. Ukraine’s struggle is our struggle, and we will stand with it until victory is secured on Ukraine’s terms.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
May I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for his excellent opening speech? It gave us all the details. I also pay tribute to the Opposition, although on this one thing, they are not the opposition. I am so proud that we have all stayed together, right the way through, and there is nothing between us. Our support is not symbolic; we do what we do because we love these people, and we love Ukraine. As I said at the beginning of all this, Ukraine is fighting our war, because if Russia gets through Ukraine, it will be in Europe, and then here.
In this solemn debate, we remember all those whose lives have been shattered by war. Yesterday marked four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was a brutal escalation of a conflict that has brought immense suffering to millions, and that continues to threaten the foundations of international law, human dignity and, according to some, the start of world war three.
Yesterday I met Iryna Dovgan, a Ukrainian woman whose quiet courage speaks louder than any statistic. During Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, she was detained, brutally abused and ultimately forced to flee her home in Donetsk. Only now, years later, has she finally received reparations. That support has transformed her life, enabling her to access vital medical treatment and begin rebuilding what was taken from her, yet her case is the exception, not the rule. She begged us last night to ensure that reparations get to the women and children who have been so terribly, terribly abused, and that they do not have to wait for years.
Thousands of Ukrainians have endured similar horrors, first in 2014 and again since the full-scale invasion began four years ago. Since 24 February 2022, communities across Ukraine have been scarred by violence. Homes have been destroyed; families hav been separated; and civilians have been subjected to torture, sexual violence and unlawful detention. Towns once full of life have been reduced to rubble. Children have been uprooted from their families and taken across the border—they are speaking Russian now; it is just horrendous what is going on—but people are working on that, and some children have been rescued. The human cost, not only in lives lost, but in futures stolen, is staggering.
People in my constituency—and, I am sure, in all hon. Members’ constituencies—from churches to veterans groups, are banding together to do their bit for Ukraine. For example, No Duff UK, a veteran-led organisation, is deploying volunteer teams to deliver humanitarian aid on the ground. Its work truly demonstrates the love we have for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine.
Our Government and our Parliament also demonstrate iron-clad support for Ukraine. Only yesterday, the Government announced a significant package of 300 new sanctions, aimed at cutting off the Kremlin’s revenue and weakening its capacity to wage this illegal war, including measures targeting Russia’s energy sector and key oil infrastructure. Those steps are welcome, but sanctions must be adequately enforced, co-ordinated and relentless. If they are not effective, they do not deter aggression, but embolden it, yet the UK lacks a clear strategy for ensuring that frozen Russian assets serve that purpose. I am pleased about what has been said in the debate today. Billions could remain immobilised for years, losing value, while sufferers wait without support—something that Iryna spoke about last night.
Working with our European partners, we should move decisively to seize and repurpose frozen Russian assets, including up to £30 billion held in the UK, and direct them towards humanitarian, financial and military support for Ukraine. We must ensure that UK-held funds linked to sanctioned individuals, including proceeds from the sale of Chelsea football club and recovered assets from oligarch Petr Aven, are released swiftly and directed towards Ukrainian survivors. We must ensure that Ukrainian people receive justice. If we are serious about justice—and I know we are—we have to make sure that our word is kept and our actions deliver justice and peace for those people, who we are all so proud of and owe so much to. I am sure that they appreciate it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
Four years ago yesterday, Vladimir Putin launched his deadly full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Four years on, we face a solemn reminder of the death and destruction that has ensued. An estimated 1.8 million soldiers have been killed or wounded, or have gone missing, on both sides. Up to 325,000 Russian troops and as many as 140,000 Ukrainians have been killed. The United Nations has recorded at least 15,000 civilian deaths and more than 40,000 people injured, including at least 763 children, but it says that the toll is likely much higher. That is why the Liberal Democrats are absolutely clear in their support for Ukraine.
In the face of Putin’s aggression and Donald Trump’s unreliability, Europe must send an unambiguous signal: national sovereignty is not negotiable, and we will not stand idly by at this time. We will not accept that might is right. We will not allow Ukraine to be sacrificed on the altar of appeasement. We all want peace and a just and lasting settlement, but we must be clear that Vladimir Putin has no interest in peace; he remains hellbent on the subjugation of Ukraine. Although we welcome diplomatic efforts, we remain deeply concerned about the specifics of any American security guarantees. The unfortunate truth is that President Trump is unreliable, unpredictable and, to be frank, disdainful of the rule of law. That means that Europe must step up. The UK and France have committed to a potential military deployment to Ukraine, should a peace deal be agreed.
The Liberal Democrats support that commitment in principle, but Parliament must have a vote on any deployment of UK personnel—I welcomed the Prime Minister’s very clear statement on that—because democratic oversight is essential. The Government must also be transparent about timescales and ensure that our armed forces have the resources to support such a mission. It is great to hear from the Secretary of State today about the £200 million of funding that he has accelerated for that purpose. Crucially, we must have clarity at the right time about the terms of engagement for those forces, if and when that deployment takes place.
Supporting Ukraine long term is not just about political will; it is about practical capability. Any peace settlement must focus on defending Ukraine, strengthening deterrence and creating sustainable conditions for a lasting peace. It must not be a deal that effectively rewards Russian aggression. The UK must ensure that Ukraine’s interests—not Putin’s territorial ambitions nor Donald Trump’s desire for a grubby carve-up—remain at the heart of negotiations.
We must remain absolutely focused on cutting off the resources that fuel Putin’s war machine. Too many of those who comment on this conflict fail fully to understand its historical and cultural context. To speak of it as a conflict that Putin will just stop on fair terms is a failure to grasp the fact that his war in Ukraine is now central to sustaining his mafia state and his role as its kingpin. To speak of major territorial concessions by Ukraine is to ask it to give into a bullying neighbour that has spent not 12 but hundreds of years repeatedly attempting to control it and deny its right to exist as a nation. Any agreement requires a deep understanding of those countries that has been entirely absent from the rhetoric in the United States and is too often absent from commentary in this country.
We are keen to support the practical steps taken by our Government. The decision to ban UK maritime services for Russian liquefied natural gas was particularly welcome. The Liberal Democrats had been calling for that for some months, so it was great to finally see it come to fruition, but the implementation has been slow. Since 2022, UK-owned or insured LNG carriers have transported £45 billion-worth of Russian products. No British money should be supporting Russia’s war. The Government must move at pace to enforce the ban, and it must go further—I welcome any updates on that from Ministers. We have also called for the oil price cap to be lowered to $30 per barrel, with stricter enforcement.
We must confront the reality that Russia is actively circumventing sanctions through third countries. Georgia has increasingly been used as a back-door route for sanctioned goods and financial flows into Russia’s economy, undermining the pressure we and our allies are trying to apply. The UK should be prepared to sanction those facilitating that evasion, starting with Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s oligarchic de facto leader, whose influence has steered the country away from its Euro-Atlantic path and towards Moscow’s orbit. We must also proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in full. The IRGC is not only destabilising the middle east; it is directly supporting Putin’s war machine, including through the provision and production of drones used to terrorise Ukrainian cities. It was also revealed to the Defence Committee that
“Russia can only maintain this war because China is…bankrolling it”,
and that some sources suggest that up to 60% of the funding comes from China. The Government must increase pressure on Beijing to stop funding Putin’s deadly war.
Then there is the £2.5 billion pounds from Roman Abramovich’s sale of Chelsea football club. That money should have helped suffering Ukrainian civilians over a year ago, and could have supported efforts to rescue at least some of the 20,000 children abducted by Russian forces. The Liberal Democrats called urgently for those funds to be delivered. We welcome the fact that the Government are now threatening legal action, but it should not have taken this long.
It seems that everyone now agrees that we must urgently unlock frozen Russian assets. The UK has frozen £30 billion-worth under our sanctions regime, but it sits idle in British accounts while Ukraine desperately needs $120 billion next year alone to resist Russia. So what exactly is blocking it? The legal frameworks exist, but the political will—so far, at least—is lacking. The Prime Minister must personally step in to drive that forward, because we are watching Ukraine’s defences being stretched to breaking point while we sit on the very resources that could help it. The Ukrainian people are fighting for us; the least we can do is unlock the money to help them win. My hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) has introduced a Bill to seize those frozen assets and direct the proceeds to Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction. Putin must be punished, not rewarded. A recent Government report showed that UK imports from Russia had reached £1.7 billion by June last year, up 21% on the previous year. Perhaps Ministers can tell us what steps the Government are taking to restrict this profitable trade for the Kremlin.
The international community, including this Government and the previous Government, have rightly condemned Russia on the international stage. Through its illegal invasion, cyber-attacks, energy coercion and interference in democratic processes, the Kremlin has demonstrated consistent disregard for international law. The UK Government must maintain an unequivocal position opposing Russia’s readmission to the G7, and must work with allies to ensure that this stance is upheld across all multilateral bodies.
I want to return to the human cost. Over 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted since the full-scale invasion began. As a parent with two small children at home, I find it very hard not to put myself in the place of those Ukrainian families, torn apart by concern for their missing children who have been cruelly snatched away as part of Putin’s wider agenda of extinguishing Ukrainian culture and identity. These mass abductions constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, and any update from Ministers on what we are doing to help recover those children would be very welcome. I really welcome the award given to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter); she has been a dogged campaigner on this issue, and I cannot think of anybody more worthy of that recognition. President Putin must be held accountable, and the outstanding International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him must be implemented. This country and the Government must pick up the mantle of tracking down and rescuing those children, to bring them home to their families where they belong.
Reports from Russia paint a sobering picture of what four years of war has meant. For Russia, it has meant a fundamentally deformed economy, legal system and society. Courts clear soldiers of murder and rape because they have signed military contracts, recruiting has become desperately difficult despite enormous spending, and an entire generation of young Russian men has been wiped out by this war to fulfil Putin’s ambitions.
For Ukraine, these four years have meant something else entirely. They have meant extraordinary courage in the face of impossible odds; they have meant soldiers who began fighting in muddy trenches with artillery now finding themselves in a war dominated by drones, a conflict that has evolved faster than anyone imagined; and they have meant watching Russia systematically destroy the very things that keep people alive through the winter. Just last month, Russian missiles tore through power stations across the country, and hundreds of thousands of people in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia woke up to find themselves without electricity or heating as temperatures dropped to minus 20°C. This is the coldest winter Ukraine has seen in a decade, and Putin’s strategy is clear: if his army cannot break Ukraine’s will, he will try to freeze its people into submission.
Because of the courage of the Ukrainian people—and, I am very proud to say, the support of allies such as Britain—Russia no longer poses a risk of conquering Kyiv. Ukraine pushed the Russians back in Kharkiv and Kherson, against an adversary with much greater resources, although Russia remains on the frontline. Ukraine should not have to face Putin’s aggression alone; Britain must continue to lead in Europe, standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine in not just words but deeds, and with enforceable security guarantees rather than empty promises. That means cutting off Putin’s revenue streams completely and seizing frozen assets. It means democratic oversight of troop deployments; it means ensuring that Ukraine’s territorial integrity is non-negotiable in any peace settlement; and it means doing everything we possibly can to get those stolen children back to their families.
Four years on, the protection of Ukraine’s sovereignty must remain central to Britain’s priorities, because if we fail Ukraine, we fail the international order, and if we fail the international order, we invite aggression everywhere.
Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this afternoon’s debate. I wholly welcome the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary and by Members from across the House, including the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary), and the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton).
This is a debate we would rather not be having, but the actions of the Kremlin have led us to this place and to the untold death, injury, suffering and displacement of millions of Ukrainians. Up to 2 million people have been killed or injured or are missing on both sides, 3.7 million Ukrainians have been displaced internally, and there are close to 6 million refugees—men, women and children ripped from their homes, their work, their schools, their families and their very way of life. All that has happened at the hands of a Russian aggressor whose intransigence towards this conflict means that it will continue into its fifth year, despite the catastrophic losses that the Russians themselves have experienced.
There is no doubt that the invasion of Ukraine was a defining moment of our time, although in many ways it was inevitable, given Putin’s rhetoric and actions over the last 25 years. However, the arrogance and the hubris of Russia also resulted in a vast overestimation of its might and a failure to account for the gallantry of the Ukrainian forces, as well as the robust leadership of President Zelensky and the stout resistance and resilience of the civilian population. Far from taking Kyiv in two weeks, Putin has resorted to terrorising the citizens of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities from a distance with frequent deadly air raids. The comments made earlier about air defence, and the Government’s actions in that regard, are therefore to be welcomed.
There are so many enduring and stark images from this conflict, but two of them stand out for me, the first being the evacuations on the platforms of Lviv railway station. Ukrainians were forced to flee for their lives, never knowing whether they would return. A significant contingent—nearly 400—made passage to North Lanarkshire, and many of them still reside in the High Coats area of Coatbridge in my constituency, joining a long legacy of successful settlement in North Lanarkshire over the years by people fleeing crisis and danger from across the globe.
Matt Rodda
Perhaps my hon. Friend will say something about the important work of Ukrainian community centres around Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In my community, they have been stalwart in supporting their colleagues back in Ukraine, sending aid and raising funds, and also maintaining Ukrainian culture through the Ukrainian language libraries and other facilities that have kept families in touch with their own culture while they are living in Britain.
Frank McNally
My hon. Friend is entirely right. In the High Coats area, the way in which the Ukrainian community are supporting those who are fighting on the frontline is admirable. In Coatbridge, the Ukrainian population have celebrated their national holiday, organised kids’ clubs, and formed a tenants’ association and walking groups. There is now a flourishing community of Ukrainians who are celebrating their own culture and thinking about how they can contribute and what they can offer to the wider community.
Sadly, that open celebration of their culture by Ukrainians in Coatbridge stands in stark contrast to the experience of Ukrainians thousands of miles away in Ukraine, where the Russian occupying forces have sought to erase Ukrainian culture and identity in the territories that have been devastated by those forces over the past four years—by the boundless terror, kidnap and murder that we have seen, and the monstrous stealing and indoctrination of thousands of children, which has already been mentioned. The first person to draw my attention to the scale of that was my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter), who, as the Defence Secretary mentioned, is at this moment in Ukraine receiving the Order of Merit, and deservedly so.
The other defining image that I recall from the early days of the war followed the liberation of Bucha, particularly when President Zelensky walked through what had been left after the brutal massacre and war crimes perpetrated by Russian forces, for which there must be full accountability. Despite Bucha—and, indeed, Mykolaiv, Mariupol and Kharkiv—the Ukrainians fight on. It is, of course, vital for our own security, as well as being our moral obligation, that we continue to have their backs. I greatly welcome the Government’s action on defence spending across the UK, and it is important that we build on that. Defence spending is worth £2 billion a year to Scotland and supports 12,000 jobs, from the Clyde and Rosyth to Coatbridge and Bellshill and across the country.
In addition to implementing the strongest possible sanctions, we must continue to support those Ukrainians who have settled here and built a life over the course of the past four years. For many it has not been by choice, but our communities have become their home, and we must always keep that at the forefront of our minds. However long this war has left to run, we must remain resolute in supporting the Ukrainians to find a just peace that satisfies their terms and ensures that the depredations of Putin’s regime are ended in Ukraine and never visited upon anywhere else in Europe.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
May I first join the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), in thanking the Secretary of State for Defence for the power of his words, and for the manner in which he has spoken for the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and not just for the Government? I do not think there is a Member of the House who would quarrel with anything he said, and the message that has to go out from this place is that we stand united with Ukraine.
There is a danger. In 2014 the Russians annexed Crimea. At the time, Russia was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and it was compelled to withdraw. In 2018 the Parliamentary Assembly, of which the Father of the House and I were both members at the time, voted almost overwhelmingly to re-admit the Russian Federation. The Baltic states, Georgia, Moldova and the United Kingdom fought that through the night—literally—in an unprecedented display of parliamentary unity, but we lost. We were beaten hands down. The following day, the Russian delegation was back in the Hemicycle in Strasbourg. I do not think it is stretching it too far to say that the message that we sent out was profoundly wrong and almost certainly influenced Putin’s belief that he could probably invade Ukraine with impunity.
It has been said over and over again, and absolutely rightly, that Ukraine is fighting for our democracy. If Putin were allowed to win, it would not stop there. Next would be Georgia, Moldova and then possibly the Baltic states. If that were to happen, NATO would be involved and we would probably have world war three, so the stakes are rather high. It behoves all of us to stand as firmly as we can, and to send out the message that “for as long as it takes” means for as long as it takes.
I want to follow on from the remarks made by the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Bellshill (Frank McNally), and to concentrate a bit of time on the diaspora—the expat Ukrainians living throughout Europe, and particularly in the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State said in his opening remarks that thousands of Ukrainians are yearning for the opportunity to return home. I am sure that is true, and he also went on to say that he hopes that there will be peace this year. Again, I do not suppose that anybody in the House or across the United Kingdom does not want the bloodshed to stop.
Ukraine has already sacrificed the largest part of a generation of its finest young men and women in armed conflict, as well as all the civilians who have suffered. Again, that includes the thousands of children, who have been referred to many times in this House, who have been abducted and are now being indoctrinated somewhere within the neo-Soviet Union. They have to be repatriated.
The Father of the House made the point, absolutely rightly, that peace cannot mean peace at any price if we are to honour the dead and those who have sacrificed so much in Ukraine in fighting for their democracy and their country, as well as for ours. Although the Secretary of State was right to say that there are thousands of Ukrainians yearning for the opportunity to return home, when that will actually be possible is a moot point. If there is a peace—and, please God, there will be soon—and on a sound basis, there will still be a phenomenal amount of reconstruction, in the centre and the east of Ukraine in particular, to be carried out before anybody has homes to return to. Depending on the nature of the deal, there will be people who either will not be able to return home because it is still occupied, or whose homes will have been so destroyed that physically there will be nowhere for them to go.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point about the reconstruction that will follow the peace, and one of those areas will be mine clearance. It is estimated that about a quarter of Ukrainian land is now mined, which means that Ukrainian farmers are literally farming on the front line. We should not underestimate how many decades it will take to clear the land of mines. Will he join me in both welcoming the funding from the Government to the HALO Trust for the work under way and paying tribute to the Ukrainian farmers?
Sir Roger Gale
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to pay tribute to the farmers and to highlight the phenomenal difficulty of clearing mines. The HALO Trust has experience of that around the world, and it will take years, not months.
For all those reasons, I say to the Minister—I was going to say my hon. Friend—that this is a sensitive issue, but there are scores of Ukrainians living in the United Kingdom who regard the UK as home, because they have to: they have no choice. My wife and I have five young people whom we now regard as grandchildren, two in one family and three in another, ranging from teenaged down to the cot. Last weekend, a young lady—young in my terms—came to my surgery. She has a 16-year-old daughter who wants to go to college. Like so many other young Ukrainians of that age, she is now between a rock and a hard place, because she does not know how long she will be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom.
There are also professional people who cannot work here and would like to return home, but who need to be enabled to establish a proper professional life in the United Kingdom. I will give the Minister one example: Dr Olena Hubska, now a personal friend of ours, who is the mother of two of those children. She is a fully qualified dentist and has 16 years in practice as a hospital doctor, but the General Dental Council will not allow her to practise here, despite the fact that the country is crying out for dentists. I am told there are some 200 others like her with such qualifications. That is nonsense. Every school holiday, Olena returns to Kharkiv, where her mother is living in a bombed-out flat, so that she can treat children and frontline soldiers who otherwise cannot get dental care, but she is not allowed to practise here.
I do not want to put the Minister on the spot today, but I say to him that we must sort out the longer-term future for these people, who are not even classed as refugees—they are stateless and have no actual status in this country. We have generously, initially, made them welcome, but we have now reached the point where we have to take some decisions for the longer term. I would like the Minister to go back to his colleagues in the Department and the Secretary of State to take this to Cabinet, to say that we really have to recognise that, however sensitive the immigration issue is—as I of course understand—there is a group of people living in this country, contributing to our way of life now, culturally, as has been said earlier, who have to be regularised. They must have a pathway to settlement so that the young people can go to school and on to college, and can qualify and build lives here.
President Zelensky wants his people to return home, and we want them to be able to return home, but for the moment and for the foreseeable future that is not possible. So please, Minister, take that message away and see what can be done, working with the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary, to now regularise the position in the interests not just of them, but of the United Kingdom as well.
David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)
It is an honour to speak in this debate, and I associate myself with the remarks of everyone who has spoken in the Chamber so far, not least in making the point that there continues to be cross-party agreement for resolute support behind Ukraine, and there is still, I believe, resolute support for the Ukrainian people from the British people.
I join the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) in paying tribute to Ukrainians in our communities who have come over from Ukraine, including those in the Hemel Hempstead branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, who marched through the town centre at the weekend to mark the fourth anniversary of the war and who continue to contribute outstandingly to our town.
But I want to focus my remarks on some specific points about an area of work that I am trying to get colleagues to support: increasing the amount of small vehicles and drones and supplies going out to help the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian military; and the work being done by a number of UK charities and individuals in this endeavour. As Members will have heard me say before, I went out in the spring of 2024, driving with a convoy of vehicles with an Estonian-based charity, but with vehicles joining from the UK, all the way through the channel tunnel and Germany to the Polish border and then overnight to Kyiv. It was an incredible honour to be part of that, because I come from a humanitarian background—I have worked for charities including Oxfam in the past—and I support the need for the vital work that humanitarian aid organisations do day in, day out. But I have also always believed, back from when I first had the opportunity to go to Kosovo, that we should not be shy about the need for military support as well, and I felt that I personally wanted to contribute to that by being part of this convoy.
The organisation involved in that convoy was Help99. It is one of a number around Europe that contributes in this way. Some of them deliver purely humanitarian aid, such as delivering fire trucks. Fire Aid, an organisation supported by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), is doing brilliant work. There is an organisation taking out former ambulances to be used out there. Other organisations working there include Pick Ups For Peace, UK4UA.org, and Surrey Stands With Ukraine. I will not list them all, but I had the opportunity to invite a number of them to Parliament last year for an event, with about 60 individuals representing 30 such organisations. I pay tribute to the incredible work they are doing day in, day out. They are putting their own lives at risk to go not just to the Polish border, but, as I said, into Ukraine—often beyond Kyiv and into the west of the country.
There are a couple of points I want to make about how we might be able to support those efforts more, first on what the UK Government could be doing to supply more vehicles that are on the Government estate but are reaching their end of life and could be used with relatively little cost to the UK taxpayer. I will just take a moment to step back and say why these vehicles matter. The £4.5 billion we will providing this year alone is testament to the fact that we need hard power going into Ukraine—no one is arguing otherwise—but small vehicles have an important contribution to make. They help soldiers to go from A to B with ease, and they help to get supplies in. Some have been turned into makeshift ambulances, because of course the Russians would target anything that was white with a red cross on it. They are vital things that soldiers need.
Network Rail may have vehicles such as Land Rovers on its estate that could easily be written off and donated. To that end, I have written to a number of Departments, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Home Office, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Department for Transport to ask if surplus and end-of-life vehicles could be donated. With the police’s new powers to seize off-road vehicles driven in an antisocial way, instead of those vehicles being crushed—as satisfying as that is to a lot of us, I am sure—I have also argued that they could instead be donated. We have quad bikes, dirt bikes and scramblers that Ukrainian soldiers could find quite helpful in the forests.
Unfortunately, some of the responses to my letters have shown that there is perhaps a need for a single accountable body that could better co-ordinate this effort. I do not count the MOD in that regard. It has set out some of the excellent work it is already doing, but maybe some of the other Departments could work better together to get some vehicles donated. That includes His Majesty’s Treasury. These are public assets and there is a decision that needs to be made to write them off. That is creating some of the bottlenecks and delays that I have encountered. As I say, I think this is a relatively small cost to the taxpayer overall, so it is worth doing.
My second point is about support for the charities themselves. Ahead of this debate, I sent a message to the group I brought together last year to ask if they had specific suggestions that they would like me to raise today, so here are just a few. The organisation Surrey Stands With Ukraine asked whether there could be some form of list of recognised and approved UK humanitarian charities, which could then be used by those organisations to ask for donations from the public or private sector. For example, if there was a list that said, “These organisations have a track record of delivering to Ukraine in an effective way,” they might be able get some form of letter that they could then take to their local NHS trust to say, “We are a serious outfit, we have the right intentions, and we have approvals and checks. If you have old ambulances you don’t need, can we have them?” They could take it to food companies and supermarkets to help speed up the donation of food for humanitarian convoys and so on.
Another point related to travelling across the channel, whether by ferry or via the tunnel, and whether the Government could have discussions with the private operators of the channel tunnel and the ferry companies to encourage them to offer a discount or even waive the fee on the cost of getting vehicles over the channel. In a convoy of 20 vehicles the cost adds up to a not insignificant amount of money.
Related to that, the organisations have also asked if more can be done to remove customs red tape, not just at the UK border but all the way through to Ukraine. I have encountered this myself, with a ridiculous amount of time spent waiting at the Polish border because a minor piece of paperwork was missing. Really, the Polish authorities should be doing more to enable these vehicles to be driven over the border with more ease. I wonder whether there is more we can do to have some of those discussions.
The final point I will make on this front is around drone nets. As we know, drones are a constant threat from the Russians. A number of organisations are bringing over old fishing nets—I pay cross-party tribute to the Scottish Government, who announced a few days ago a donation of upwards of 200,000 Scottish fishing nets—which is a small thing, but it helps to protect cities on the western front from Russian drone incursions. I have also seen pictures of nets over highways to protect convoys of vehicles.
Those are some practical suggestions. As I said earlier, no one—certainly not those organisations—is suggesting that these interventions alone will be enough to push the Russians back. In fact, it would be remiss of me not to say that the organisations have said almost the opposite: they wanted me to make the point that as vital as their work is, it is incredibly important that we continue to provide the hard power and military aid. I am proud that our Government are doing that, but it is really a message to the whole of the west. I want to reference the point that the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) made about the need for long-range missiles, too.
I hope that when the Minister winds up, he will reflect on some of the points I have covered. I will make one final plea on behalf of these organisations: they would love an opportunity to meet the Minister or his officials to discuss some of the challenges they are facing and the practical ways we can help to increase the support we are giving to Ukraine.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
Today we pause to reflect on the last four years since the full invasion of Ukraine, on the lives lost and forever changed. We not only mark the immense suffering caused, but reaffirm our solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
In my constituency—and no doubt in many others across the country—solidarity has gone beyond words. Families fleeing the war have become part of our communities; they have become neighbours, colleagues, classmates and friends. Their resilience and determination to continue living their lives have enriched our towns and villages, even as their hearts remain tied to loved ones in Ukraine. I give the example of Elaina, a dental professor now working as a dental nurse in Bradford on Avon, as there are difficulties with the recognition of her qualifications—something that Ministers might like to address.
Our region has also played a direct role in supporting Ukraine’s defence. Ukrainian troops have trained on Salisbury plain alongside British forces to prepare to defend their country and their freedom. In Melksham, down the road from my office, workers at local business Avon Protection have manufactured vital protective equipment, sending over thousands of gas masks— a small, local part of an extraordinary international effort. I thank the Secretary of State for Defence for his help with the funds needed to make this happen.
I must also recognise the power of voices raised in opposition to war and pleading for peace. Ukrainian campaigners in communities up and down the country have continually spoken out for justice and accountability. I also stand with the members of the Free Russian community in the UK, like the members of the Russian Democratic Society whom I met in London last weekend at a demonstration outside the Russian embassy, who show great courage in standing up against Putin’s aggression and repression, often at immense personal cost.
This anniversary is a moment of remembrance, but it is also a call to action. This is not a distant war of the past, but one raging as we speak. The people of this country stand firmly with Ukraine, and I hope the Government will continue to do all they can to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty. We must stand firm in these increasingly difficult times against tyranny and defend the principles of democracy, sovereignty and peace. Ukraine’s fight is not distant; it is felt on the streets of our constituencies and in the corridors of this place. Members might like to join me tonight in Portcullis House at 7.30 pm to hear members of the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra play in recognition of the fourth anniversary of the invasion.
Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)
The contributions to the debate from right hon. and hon. Members have been a powerful reminder of the unity that exists across the House and, indeed, throughout our country, in steadfast support of the Ukrainian people.
In April 2025, I had the privilege of visiting Ukraine, alongside fellow members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and seeing at first hand the courage and determination of Ukraine’s leadership, armed forces and citizens has stuck with me. It has reinforced the importance of our continuing to stand by Ukraine, and made me even more grateful for our armed forces, who every day stand ready to protect all of us.
When we think of war, our minds often turn first to the battlefield. Yet war’s cruelty extends far beyond the frontline and its impacts can reach into homes and families. One example of that is the horrific impact of the conflict on Ukrainian children, whose treatment by Russian forces has been abhorrent, reflecting the same brutality and disregard for humanity that has characterised the invasion from the outset.
Children have been killed, injured and displaced by the war, and at the same time, as other Members have noted, Russia has deported at least, but likely far more than, 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia. Every day, Ukrainian parents face the unthinkable reality of their children being taken from them. Although the exact numbers are disputed, we know that the true figure is likely far higher than reported, and that alone should concern us all.
I pay tribute to Save Ukraine, representatives of which I met during my visit, and the other organisations that are working tirelessly to locate and rescue the children abducted by Russian forces. They have brought hundreds home and deserve our deepest admiration and thanks. But for every child returned, many more remain missing. We must confront the grim reality that many of those children are subjected to indoctrination, and pressured to abandon their identity, their culture, and even their own families. Addressing the crisis demands determined international support, and the UK must stand ready to play its part.
While the war is being fought on the battlefield in Ukraine, there are lessons that we here in the UK must learn from the conflict. The war has shown us that although high-intensity, attritional conflict has not gone away, the character of war is changing. Four years on, it is a grinding struggle of endurance, fought not only with artillery and armour but with technology that is reshaping how force is applied.
One lesson is unmistakeable: the rise of drones and autonomous systems. These unmanned systems are now central to the battlefield. They are relatively cheap, widely available and capable of inflicting serious damage. They have lowered the barrier to air power and given small units unprecedented reach. Future wars will almost certainly feature drones as a core component of operations, so we must ask whether we are adapting quickly enough.
We need to learn not only how to use the systems, but how to defend against them, as illustrated starkly by recent reporting on exercises in Estonia. A small team operating unmanned systems was reportedly able to destroy multiple armoured vehicles in a matter of hours. That is the reality of modern warfare: low cost and high impact. We must ensure that our armed forces are prepared for that reality—equipped, trained and funded to meet it.
Thankfully, Ukraine has adapted with remarkable speed and courage. The use of drones and semi-autonomous systems, integrated cyber and electronic operations, and flexible, resilient supply chains have all been decisive. At the same time, the war has reminded us that some fundamentals never change. Logistics matter, supply lines matter and endurance matters. Armies still need ammunition, equipment and the ability to sustain operations over time.
Ukrainian forces have shown how innovation, rapid decision making and co-ordination across land, sea, air and cyber can offset the abilities of a larger opponent. They have taken the fight to Russian forces in ways that few predicted at the start of the invasion. The lesson is clear: modern warfare is not just about numbers. It is about adaptability, resilience and the ability to evolve faster than an adversary. As we rightly admire Ukraine’s heroism, we must ask ourselves a serious question. Are our own armed forces equipped, organised and funded to meet that same test? Adaptation requires investment, and that is a conversation that must involve not only the Ministry of Defence but the Treasury.
I want to talk briefly about one more aspect of the war in Ukraine and the lessons that we can take from it. From the moment that Russian tanks illegally crossed the border from Crimea into Ukraine, Britain and His Majesty’s Government have stood four-square behind our friends in Kyiv. We have provided financial support, trained Ukrainian troops, and convened international partners. We ought to be proud of the support that we—both the previous and current Government—have given to Ukraine.
As this war marks its fourth year since the full-scale invasion, we must not let our unity and support be worn down by Russia. A lasting and just peace must be the aim, and I support efforts to end the war as quickly as possible, but as President Zelensky has said, we know that appeasement is not the answer, and that Putin is an irrational actor who will see only weakness if the west was to give in to his demands. We learned that lesson before, and we must remember it today.
We must continue to strengthen the international coalition in support of Ukraine, and we must not allow it to be worn down. As we stand resolute in our support, alongside our partners, I urge the Government to continue to work with allies, in particular the United States, and reiterate how valuable they are to the collective stance that we are taking against tyranny in the form of Putin.
Ukraine’s courage has shown us both the brutality of aggression and the strength of a nation determined to defend its freedom. Our duty is now clear. We must continue to stand firm with Ukraine, resist the temptation of complacency and ensure that Britain is fully prepared for the realities of modern conflict. That means sustained support for Kyiv, renewed resolve among our allies, and serious investment in our armed forces. It is not enough to be the coalition of the willing. We must be the coalition of the prepared—prepared to deter, prepared to defend, and prepared to lead.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
Last night, I joined the Minister for the Armed Forces and the former leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), at Trafalgar Square for a rally for Ukraine. It was a really moving event. Hosts from across the UK and Ukrainian families—including children, mothers, wives and other relatives—were all gathered in Trafalgar Square, where on 8 May 1945, Brits welcomed victory in Europe. Today I will set out why we in the UK need to see Ukraine reach a victory in Europe.
As I thank the Ukrainian people for their courage and determination, I want to talk about what we are not doing right here in the UK; for instance, we could go so much further on economic sanctions on Russia. But first, I want to address comments that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson made on “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg”. He said there was
“no logical reason that I can see why we shouldn’t send peaceful ground forces there to show our support, our constitutional support, for a free, independent Ukraine.”
We do not have peaceful ground forces in the British Army; we have warfighters, because warfighters make the best peacekeepers, but be in no doubt that there is no distinction between a warfighter and a peacekeeper. The notion of peaceful ground forces is really for the birds. Rather, we need to double down on what we are doing currently, which is proving successful in keeping the Russians at bay. First, there is what we are doing through economic sanctions. Urals crude—Russia’s main grade of crude oil—now trades at a 25% to 30% discount compared with our Brent crude, and exports of it are at their lowest since 2020. In January, year-on-year oil and gas budget receipts for the Kremlin halved to just under 400 billion roubles. The British Government announced in October last year that they would ban all imports of Russian-origin crude oil products refined in third countries. Alongside that, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
“We will hold to account all those enabling”
Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. The Minister for Europe and North America has appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee, and we talked about sanctions. The work that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office does on identifying entities to sanction is good, but it could go so much further. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air has found that refineries in countries like India, Turkey and Brunei continue to use Russian crude oil, which continues to be exported to Europe and the UK. That said, the EU imposed a complete ban on imports from third countries on 21 January.
The ban on direct imports, which came into force in the UK in 2022, has had a so-called refining loophole that enabled the import of £4 billion of jet fuel and other oil products made at refineries in India and Turkey, which run partially on Russian crude. The research centre estimates that £1.6 billion-worth of products imported from those refineries would have been made with imported Russian oil. Our constituents will hear those figures on the one hand, then look, on the other hand, at the £3 billion of taxpayers’ money that we are rightly giving to Ukraine every year at the moment, and will not be able to reconcile the two; nor should they. We have to properly sanction the Russian Federation. Finally, we must thank the Ukrainians for their courage and determination.
Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)
Will the hon. Member join me in recognising recent opinion polling that has shown that the UK population remains steadfast in its support for the people of Ukraine? Part of that is about local associations of Ukrainians, like those in Glasgow, who promote Ukrainian culture and remind us all of the contribution that they are making to our country.
Richard Foord
The hon. Member makes an excellent point. That Ukrainian culture was on full display last night, at the Trafalgar Square rally.
At the moment, we sometimes talk down NATO, and certainly its European parts. We should not, because in NATO we have the strongest military alliance that the world has ever seen. Putin should be in no doubt about the intent of NATO states to fulfil their NATO obligations, including to such members as Estonia and Latvia, which have Russian minority populations.
At the rally yesterday evening, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green reminded us of a quote from Churchill:
“Give us the tools and we will finish the job”.
He said that in 1941 to the British people, and indeed to allies across the water. That very much applies today. We need to think about how we can give Ukraine the tools that it needs to finish the job. More than that, we need to deprive Russia of tools, so that it can no longer wage this war of aggression against a people who want what we in this country have, and sometimes take for granted: democracy and liberty.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
As he marked the fourth anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine, following Russia’s illegal invasion, President Zelensky said that Putin “has already started” world war three. He went on:
“The question is how much territory he will be able to seize and how to stop him…Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves.”
It is humbling to address the House as we enter the fifth year of this conflict—seemingly a conflict without end; peace talks are faltering and at an impasse. The last four years of conflict in Ukraine have been savage, unrelenting and at a level of total war that we have been fortunate enough to become unacquainted with in this country during of our lifetime. The toll that has taken on the civilian population has been horrific: there have been over 15,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths, thousands more displaced, and an entire population whose lives have been put on hold, forever changed. We have seen lives lost, families devastated and future hopes and dreams shattered, yet Ukraine has held firm against the Russian onslaught. It did in 2022 as it does today.
The Government have remained steadfast in their support for Ukraine, and that same support was extended when they were in opposition. When we were in government, we stood four-square behind Ukraine from the very start, and we were the first nation to openly back the Ukrainian forces with weapons. This House has been united in its support, and that support has been vital. Not only is it there to protect Ukrainian sovereignty in the face of such flagrant disregard for international law, but it represents the FLOT—the forward line of own troops—for the defence of Europe.
We have all seen the changes that this war has brought: a new cold war—maybe even a phoney war—and a generational leap in the nature of warfare in just four years that has catapulted drones from a nerdy hobby to a horrific “Black Mirror” reimagining of modern warfare.
Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman talks about drones. A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Munich security conference, where I had the privilege of hearing President Zelensky speak. He said that in January, Ukraine was attacked by more than 6,000 Shahed drones, which are made in Iran, or in Russia based on Iranian design. Does he agree that the sheer scale of bombardment that Ukraine faces from those drones, and from countries that also wish our country ill, is just one reason why the United Kingdom is right to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes?
Ben Obese-Jecty
I wholeheartedly concur. The Iranians, in particular, are global leaders in exporting terror, backing, as they do, the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. Their provision of the Shahed drone to Russia and the bombardment that the Ukrainians face lead to a terrible toll and are a terrible result.
Anyone who has seen any of the innumerable videos of first-person-view drone footage of soldiers being stalked and killed by drones cannot fail to appreciate the new reality of modern warfare. On the point made by the hon. Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward), the last year alone has seen Russia increase its use of drones by 200%. Such a capability sea change cannot be overstated.
Four years into Putin’s three-day special military operation, Russia has sustained a staggering 1.2 million casualties, 325,000 of them fatalities. That is fast approaching the number of soldiers that we lost in the entirety of the second world war. The majority of casualties—reportedly 70% to 80%—are now caused by drones. It is reported that Russia can no longer recruit new soldiers at the rate that they are being lost, and in the past fortnight, Ukraine has liberated 300 square kilometres in its southern counter-offensive.
We are four years into this conflict, and the remarkable bravery of the Ukrainian armed forces remains undiminished. Yes, we have supported them with matériel, intelligence, rapid procurement and funding, but the human sacrifice required to win, or crucially not lose, a war of sovereignty and survival is something that we perhaps do not address enough. Fifty-five thousand Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since 2022—the equivalent of more than two thirds of our regular Army. From the contributions this afternoon, it is clear that Members on both sides of this House want an end to this conflict, and an end on Ukraine’s terms—one that does not see them acquiesce to the Russian threat that it has given so much to keep at bay.
In the broader context of European security, what comes next? There are significant lessons to be learned from the conflict in Ukraine. No war has been as visually documented at such close quarters as this. The Lessons Exploitation Centre at the Land Warfare Centre will have been busy shaping our future tactics. An example of that is the recently released outcome of NATO’s Exercise Hedgehog 2025 in Estonia, in which a team of just 10, training against experienced Ukrainian drone operators, were able to render two battalions combat-ineffective in just half a day. We are through the looking glass.
Last Saturday, the Defence Secretary wrote a piece for The Telegraph in which he explicitly stated:
“I want to be the Defence Secretary who deploys British troops to Ukraine–because this will mean that the war is finally over.”
But to quote Winston Churchill, that will simply be
“the end of the beginning.”
The Minister does not need me to tell him that the ceasefire will simply facilitate a reconstitution of Russian forces. To use an old adage, Russia will trade space for time. When it returns to its barracks in the Leningrad military district, it will be based only a few minutes from the Estonian border. Pskov, home of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division and the 2nd Spetsnaz Brigade, is just 35 km away.
The NATO Forward Land Forces already man the line in Estonia via Operation Cabrit—one of our ongoing commitments. The battlegroup deployed there serves as a deterrent to further Russian expansionism and belligerence. No longer just a strategic tripwire, it is now a force equipped with a capability in Project Asgard that presents a lethal recce-strike system—a force whose very presence provides Estonia with the security of the NATO umbrella; a force so vital that its ongoing presence is apparently written into Estonia’s defence strategy.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
The hon. Member is making an excellent speech. While we want the war in Ukraine to end and, of course, for Britain to play a leading role in that, including, if appropriate, the provision of troops, does he not share my fear, when we zoom out and look at the geopolitical context, that putting the troops in Estonia in Ukraine stops us from guarding other areas on the eastern flank, and—to use military terminology—fixes most of our forces there when they might be needed elsewhere?
Ben Obese-Jecty
I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. I hope he has not stolen a look at my speech, as I am about to come on to just that point, but I agree with him. There is potentially a trade-off to be made between putting troops on the ground in Ukraine and in the High North. There is a possibility that doing both those things to the sufficient level that we require may prove too much of a challenge.
We are committed in Estonia, just as we are to be committed in Ukraine. It has been reported that our commitment to a post-ceasefire force would be around 7,500 troops. That is smaller than our peak commitment in Afghanistan, but that reflects the difference in posture. While 7,500 does not sound like a lot—only circa 10% of the current Army—it does not reflect the fact that three times that number is needed to sustain the deployment. By the time of a second six-month rotation through Ukraine, we would have 7,500 who have just returned from the first tour, the second 7,500 currently doing the job and the next 7,500 training to go. That is 22,000-odd from a field army of, say, 40,000, meaning that over half the Army will be committed to manning the eastern flank deterrence line.
It was reported in The Telegraph yesterday that multiple members of the coalition of the willing have privately conceded that their contributions to the post-ceasefire peacekeeping mission depend on permission from Vladimir Putin. Could the Minister in his summing-up confirm whether every country in the coalition of the willing has committed to deploying troops to the peacekeeping mission in Ukraine alongside us?
If we include the aforementioned battlegroup in Estonia, that is another 3,000 troops operating on the same cycle. If we factor in ongoing commitments, such as NATO’s Allied Reaction Force special operations component, which we lead for the next year, the Falkland Islands Roulement Infantry Company and the Resident Infantry Battalion in Dhekelia, as well as the process of retraining and rearming for the plethora of planned new capabilities, the number of personnel quickly adds up under the stacked readiness of multiple commitments. With the Prime Minister announcing our commitment to Operation Firecrest this year with the carrier strike group, as well as the expanded Royal Marines commitment in Norway, suddenly our armed forces are on the cusp of looking overstretched, and doubly so in the event that anything else comes into scope or goes hot.
I highlight these challenges to draw out the complexity of the broader strategic issue. The only way this level of operational commitment will be feasible is if, like our European allies, we properly fund defence. That is why we have called on the Government to go faster and spend 3% of GDP on defence by the end of this Parliament to ensure that they can deliver the 62 recommendations in the strategic defence review that they have already pledged to deliver. But the defence investment plan itself is six months late, strongly suggesting that the plan as it stands is unaffordable. Can the Minister confirm that the plan will finally be published before the Easter recess? It is imperative that the plan addresses the growing capability gaps as the warfare spiral develops in eastern Europe.
In conclusion,
“I believe we are on a collision course with a Russia that is on a war footing, that is replenishing its lost equipment and that is re-arming fast… Putin will only take us seriously when he sees our factories producing at wartime rates. And that’s why I believe so strongly in the need to rebuild our own national arsenal and reconnect society with its Armed Forces… The urgency could not be clearer. Just ask yourself: If you knew now that our soldiers would be involved in large-scale combat operations in 2027, what would you be doing differently—and why are you not doing it?”
Those are not my words, but the words of the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Roly Walker. He said them yesterday. As we mark the fourth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s needless and tragic war, I am sure everyone in this House would agree with me when I say that I hope we are not here to mark a fifth. Slava Ukraini.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
Any contribution to this debate must surely start with a tribute to the remarkable courage of the Ukrainian people. Four years ago, at the start of Vladimir Putin’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many people expected Russian tanks to be on the streets of Kyiv within days. They did not come because brave Ukrainian troops held them back. Today, four years later, there are still no tanks on the streets in Kyiv and Ukraine is not broken. Ukraine still holds around 80% of its territory and the Russian troops move at glacial speed, with an astonishing and tragic number of Russian dead: young men sent to fight for an imperialist autocrat, whose self-indulgent dream has become his nightmare, stopped by the resistance of the Ukrainian people and their extraordinary resilience, innovation and sacrifice.
We have heard already about that sacrifice. Ukrainians have suffered more than half a million military casualties, at least 15,000 civilians have been killed and millions have been forced from their homes. Towns and cities have been relentlessly bombarded, and hospitals and schools targeted. The line that Ukraine has held for four years is the line that separates all of us in Europe, including here in the UK, from a brutal authoritarian dictatorship and a threat to our liberal democracy. Putin wants to destroy that liberal democracy because it threatens him.
Britain has stepped up. I am proud to sit on these Benches and look around at the cross-party consensus that means Ukraine is not alone in its fight. We stand with Ukraine. As Putin seeks to reduce Ukraine to a dependent and weakened state, we must be absolutely clear: sovereignty is not a bargaining chip and any peace must be shaped by the Ukrainians themselves. I urge the Government to continue to work closely with our allies to ensure that Ukraine is not strong-armed into an unjust and unstable peace.
The war has given rise to Europe’s largest displacement crisis since the second world war. Some 7 million Ukrainians now live abroad as refugees, with a further 5 million displaced within their own country. I say to the 700-odd Ukrainians in my constituency of Esher and Walton: you are very welcome and we are proud to have you. I pay tribute to residents in my constituency who have generously opened up their homes, and to Elmbridge borough council and our local charities, including the brilliant Elmbridge CAN, that have housed families and helped them to integrate.
Ukrainians are making Esher and Walton richer. They teach in our schools, including at Walton Leigh; they are chefs, carers and nurses; and Father Ruslan Kurdiumov is the parish priest at St Erconwald’s Catholic church in Walton. Among them are Tetyana and Lena, who once ran their own tourist company in Kyiv. When war broke out four years ago, they put their children in cars and drove across Europe to stay with host families in my constituency. Today, they are rebuilding their lives, running a gardening business and studying garden design, while one of their husbands continues to fight on the frontline. One of their boys is at Esher college, having excelled in his GCSEs. We are lucky to have them with us.
Another Lena, living in Thames Ditton, has three children, two at secondary school and one at university. She told me:
“We are deeply grateful to the UK for the safety, support, protection and kindness we have received. We are doing everything we can to rebuild stable, productive lives, working, paying taxes, learning the language and our children are growing up in British schools. We want to not only rebuild our lives but also to give back to the country that helped us in our most difficult times. The greatest challenge we face today is uncertainty about our future. If we were required to return because the war is considered ‘over’, my greatest fear would be for my children. They have already integrated here. They have friends, education, routines and a sense of emotional stability again after displacement and trauma. Forcing them to start over for a second time would be a profound psychological strain. For many families the end of active war does not mean life is safe or normal. Homes have been destroyed, communities damaged. Some people simply have nowhere to go back to.”
The 24-month visa is welcome, but it still leaves many families living with uncertainty. We Liberal Democrats are calling for an automatic visa extension, a clear route to long-term status, trauma-informed education for children and real stability for families who are already contributing so much to our communities.
Another of my constituents, Graham, offered his home to a Ukrainian guest, Kristina Hotsyk. She is desperate to reunite with her parents, but the reintroduction of biometric requirements, forcing people to travel to cities under nightly attack, is making that process extremely dangerous. I urge the Government to address this issue as soon as possible.
Let me turn to the aid situation. It is reassuring that the Government have decided to protect the overseas aid spend for Ukraine this year, but while that is welcome, the increase is modest. At a moment when global aid flows are collapsing, it will not do as much as we would like. At the same time, the Government have decided to slash overseas aid, meaning that it will become harder for us to sustain aid flows to Ukraine in the coming years. That is a strategic mistake, because overseas aid is not charity; it is an investment in our own security.
A stable Ukraine deters Russian aggression across Europe, sends a clear message that borders cannot be redrawn by force and raises the cost of future wars. Poverty and hardship in any country send people into the arms of those who offer a populist, easy message. Aid stabilises societies and prevents crises from spiralling into conflict, displacement and insecurity that ultimately reach our shores.
Ukraine shows what continuous, serious aid flows can achieve. Our support has helped to keep a country under siege functioning. It has strengthened civilian morale and reinforced a frontline state standing between Europe and authoritarian expansion. That is what properly funded aid looks like. I hope the Government do not throw away the progress that they have made and reverse course on the aid cuts as soon as possible.
The Liberal Democrats call on the Government to take bolder action. First, we must scale up our military and bring forward plans to reach 3% of GDP being spent on defence as quickly as possible, instead of waiting until the next decade. Our armed forces have been hollowed out, such that we now have the lowest troop numbers in more than 200 years, while stockpiles have become depleted. That weakens support for Ukraine and makes us feel less safe here at home. Let me be clear that defence must not come at the expense of development; it is a false and dangerous narrative to pitch the one against the other. As the US general and former Secretary of Defence, Jim Mattis, said:
“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition”.
Secondly, we must hit the Russian war machine where it hurts. More than £30 billion-worth of frozen Russian assets sit in the UK alone. The Liberal Democrats have introduced legislation for those to be seized and redirected to Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction, and I urge the Government to put it into law as soon as possible. We should also work with G7 partners to lower the oil price cap, cutting directly into Putin’s war profits.
Thirdly, accountability matters. The war crimes that we have seen in this tragic conflict, from the attacks on humanitarian convoys and the missile strikes on churches and children’s playgrounds to the abduction of an estimated 35,000 Ukrainian children, have shocked the conscience of the world. I went to see the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and saw the records of soldiers and the work that it is doing to reunite families and children and identify the missing so that their families can have closure. I applaud its quiet work.
International law must be upheld, and war criminals like Putin must not be allowed to act with impunity. The rules-based order is under attack—a climate that makes the work of vital international institutions such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and NATO even more important. Putin would like nothing more than for the UN and NATO to collapse, so we must protect them. I urge the Government to continue their full-throated support for those vital entities and resist pressure from the United States to ignore or defy them.
Today, four years on, we are proud to still stand with Ukraine. Let us not allow Ukraine to be forced into a settlement that rewards aggression and leaves all of us less safe, because the Ukrainian people are fighting not just their war, but our war. They deserve nothing less than our full and unwavering commitment.
I will end with a poem written by a Ukrainian constituent, Nikita Balakin. He is nine and is at Cleves school in Oatlands. It reads:
“Mum, me and one suitcase
Three of us only
I left my cat, I left my dog
And all my dreams behind in the fog
I was just five but looked like more
Because I knew the world of war
New country, language, school and friends.
Thanks to everyone who helps.
I started to smile and play the games
And I can start to hope again.
I want the world to see my joy
PEACE is the biggest dream of a Ukrainian boy!”
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
It gives me great pleasure to be one of the last speakers in such a unifying debate, in which Members on all sides of the House can agree on the same thing. I associate myself with the remarks of all those who have already spoken.
This country should be immensely proud of the support that we have given to Ukraine in its hour of need. The Kremlin has thrown international law on to the bonfire, but the Ukrainian people are defending their land bravely against a brutal invasion. We have seen scenes of trench warfare and civilians being evacuated on trains or sheltering from air raids in underground stations—things we thought we had left in the last century. However, far from collapsing in days, as Putin believed, the Ukrainians have shamed the Russian army at every turn.
Without British support, things might have been very different. The full list of military capabilities that the UK has given the Ukrainian defence effort is eye-opening. We must commend our world-class armed forces, who have trained more than 62,000 Ukrainian personnel— a number fast approaching the size of the entire British Army. We have given thousands of anti-tank missiles, artillery units and armoured vehicles, specialist air defence systems, radar systems, long-range cruise missiles, more than 10,000 drones, search and rescue helicopters, electronic warfare equipment, night vision, body armour and medical essentials—a lifeline worth more than £21 billion.
Thanks to the hard work of the Pickwell Foundation, my constituency has sheltered more than 230 Ukrainian evacuees, as have countless communities across the country, as we have heard today.
I visited Kyiv last year with the Defence Committee. A poignant moment for me personally was when our delegation paid our respects at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine. Just seeing the multitude of photos on that wall brings home how many families have lost a loved one.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend everyone who has spoken. Four years ago, the Russians entered Bucha. They murdered and raped. They packed 200 civilians—men, women and children—into a basement, and then they killed them all. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those murderers—those Russian scoundrels and thugs who killed, raped and destroyed people’s lives—must see retribution and be held accountable, and that we in Westminster should play our role to ensure that those people are brought to justice and put in jail for the rest of their lives?
Ian Roome
I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman that those people should be held accountable for the crimes they have committed. I am sure the Minister will take note of that.
On that same trip to Kyiv, we met many Ukrainian parliamentarians, including the Ukrainian Veterans Minister. That role is new to the Ukrainians. It was a great pleasure that they wanted to learn from how the UK supports the welfare and rehabilitation of veterans returning from combat. That Ukrainian Minister has met organisations such as the Royal British Legion to see how we support our veterans, to take that learning back to Ukraine.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
I apologise for coming to the debate so late and intervening so quickly, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I have just returned from Ukraine, along with a few colleagues. We were able to attend the memorial marking four years since the invasion and to commemorate the deaths there. The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. We felt the attacks in Odessa and Kyiv that people lived through every day, and the horrific endurance that the Ukrainian people are having to show. They appreciate all the things the UK has done that the hon. Gentleman talked about. We spoke to a member of staff for veterans yesterday about the fact that Ukraine has followed a UK approach and created hubs for veterans across the country. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we must continue to work with the Ukrainians so that we can learn from each other?
Ian Roome
I certainly do. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for telling us about his visit. It is great that we can share learning as well as military capabilities.
The past four years must serve as a lesson for us in the UK. The frontlines have seen the invention of fibre-optic drones and cyber-sabotage, and the emergence of artillery targeting apps and rapid procurement portals. We in the UK and Europe must contend with Russian activities in the grey zone. Ukrainians have suffered a terrible winter, as the Russians have bombarded critical energy infrastructure. Last year, President Zelensky told us:
“Russia’s tactics are to murder people and terrorise them with the cold.”
We must pay attention.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the tactics that Putin is using at the moment. Temperatures in Ukraine have dropped to minus 20°C, which has had profound consequences for everyone there. Not only are people freezing to death, which has a huge effect on the frontline, but military veterans with prosthetics are unable to recharge their limbs. There has been a 21% jump in damaged or destroyed energy infrastructure since last year, and the World Bank reports that it would cost £1 billion to rebuild it. Does he agree that the Government must urgently seize billions in Russian assets and use the proceeds to help Ukraine rebuild its infrastructure?
Ian Roome
I thank my hon. Friend for making that poignant point, with which I totally agree.
We in the UK are relearning the strategic importance of warfighting, of deterrence, readiness and resilience at home, and of sticking with European allies that we could have taken for granted. It is important that UK civil society understands the hardship faced by the Ukrainian people. If Russia succeeds in using force to redraw borders, it threatens the collective security of the entire European continent and of NATO, and threatens the safety of the UK. Facing down tyrants is in this country’s DNA. Ukraine will fight on, and we must back it. There is no stronger defence than showing that we are as good as our word.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome), who always speaks knowledgably on defence matters—and not just because of his own service—as he has done again today.
I must apologise to the House for missing the initial speeches in this debate, which I would not usually do. I offer the small excuse that I have been travelling for 17 hours and, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), have just returned—hotfoot, as it were—from Kyiv. Under those unusual circumstances, I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker, for allowing me to sum up for the Conservatives and to report back to the House on what we learned from our trip to Ukraine.
In my role as shadow Armed Forces Minister, I was one of around 20 UK MPs to visit Ukraine. This was, I believe, the largest delegation we have ever sent, and it included MPs from all the main parties in the House of Commons—although there was no MP from Reform. I regret in all sincerity that, yet again, when we are debating foreign policy and defence in this House, the Reform Benches are empty. As the son of a D-day veteran, I have always believed that the first duty of Government, above all others, is the defence of the realm, so those who aspire to form a Government should at least be bothered to turn up and talk about it.
I also pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter), who, while we were there, was presented with President Zelensky’s Order of Merit for the brilliant campaigning she has undertaken on behalf of Ukrainian children who have been captured and forcibly adopted by Russian families, or—in some cases, with older children—put into military training camps for the Russian army, which is totally and utterly contrary to the Geneva convention. We in this House know that she has been a stalwart campaigner on the issue, but so now does the President of Ukraine. We honour her for the honour that she has done us.
I would also like to mention—because if I did not mention him, I will never hear the end of it—the former Member of Parliament for Filton and Bradley Stoke, Jack Lopresti, who served in Afghanistan as a reservist and who has recently joined the Ukrainian army. He is serving as a specialist in communications and information warfare. Good luck and Godspeed, Jack, in all that you do.
Our main purpose in going to Ukraine was to attend the official ceremony of the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which we did in Maidan Square yesterday morning. The ceremony was also attended by President Zelensky and his wife; by Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Union; and by several other European Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, including our own Foreign Secretary, who had a platoon of British MPs to support her in her duty. We all laid a small commemorative lamp and paid our respects. In some ways, it is the Ukrainian equivalent of our ceremony at the Cenotaph in November, and I can report to the House that it was carried out with equal solemnity and respect.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend knows, I was with him in Kyiv on that occasion, and managed to exchange a few words with President Zelensky to point out that the British delegation was there. He made it very clear that he was very pleased to see us there, and that we were very welcome. It was an honour to give him our support.
Mr Francois
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it was great to have him as a colleague on that visit. He brought his great knowledge of defence and foreign affairs to our trip. I can also report to the House that my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness exchanged some humorous words with President Zelensky, but they are probably best left to posterity.
We visited at a very difficult time. As well as being in Kyiv, we initially visited Odesa via Moldova, which was under drone and missile attack for part of the time we were there. We visited Chernobyl, which I am pleased to report was not under drone or missile attack, although it was attacked by Russian drones some months ago, incredibly irresponsibly. We then moved on to Kyiv, which again was under bombardment for part of our time there. We had burner phones—I do not think I am giving away any secrets by saying that—and they put an app on them that goes off if there is an air raid warning. When that happens, it is quite sobering, but there is also an all-clear, and with typical Ukrainian humour and defiance, when they play the all-clear, it is followed by the words, “May the Force be with you.”
We had multiple meetings while we were there. As the House knows, people come and go on these delegations, but between us we were there for the best part of a week. We met senior staff from the Office of the President, who gave us an up-to-date briefing on the state of the ceasefire negotiations. We met a dozen Ukrainian MPs from the UK friendship group, and we had an intelligence briefing from the Ukrainian military.
We visited several bombed-out residential apartments, including, I am sad to say, one on Kyiv’s left bank, which has suffered particularly heavily as it is an industrial area and a logistics centre where there is a large amount of working-class housing—a bit like the east end of London in some ways. We visited one apartment where, tragically, 23 innocent people were killed, including several children, in a Russian strike. We think that it was aimed at the railway marshalling yards nearby, but because this was a drone it was not as accurate as a hypersonic missile, and those people were tragically murdered. We also attended a veterans’ rehabilitation centre. As the Secretary of State, who is with us, will know, when I was the Veterans Minister I had a bit to do with that, and I am proud of the fact that we managed to provide the Genium prosthetic for our wounded. We saw the Ukrainian equivalent of a rehabilitation centre, and I understand that this is one area in which Britain has been able to provide some advice and expertise, which was clearly warmly welcomed during our visit.
We attended the official opening of the Ukrainian Parliament, the Rada. I am pleased to report to the House that its Speaker, who is a big man in every sense, acknowledged all the international delegations one by one, but the loudest applause was for the Polish delegation and the British delegation. It was probably impossible to tell between the two, but I think that the MPs in the Rada were under no illusion about who had backed them to the hilt.
It was a difficult time, and at all those different meetings three themes emerged consistently. We were asked to report them to the House, so I will perform that solemn, duty now.
First, our interlocutors were clear about the fact that although we were formally celebrating—or, I should say, commemorating—the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine was originally invaded by Russia in 2014. It has been at war with Russia not for four years but for 12, which, to put it into perspective, is longer than the first and the second world wars put together. I think that Ukraine’s resistance for over a decade, in the face of the most brutal attacks from a larger and more powerful neighbour, deserves the respect and admiration of every single Member of this House and every single citizen in this country. The Ukrainians are fighting for us. They are fighting for the same values: for freedom, democracy, and the right to decide their own destiny. Their fight is our fight. We spoke a great deal to people about morale, and I think it is realistic. There are many in Ukraine who long for peace, for very understandable reasons, but they were all clear on one thing, namely that they would not accept peace at any price. Too much blood has been shed by the youth of Ukraine for them to accept a purely unilateral solution proposed by Russia. That theme emerged many times.
The second theme concerned sanctions. Most of the Ukrainians whom we spoke to in those meetings were understandably keen for an extension of sanctions by the western democracies, not least with regard to frozen Russian assets, a subject that we have debated in the House on numerous occasions. Many Ukrainians feel that now really is the time for the western democracies to bite the bullet and use those $300 billion or so of frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. However, they also made had a particular point about the shadow fleet, and here I ask for the Minister’s special attention.
The sale of hydrocarbons, whether oil or gas, ultimately props up the Russian economy, which allows Putin to spend about 40% of Russia’s budget on its military and to recruit mercenaries to fight in the Russian armed forces. In some cases, mercenaries are being offered up to $38,000 as a signing-on fee to fight in the Russian armed forces, but according to Ukrainian intelligence officers—they said we could say this—the average life expectancy of those mercenaries is four months.
The Ukrainians would like to see much greater sanctioning of the shadow fleet. The Minister knows that some of those vessels are uninsured, but many are insured and, moreover, many are insured by syndicates at Lloyd’s of London. Surely there is more that we could do to cramp the activities of the shadow fleet by working with Lloyd’s and other insurers to make sure that those ships cannot have insurance, which would make it difficult for them to visit at least some of their destination points. I make a particular point of that, because I am trying to do justice to the Ukrainians, who raised this issue with us again and again and again. They are really hard over on this, and I hope the Minister can say something in his summing up.
Richard Foord
The insurance industry is largely located in London. The British Government have talked about a maritime services ban, and about a timeline that might bring such insurance to an end in this calendar year. Does the right hon. Gentleman see any reason why a maritime services ban cannot come into effect until the end of this year?
Mr Francois
I am not an insurance expert and would not claim to be, but surely there is more that we can do. It is not a state secret that Lloyd’s of London is a world leader in maritime insurance, and surely there is more that can be done here. We promised—all of us—that we would relay this back to the House. Minister, over to you.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
It was also clear in our meetings that the Ukrainians are very pleased with the interception of two or three shadow fleet tankers. I wonder why we cannot be far more proactive about uninsured or unseaworthy boats that should not be at sea and that have illegal crews. There are many legal pretexts on which we could intervene with these ships in international waters to add to the cost and risk of Russia’s oil and gas exports, thereby reducing its foreign exchange earnings.
Mr Francois
As ever, my hon. Friend is entirely right. The sale of hydrocarbons, including to China and India, is effectively Putin’s windpipe. Some people now refer to Russia as “China’s gas station”. If we could do more against those ships, it would be important for Ukrainian morale. We were told time and again that when the Ukrainians hear that a shadow fleet vessel has been impounded or captured, it raises their morale. This is something that we could do, in difficult circumstances, to raise their morale even further. Between us, my hon. Friend and I have made the point, and hopefully the Minister can follow up on it.
The third theme that I want to stress before I finish is that we were thanked again and again for Britain’s support militarily, diplomatically and economically, and for our humanitarian aid. Wherever we went, people said, “Thank you.” I think it is true to say that the previous Government gave real leadership in Europe on this and I think it is true to say that the current Government have continued in the same vein, but the House should know that people from the Office of the President downwards went out of their way to thank us for everything that Britain, and indeed this House, has done.
The Speaker of the Rada gave us a sombre warning. He said: “No one knows the Russians better than us. If we fall, you and your friends are next.” It is important that this House appreciates that. I do not want to spoil the non-partisan spirit of this debate, but there are lessons for us in the United Kingdom not just about the overall level of defence spending, but about the long-delayed defence investment plan. I say to the Secretary of State for Defence that we desperately need that document. We cannot wait much longer, and we have waited since the autumn, so the ball is in the Secretary of State’s court. It would be good for Ukrainian morale to see Britain committing to a long-term equipment programme.
Graham Stuart
I entirely agree with every word my right hon. Friend has said. Perhaps an area where we—the previous Government or this one—have not succeeded is in sufficiently sharing, or narrating and telling the story of, the threat to our UK citizens of suffering the barbarity that the Ukrainians are suffering daily, which would help the Secretary of State and others make the case, in an extremely tough fiscal environment, for the resourcing not only to support Ukraine, but to arm ourselves. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that it would be good to hear about that from the Minister, because there is still a disconnect between the way my constituents see the world and the way that I, fresh back from Ukraine, see it?
Mr Francois
My right hon. Friend is quite right. The Ukrainians were—and I use this word deliberately—warning us. They have been at war for 12 years, and they were warning us not to be complacent, but to learn from their suffering about the need never to take freedom for granted. The Secretary of State has heard me use these words before, so I crave his indulgence, but the Roman military strategist Vegetius said:
“Si vis pacem, para bellum”—
he who desires peace should prepare for war in order to deter it. We heard those words again in Ukraine.
To conclude, on the Monday evening before the ceremony in Maidan Square the following day, we were entertained at a reception at the British embassy. I hope the Minister will understand the spirit in which this is said, but there was a slightly humorous moment when the chargé d’affaires thanked the British delegation for ignoring Foreign Office advice not to travel to Ukraine to be at the reception. I thank the Minister for his letter also advising us not to go. I am terribly sorry, but we exercised Nelson’s eye, and we went anyway.
In all seriousness, it was a wonderful evening, and we were entertained by several people from what the Ukrainians call the cultural forces of Ukraine, including, very memorably, a group of Ukrainian soldiers singing a cappella. They were brilliant, and there were genuine shouts of “more” and “encore” at the end. They encored with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. For those who know the song, there are the wonderful lines where Sinatra sings:
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The Ukrainians have not knelt. They have not knelt in the face of terrorism. They have not knelt in the face of barbarism, including the use of highly accurate cruise missiles to deliberately attack children’s hospitals. They have not knelt in the face of genocide at places such as Bucha. They have stood up, and this House—every man jack of us—stands with them. Slava Ukraini!
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions to today’s debate, particularly those who have recently returned from Ukraine, bringing powerful testimony. I have visited Ukraine three times since the start of what was rightly described as this phase of Russia’s illegal invasion, and I have had similar experiences; they have shown me the tenacity and courage of Ukrainians, which should inspire not only this country, but the whole world. I do not feel any surprise about that, because I have known Ukrainians for 30 years, often through their ties with south Wales. Cardiff, in my constituency, was twinned with Luhansk. It was Welsh people who helped found the industries in the Donbas and Donetsk. We have a Sebastopol in the south Wales valleys because of British and French troops fighting in the Crimean war in 1855.
We have very powerful Ukrainian communities locally—many Members have said that they do, too—and it was an honour in recent weeks to join my constituents who have reached out with their homes and their hearts to Ukrainians, as have the constituents of so many Members across this House. Just the other night, we celebrated the contribution of Ukrainian women through an incredible piece of theatre around motanka dolls, which, as some will know, are a very important part of Ukrainian culture.
Of course, women and girls and civilians have suffered terribly at the hands of Russia’s barbaric attacks, and we must show our continued support and solidarity every single day. I am glad that we have seen that support on both sides of the House. I do not want to sound a discordant note, because there is much unity in this House today and among most of the British people, but as the shadow Minister said, yet again we see one party absent, and absence speaks volumes. That is before we get on to their spouting of Kremlin narratives, or the activities of their former leader in Wales—and we need to speak about that, because it is a very serious issue, especially when we see the unity in the rest of this House. But I am very glad that we have signalled once again that we will stand with Ukraine today, tomorrow and for years to come.
Mr Francois
We would all be intrigued to know who Reform’s defence spokesperson is, so if the Minister picks up any hints about that, perhaps he could give me a ring.
Stephen Doughty
Again, that speaks volumes about where those Members of this House stand, but that is for them to explain.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
On the subject of Ukrainians living in the valleys, I was visiting some Ukrainians who are on the Homes for Ukraine scheme in Dawlish in my constituency, and I met a senior Ukrainian naval officer who was extremely grateful and very relieved that his family were safe and secure in Dawlish. I thank the Government for extending the Homes for Ukraine permission scheme by two years last summer, and I thank them again for this week enabling those on the scheme to apply for a visa extension within 90 days of the end of the visa, as opposed 28 days, as it was. That is a big relief to the Ukrainians in my constituency, and indeed to Ukrainian officers. What does the Minister think about the future for people from Ukraine who are in the UK?
Stephen Doughty
People from Ukraine are very welcome here, as has been shown by communities up and down the country, and indeed by many Members today, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman acknowledged the important change that we made this week; it was a point raised by many in the debate.
David Taylor
The Minister noted the absence of Reform from this debate. I also note the absence of the Green party. Perhaps they are too busy spreading sectarian hate up in Gorton and Denton, or undermining NATO at every corner. Does he agree?
Stephen Doughty
It speaks volumes, and it is not the first time. Frankly, the Greens’ comments on defence and NATO in the last few weeks have been shocking, and I said the other day that they should make those comments to people in Ukraine or the Baltics. Those were absolutely extraordinary comments, but they speak for themselves.
I, too, have made a long journey to be here. I have come directly from the United Nations Security Council, where yesterday I had the honour of chairing the session on Ukraine, and of speaking to the United Nations General Assembly. We joined Ukraine and more than 107 countries in voting for a resolution reaffirming support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. It was a powerful show of global support, but I also had to listen again and again to the abject lies of the Russian representatives. We all have a job to do in this place, in our communities and in international forums—whether the UN, the Council of Europe, which was mentioned, or the OSCE—to speak the truth and expose Russian lies, including in countries around the world where Russia is spreading disinformation and division.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend will know, our hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) has done a lot of work on the stolen children. She said that the Minister had mentioned the issue in New York, and she was very touched by that. Does he agree that the work she has been doing, in the face of a horrendous situation, is fantastic?
Stephen Doughty
I absolutely do. Like so many Members, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter). She has just sent me a picture of her award from President Zelensky. She absolutely deserves that. She has spoken powerfully on these issues. That is why I wanted to communicate what she and so many others have been saying, and, most importantly, to give a voice to the Ukrainian children—I have met them through her work—who escaped that heinous activity. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) for all the work that she has done. She has travelled to Ukraine on a number of occasions, and she always speaks up on these issues powerfully.
I was very clear at the United Nations that we need to keep up the pressure on Russia to engage meaningfully in the peace process. I was also clear about what peace requires: a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire; a settlement resulting in a secure, sovereign and independent Ukraine; stolen children and prisoners of war returned; and, crucially, justice for the crimes committed by Russia, including horrific sexual violence against men, women and children, as reported by the United Nations. As I said in New York, that is what every Ukrainian deserves, and what the world deserves.
As was pointed out, while I was in New York, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was demonstrating our solidarity with Ukraine on the ground in Kyiv. She announced: £30 million in additional funding to strengthen Ukrainian energy resilience and support recovery, taking total UK support to £21.8 billion since the start of the war; £25 million to help repair damaged energy infrastructure, and support the men, women and children whose lives continue to be uprooted by Russia’s aggression; and £5 million to support crucial justice and accountability for victims of alleged Russian war crimes.
The Foreign Secretary also announced our largest Russia sanctions package since 2022, with nearly 300 new sanctions against Russia, targeting its key revenue streams, critical military goods supply chains, and systems that have been set up, as has been pointed out, to undermine existing sanctions. There are now over 1,200 sanctions against individuals, entities and ships in the shadow fleet, which has been mentioned. Those sanctions are working. Russia’s federal oil and gas revenues fell 50% in the 12 months from January last year. Western sanctions have denied Russia access to at least $450 billion since February 2022, which is more than two years-worth of funding for its war machine against Ukraine.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for his response, and for his words of encouragement for us MPs, and for those outside who are watching. Earlier, I referred to Bucha, where the war crimes were unbelievable. I am very keen to ensure accountability and justice in the process, as we all are. What are the UK Government and the Minister—I know he is committed to this—doing to ensure that the evidential base is gathered to catch the people who carried out those crimes and make them accountable? They will be accountable in the next world; let us make sure that they are accountable in this, as well.
Stephen Doughty
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. A key part of the funding that the Foreign Secretary announced yesterday was for that, but there is also the work that we have done to support the judicial system and investigations in Ukraine, our work at the International Criminal Court, the work we are doing around a special tribunal on the crime of aggression, and the International Claims Commission for Ukraine. There are many different ways in which we will seek justice and accountability.
The hon. Gentleman references Bucha; I have heard of some most horrific things happening there, in particular regarding the treatment and killings of priests and religious figures. I spoke about that yesterday at the United Nations. There is a very serious situation in the temporarily occupied territories as regards freedom of religion and attacks on religious figures. I spoke about that with our colleagues in the United States while I was in Washington DC, just before I was at the United Nations.
Stephen Doughty
I will give way again once briefly, but then I will respond to the points made in the debate.
Mr Francois
I am sorry to hammer the nail on the point about insurance; I do not expect the Minister to make policy on the hoof, but so many of the Ukrainians we spoke to were so hard over on the point about insurance in London for the shadow fleet. Could the Minister at least give the House a commitment now that he will go away and work with ministerial colleagues to see what more can be done in this area? So many Ukrainians are asking for exactly that.
Stephen Doughty
It is a very important point. I have had many conversations with the insurance industry over the past year and a half, and we continue to look at all the ways to choke off the energy revenues to Russia. I am not going to pre-announce decisions that we might make, but we have been very clear about what we see as the track on this. A substantial number of measures were announced yesterday, including on illicit oil trading networks, which were at the heart of some of the sanctions we announced. The right hon. Gentleman will be able to catch up; I am happy to offer further briefings on that.
Stephen Doughty
I will respond to the points that were made in the debate, but I will happily come back to the hon. Gentleman if we have time at the end.
Many Members raised issues around the deportation of children, which, having met some of those children, is a personal passion of mine. The work of my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South has been mentioned already. I held a meeting yesterday in New York with a number of European and other countries, including Canada, as well as Mariana Betsa, the Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister, to discuss our work together on this issue specifically. We are working closely with the United States, the EU, Canada, as chair of the coalition, and of course with Ukraine directly.
We have committed more than £2.8 million to support efforts to facilitate return and reintegration. Since September, the pilot tracing mechanism that we have been working on with Ukraine has identified more than 600 additional children who were deported to the Russian Federation or relocated within temporarily occupied territories. We are working with a number of non-governmental organisations and others on this matter, too. I can assure the House that we continue to see this as a major priority. We are most focused on the measures that work and can actually identify, trace, return, reintegrate and support those who have been affected. We also sanctioned 11 more perpetrators of Russia’s heinous policy in this area in September.
On overall financial support, I remind the House that we have committed up to £21.8 billion for Ukraine—that is £13 billion in military support, which the Defence Secretary spoke about, including our £2.26 billion ERA loan contribution, and up to £5.3 billion in non-military support, as well as export finance cover via UK Export Finance, which has been crucial for reconstruction and defence projects. We are continuing to get that money out of the door and to the Ukrainians. We will continue to look at all the ways in which we can enhance our programmes. I have worked particularly with our fantastic teams who work on the official development assistance budget for Ukraine to ensure that we are focusing in on support for the energy system and the long-term reconstruction work that will be needed.
Members have raised points about Russian sovereign assets. We were always clear that we would move in parallel with international partners on this, and, in the light of the EU decision, which some people will be aware of, we will nevertheless continue to work with the G7 and the EU to ensure that Ukraine gets the support it needs and that Russia will ultimately pay for the damage it has caused. We welcome the agreement of the European Council to provide this new €90 billion loan, and the Prime Minister has welcomed the steps that could allow the UK to take part in that loan to Ukraine, too. We will explore all opportunities to get Ukraine what it needs.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way; had I got here a little earlier, I would have tried to make my own speech.
We brought back three home truths from Ukraine. First, we were asked so often, “Why do all these rich western European countries only give us enough to continue fighting but not enough to win?” Unless we change that, we are just offering a recipe for a continuing war.
Secondly, Members should have no doubt that the Ukrainian Government are resolved to carry on fighting in the absence of an acceptable peace settlement. If that means planning for the next two or three years, that is what they are talking about. They are not talking about collapsing at all, and that will never happen—I make that forecast.
Finally, Ukrainians are grateful for the coalition of the willing initiative, but they are very disappointed that the United Kingdom and France were the only two countries to sign the memorandum at the end of that meeting. Nothing has really happened since. They are also very concerned about the lack of war readiness among NATO forces. Given how utterly transformed Ukrainian forces are in terms of their capability to fight the Russians, what are we doing to transform our armed forces so that, with limited manpower, like the Ukrainians, we can hold back a Russian advance and ultimately protect NATO?
Stephen Doughty
I have been clear, as has the Defence Secretary, about our commitments on military and non-military support, which endure and will continue to endure. We will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. As was brought up several times in the debate, we are also ensuring that we are learning. This is a two-way process and we are learning from Ukraine as well.
On the preparation for our own defences, just three weeks ago I went to Latvia to see the incredible work we do in the Baltics. I saw the incredible work of the drone coalition, not only to support Ukraine with the Octopus drones, but in learning for ourselves the tactics and techniques that are being used. I assure the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and other Members that that work is going on.
Stephen Doughty
I will give way, but I want to respond to some more points first, including on the moneys from the sale of Chelsea football club. Let me be clear to the House again: the Government are giving Mr Abramovich the last chance to do the right thing and donate the £2.5 billion from the sale of Chelsea FC to support the people of Ukraine, as was committed to back in 2022. The House will know that in December we issued the licence that permits the transfer of the funding into a new foundation. We have strived to find a way forward with Mr Abramovich. We would have preferred for him to have taken that action, with the co-operation of him and his company Fordstam. We are now urging him to honour that commitment, but if he fails to act quickly, we are fully prepared to go to court to enforce it if necessary. We are working with international partners to ensure that proceeds reach humanitarian causes in Ukraine as soon as possible.
A number of Members mentioned refined oil products, wider maritime services and an LNG ban. We have announced our intention to ban imports of oil products refined in third countries from Russian-origin crude oil. I very much recognise the points that were raised. We also intend to introduce a maritime services ban on liquefied natural gas, phased in over 2026 in lockstep with the EU, which will restrict Russia’s ability to export.
Members raised the issue of imports and exports to the UK. I have some updated figures, which we can provide, but the most recent data shows that UK imports from and exports to Russia dropped by 99.6% and 87.6% respectively, compared with 2021, so there has been a substantial change.
On the wider Russian energy sector, along with the designation we made yesterday, we have designated Russia’s four largest oil majors: Gazprom Neft and PJSC Surgutneftegas on 10 January, and Rosneft and Lukoil on 15 October. That is already having a clear impact. Chinese state oil majors are reportedly suspending purchases, Indian refiners are reportedly pausing new orders, and Russia’s federal oil and gas revenues fell 50% year on year in January 2026. This is having a material impact on Russia’s ability to wage war.
Graham Stuart
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being most generous. While we were in Ukraine we also met the hon. Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar), who had led a delegation of physiotherapists who were working with the Ukrainians.
Another ask that we perhaps did not expect to hear was that, as far as the Ukrainians were concerned, there were not enough British businesses coming out to do business—not so much to do good, but to do business and to integrate our trade. They felt that there was greater commercial engagement from other countries than from the UK, which they saw as a particularly good ally. Could the Minister say whether, through the Department for Business and Trade, we can do more, such as taking more trade delegations, and really lean in to support trade in both directions?
Stephen Doughty
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, on which our trade envoy, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), is doing excellent work. We are looking at all opportunities to engage UK businesses in a range of sectors. Again, it is a two-way process. Our partnership with Ukraine is for 100 years. This is not just about the support that we offer Ukraine now; it is about the opportunities for the future in a peaceful, secure and sovereign Ukraine. I think the UK and Ukraine working together are going to be a powerful force in the world to come.
Ukrainians in the UK were mentioned on a number of occasions. We are very proud of what people across this country have done to support Ukrainians. Over 300,000 Ukrainians and their families have been supported. Ukrainians living in the UK can now apply to stay for an additional 18 months, and as of yesterday Ukrainians wishing to extend their stay in the UK will be able to apply up to 90 days before their current permission expires, which is treble the current 28 days. We will continue to listen to Ukrainian communities and give families a greater sense of security about their future.
Members asked questions about the multinational force. I am not, for obvious reasons, going to get into details on this, because it would be irresponsible to share operational details prematurely, but we are very clear that this will be a visible and tangible international support for Ukraine’s return to peace. It will regenerate Ukraine’s land forces and establish and maintain safe skies, safe seas and strong borders. It is not just about the contribution we will make directly to that, which the Defence Secretary and Prime Minister have spoken about; it is about training and equipping Ukraine’s armed forces, as we have done for so long.
We will continue to support a range of other projects in humanitarian energy stabilisation, reform, recovery and reconstruction. We are working through British International Investment, and we are using every channel, every sinew and every way that we can to stand with Ukraine—not just through words but in practical terms.
Many very helpful points were made by Members today. We will continue to offer briefings to Members of the House and, as ever, my door remains open for those who have specific concerns. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) and others raised some particular concerns that I am happy to take away. I am also happy to offer briefings with officials on the specific technical topics that were raised.
Richard Foord
My specific concern is about the maritime services ban for the transport of Russian liquefied natural gas. It was announced by the Foreign Secretary last November, but it is not due to come into effect until the end of this calendar year. It is looking like it will take more than a whole year. Can the Minister explain why it needs to take so long?
Stephen Doughty
As I set out a moment ago, it is our intention to introduce the ban, and we are working at pace. The hon. Member will appreciate that these are extremely complicated measures, both legally and in terms of the procedures that need to be in place. It also requires a substantial amount of international co-ordination to have effect and to not have loopholes. We have to work very closely with other partners on this.
I can assure the hon. Member that I am personally working very hard to accelerate the ban as fast as we can. We need to do everything we can to choke off the revenues that are fuelling the war machine, and it is a personal mission of mine to do that. I am very happy to give him further briefings on this matter outside the Chamber.
Let me conclude by reiterating that Ukraine’s victory is essential not only for Ukraine but for Europe’s future and the future of this country. A secure, independent Ukraine strengthens Europe and Britain. It reinforces the message we took to the United Nations yesterday that borders cannot be changed by force and that democratic nations will stand together against authoritarian pressure and barbarism. As Ukraine enters its fifth year of this phase of the invasion, we will continue alongside international partners to sustain the support that Ukraine needs today.
I pay tribute to the incredible work of our teams at the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, particularly the team in Kyiv and at our new office in Lviv, and the country-based staff. They are enduring the same as Ukrainians in terms of blackouts, attacks and winter conditions, yet they do their work with dedication and absolute professionalism. The spirit that is exemplified in this House today is being exemplified on the ground by them. I am delighted that Members here have been able to meet them.
I end by again paying tribute to the Ukrainian people. I say to those fighting on the frontlines, to the families that are separated and to the civilians who are enduring hardship with extraordinary dignity, we will continue to stand with you and support you every step of the way, because we know that your struggle is a reminder of what is at stake: freedom, self-determination and a rules-based order that protects us all. We will stand with Ukraine today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes. Slava Ukraini.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I also want to pay my tribute to the Ukrainian people and the many Ukrainians who live in my constituency of Sussex Weald.
Estimates (Backbench Business Committee Recommendation)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 152J, as amended by the Order of 2 February relating to Estimates day debates),
That this House agrees with the Report of the Backbench Business Committee of 24 February:
That a day not later than 18 March be allotted for the consideration of the following Estimates for the financial year 2025-26: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; Ministry of Defence; and Department for Business and Trade.—(Taiwo Owatemi.)
Question agreed to.
Admiral Casino on Westow Hill
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)
Twenty-four hour gambling centres target the most vulnerable in our communities, fuel antisocial behaviour and damage the character and identity of a local area. They also harm local businesses and contribute to the decline of our high streets. That is why I am proud to present this petition on behalf of my constituents in Beckenham and Penge, including Crystal Palace and Anerley, and the local Labour councillors Ruth McGregor and Ryan Thomson, who stand firmly against the application to open a 24-hour gambling casino on Westow Hill in Crystal Palace. The petitioners request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage the Conservative-run council to ensure that Admiral Casino on Westow Hill in Crystal Palace is not granted a 24-hour licence.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the constituency of Beckenham and Penge,
Declares that a 24-hours licence for Admiral Casino on Westow Hill in Crystal Palace would damage the character of the area, fuel anti-social behaviour and increase gambling harms for vulnerable people.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Croydon Council to ensure that Admiral Casino on Westow Hill in Crystal Palace is not granted a 24-hours licence.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P003165]
Bayeux Tapestry Exhibition
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)
No other work of art is as entwined with our island’s story as the Bayeux tapestry, which quite literally wove my constituency of Hastings, Rye and the villages into our national history. The tapestry’s return home after spending nearly 1,000 years across the channel is a triumph for Britain, and it is testament to this Labour Government’s success in strengthening our relations with our closest European neighbours.
This loan is a symbol of our shared history with our friends in France. I pay tribute to all those involved in arranging it, and in particular to Antoine Verney, the director of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum who sadly passed away earlier this month. I also thank everyone involved on both sides of the channel, including the British Museum and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
William the Conqueror’s landing on our Sussex shore is a story familiar to every schoolchild in Britain. The date 1066 is etched into our national consciousness, and the battle of Hastings was a defining moment in British history that continues to shape who we are today. While historians—and, indeed, sometimes Members of the House—may disagree on exactly where the battle took place, a millennium later the clash between the Saxons and the Normans still resonates across our land. In fact, Hastings and the surrounding area—I see other hon. Members who represent it here in the Chamber—is known as “1066 country”, so inseparable is our identity from the events immortalised in the Bayeux tapestry.
Many streets in Hastings bear names referencing Saxon, Norman, William and Harold, and even our local hospital is aptly named the Conquest hospital. Yet although we have often found ourselves at the centre of historic events, we have not always felt the benefits.
Across Hastings, Rye and the villages, over 60% of young people leave school without a level 4—the equivalent of grade C—or above in English and maths GCSE. The Sutton Trust has said that we are in the bottom 10 places nationally for social mobility, and our life expectancy is below the national average. We may be a similar distance from London as Brighton, but our train takes twice as long. Our infrastructure has suffered from 14 years of neglect and our roads are riddled with potholes. All that is symbolic of how we have too often been forgotten by Westminster, Whitehall and London cultural circles.
The Bayeux tapestry exhibition at the British Museum will be the exhibition of a generation, and I want children from 1066 country to see it and feel pride in knowing that the story it tells began in the place they call home. When I go into our local schools, our young people are proud to be from Hastings. They must not be priced out of a ticket and a chance to celebrate the legacy of our town on the national stage.
I urge the British Museum to guarantee places for schoolchildren from Hastings and the surrounding area, and to support the cost of travel so that access is not determined by how well off our local schools are. My challenge to the British Museum is for it to live up to its name and to truly be the museum of Britain, ensuring that young people from Hastings and 1066 country get to visit. I, like my colleagues, have had constructive discussions with the museum and I stand ready to work with it and local schools to make that happen.
This Labour Government have rightly set the expectation that London museums must work harder to be genuinely national institutions by opening up opportunities for young people from every part of our country. What better way to do that and to celebrate the return of the Bayeux tapestry than by ensuring that the people of Hastings and 1066 country are truly part of this national moment? That is why I have asked the British Museum to reserve at least 1,066 tickets for local residents.
I thank the historian Dan Snow and David Dimbleby, who is a nearby resident, for supporting me in the campaign. They, too, know that local children being able to see the exhibition for themselves could inspire the next generation of historians. Our area helped make this piece of history; it must now fully share in its legacy.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady. The only subject that I excelled in at school was history, but I am sure that the hon. Lady exceeded me by far. She has a love of history, as do I after all these years. Does she agree that seeing the Bayeux tapestry, that incredible piece of history, will be an inspiration for children, helping them to understand the rich history of this wonderful nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Just thinking about it, I am having flashbacks to third year history. Does she further agree that we must ensure that schools from all the nations are able to bring children, and that perhaps funding pots to help schools with the costs should be considered? I congratulate the hon. Lady, who has done well.
Helena Dollimore
The hon. Member is right that schoolchildren must be able to access the exhibition. They should not be put off by the price of a ticket to the exhibition or a train ticket—or even a flight in his case. It is really important. I speak as someone who went to local state schools and was lucky enough to go on and study history at university. Who knows who we could inspire by allowing schoolchildren to see the exhibition?
We want schoolchildren to see the exhibition, but we also want to encourage visitors to the exhibition in north London to take a further step back in time and visit 1066 country, the place where it all happened. I am urging many of our transport providers to make sure that we can make it easier for tourists to visit 1066 country during this important moment, and that includes urging Southeastern to look at how it can make it quicker for tourists to visit our area by train. This also extends to visitors from abroad, and that is why I have been campaigning to bring back international trains to Ashford International, to encourage our European neighbours across the channel to visit us in 1066 country and in Hastings and Rye, and to make that visit easier. Hopefully, this time they will be armed with buckets and spades rather than bows and arrows, and they will certainly receive a much warmer welcome than they did in 1066.
Not only is 1066 country rich in history, but it is rich in landscape, heritage and culture. We might be tucked away on the south coast, but we punch well above our weight in our visitor and tourist experience. From Hastings museum to Hastings castle, Hastings contemporary gallery, Rye heritage centre, Camber Sands, Rye harbour nature reserve, Hastings country park and many more, we have so much to offer people wanting to visit. With next year marking the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror, we will celebrate this Year of the Normans with special events across Hastings, Rye and the villages.
I would like to see one of the many replicas of the Bayeux tapestry put on display in Hastings. I cannot think of any better place to be named the UK’s town of culture, which Hastings hopes to be named next year.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend for her speech. She has spoken so eloquently about the importance of history and the role of the Normans in Sussex history—our own local history—but also in our country’s history. It has been a poignant speech, and I thank her for mentioning the copy at Reading museum, which was woven in Victorian times using similar stitches. The original tapestry was, in fact, made in England and then exported to Normandy. Perhaps she would ask some of her residents to come to Reading museum to look at the wider impact of the Norman conquest across the country. In fact, due to William the Conqueror’s son, we had a wonderful abbey built in Reading, and it led to the growth of our town. That story is echoed across many communities in this country.
Helena Dollimore
I thank my hon. Friend. Indeed, we have many replicas of the tapestry. There is the one he mentioned in Reading museum. There is also one that Hastings borough council has in storage, and I am urging it to take it out of storage and put it on show in time for the big moment later this year. I am also aware that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) will speak later about another one that is under way.
As I have said, much of our area relies on the tourist economy, which supports one in five jobs in our region. We have a wealth of small, fantastic independent pubs, restaurants and hotels, which work exceptionally hard to give our visitors a warm welcome. This has to be a big moment for them, when they too feel the benefits. Although there may be other beautiful places in the UK that we compete with, this is a one-in-the-eye for them and our big chance to showcase everything that Hastings, Rye and the villages have to offer. The return of the Bayeux tapestry will be a national moment that belongs to the whole country, but it must have a special place for the people of 1066 country, where this story began.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) on securing the debate. For those—perhaps our constituents—who do not know the etiquette of the House, an Adjournment debate is typically a debate for a single Member, so it is gracious of her to make time for me to speak briefly in this debate on something that we have worked on together. I want to thank her for the work that she has done to date.
When we talk about the Bayeux tapestry, we are talking about history that is deeply interwoven in the culture and history of my constituency of Bexhill and Battle. William landed in Pevensey, which is in the west of the constituency. People can visit the ruins of Pevensey castle there, and we have a museum in Pevensey that exhibits the important local history from that perspective. Almost pinpointing the middle of my constituency is Battle abbey, which is perhaps the biggest tourist attraction in my constituency and is visited by thousands of people every year. It was built by William as penance for the bloodshed and violence that local people had experienced as part of the battle of Hastings. As the hon. Member indicated, there is some dispute about whether the battle took place there. As the Member for Bexhill and Battle, I will plant my flag firmly on the argument that it took place where Battle abbey is built. Every year there is a re-enactment of the battle, which is increasingly popular. It had one of its best ever years last year, and it is a major tourist attraction.
Both the ruins of Pevensey castle and Battle abbey are important English Heritage sites. I thank them for meeting me recently to talk about the opportunities that the Bayeux tapestry presents and for all the work they do all year round on those sites and other important historical sites in my constituency.
The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye did an excellent job of going into the detail of all the different things that we want to gain from the exhibit visiting the UK, so I will just re-emphasise a couple of really important points. Of course, the exhibition will benefit many different places, but we should expect the greatest attention and effort to be put into 1066 country to ensure its success.
First, we must ensure that the benefits of the visit are felt outside London. As the hon. Lady said, the visit is being organised by the British Museum, so while it is important that London gets its share of the tourism spend that will come with the tapestry’s visit, that spend is vitally needed in our constituencies. The British Museum and other organisations must set up a clear programme to ensure that visits to the tapestry secure visits to our constituencies, and vice versa, so that people who would normally have just visited the historical sites in 1066 country will be encouraged to visit the exhibition of the tapestry.
Secondly, how often do schoolchildren get to feel that their local history is as important as this? The tapestry is a major exhibit and its visit is a major historical event, so it is really important that local schoolchildren get to visit the tapestry, and that the exhibition is made affordable and accessible to them. There will be opportunities for schoolchildren from across the country to visit the exhibition, but let us ensure that the programme is really supportive of our local schoolchildren.
To finish, I will mention a fantastic community project, the La Mora tapestry project, that demonstrates that our history is an ongoing part of our local culture, not something newly discovered. Christina Greene and her team are replicating elements of the tapestry that relate to the La Mora, the ship in which William sailed. For some time now, residents in my constituency have been able to visit Battle library and take time to carefully stitch parts of the replica tapestry, under the watchful eye of Christina, who ensures they are using the right techniques. They have done an amazing job researching wools, so the wools that they use are the same or as close as we can get to the wools that were originally used. Even more incredibly, she noticed, as I am sure other historians will have done, the absence of the female voice in the historical documents, including the tapestry, which tells a very male-centric story. William’s wife, the queen, is thought to be a major player and to have helped to commission the boat, so new bits of the story are being added to the tapestry that focus on her role, which is great for the schoolgirls who come to take part in the sewing of the tapestry.
The tapestry is already part of our history locally, and we make day-to-day use of it culturally and historically. Let us ensure that the Bayeux tapestry’s visit helps to weave some new stories, projects and ideas. It is great opportunity to do that. I really want the Government to work with the British Museum, which is co-operating and with which we are having more productive discussions, but the efforts of the Minister to keep that all on track would be greatly appreciated.
The Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts (Ian Murray)
I am pleased to respond to this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) not only on securing this debate, but on her lovely speech. I noticed that she did a little bit of lobbying for Hastings to become the town of culture, and I am sure my officials noted that.
This will be the first time since the Bayeux tapestry left the UK over 900 years ago that it returns. It is a very important moment. I was reflecting that perhaps the modern battle is between the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye on where the battle actually took place. Perhaps there will be a tapestry made of that particular battle in the years to come. The tapestry coming to the UK is more than a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—it is a once-in-a-millennium opportunity. We must celebrate that and get the most out of it, as hon. Members have said.
I start by paying tribute, as my hon. Friend did, to the director of the Bayeux Museum, Monsieur Antoine Verney, who sadly passed away just two weeks ago, and extend our heartfelt sympathies to his family and to his colleagues. His contribution over the years to promoting knowledge of the tapestry and sharing it widely, including with colleagues in the British Museum, is a lasting legacy that we must honour and build upon when the tapestry arrives here this year.
I extend my gratitude, on behalf of the UK Government, to our friends on the French side, who are doing so much to enable the loan, including President Macron, of course, and the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati. Their role in supporting this loan has been crucial to making it happen.
I also pay tribute to the hard work and commitment of the UK Government’s envoy on the tapestry, Lord Ricketts, and his French counterpart, Philippe Bélaval. I thank all the people who are making this loan possible, including the French Ambassador to the UK, the President of the Normandy region, the Mayors of Bayeux, Rouen, and Caen, as well as senior figures in the regional cultural authority and, of course, colleagues at the British Museum.
The Bayeux tapestry will be on display at the British Museum from September 2026 through to July 2027. I thank the British Museum for working so hard to enable this exhibition, and for its generosity in loaning the Sutton Hoo treasures, the Lewis chess pieces and more than 220 drawings by Renaissance masters from its collection to museums in Caen and Rouen in Normandy for displays in 2027 to coincide with the celebration of the year of the Normans, marking 1,000 years since the birth of William the Conqueror. I am not sure if the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) remembers the birth of William the Conqueror.
Ian Murray
It is an enormous task to deliver such a historic exhibition, but doing so in such a short timeframe is a particular challenge. Usually, exhibitions at our major museums take three to five years to plan, but the British Museum is rising to the challenge of putting this exhibition on in a little over one year, as well as developing a national programme of education and engagement to spread knowledge of the tapestry and the Norman conquest throughout the country. On the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye made about deprivation and educational attainment in her constituency, I think we should use this as a platform and foundation on which to build, for children, children of the future, and the inspired historians we may be able to get as a result of this.
The tapestry is unique, and care of it is underpinned by expertise on both sides of the channel. Concern has been expressed in some quarters about whether the tapestry will be able to travel safely. I am pleased to say that the British Museum is working closely with its French counterparts, and is bringing its world-leading expertise to bear to ensure that the tapestry can travel here safely for this unprecedented loan and be seen by as many people as possible. That is key.
I understand that many areas of the country claim close links with the Norman conquest, so many Members of this House would claim a special interest in this area, including those from where the Bayeux tapestry seems likely to have been made, Canterbury. The north of England also has historic connections to the Norman conquest—they are not necessarily exactly positive—due to the harrying of the north carried out by William the Conqueror. We can all agree that the battle of Hastings, depicted on the tapestry, is of critical importance to the history of us all.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye on her tenacious campaigning for her constituents, particularly in the educational field, and seeking to ensure that schoolchildren in her constituency and neighbouring constituencies are able to see the exhibition and understand the significance of the area that they live in to the history of our country. I have been assured by the British Museum that schools in her area will receive priority booking, reflecting the salience of the area to the events of 1066, and the huge local interest. I understand that she, together with the British Museum, is working with Southeastern Railway to offer at least 1,066 tickets, at heavily reduced rates, to London to schools in 1066 country.
Helena Dollimore
I thank the Minister for his commitment to helping the children of Hastings to get to see this exhibition. Does he recognise that schools that are not as well off need help getting children to the British Museum in north London, whether by coach or train? They simply do not have the spare funds. Anything that he can do, in discussion with the museum, donors and other supporters of access to the arts, would be much appreciated.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend raises the key principle behind what the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and I do, in the Department and right across the country. I am an Edinburgh MP, but I remember studying the Bayeux tapestry in primary school some 40 years ago—I know that hon. Members will find that hard to believe.
To get children and schoolchildren really interested in this exhibition, we have to ensure that they can get to London, and that the educational programme spreads out across the country. We also have to ensure that those who want to see the tapestry can see it, because the legacy has to be for younger people and those others who have an interest in it. I know that all this would not have been achieved without the hard work of my hon. Friend on behalf of her constituents and their children.
The exhibition will be free to all under-16s with a paying adult, wherever they are from. More broadly, the museum is developing plans for family activities, including an open family festival, three to five days of activities across all school holidays for the duration of the exhibition, and a finale family festival. There will also be exclusive school mornings, in which there will be free access to see the tapestry for schools during term time. On top of that, the museum is planning on rolling out a variety of exciting digital content that children across the whole country will be able to enjoy, whether they are in a history lesson at school or at home with their friends and family.
The British Museum is developing an ambitious national programme of education and engagement to raise awareness of the importance of the tapestry and the Norman conquest to the history of the whole country and its heritage, culture and language. Indeed, as we know, Norman French is still used in some parliamentary procedures, such as the granting of Royal Assent. The museum’s national programme will involve more than 100 sites that have developed content that demonstrates the far-reaching consequences of the Norman conquest. That includes working with English Heritage, the British Library, the National Archives and Norfolk Museums Service. The aim is to ensure that as many people as possible will be able to take part in and engage with the loan of the tapestry to the British Museum, wherever they are in the country.
The museum is working with a range of stakeholders in the Hastings and Battle area to ensure that the local community is engaged with the exhibition. I will take away the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye about making sure not just that people can get to London, but that tourists and others can go to 1066 country to see what is there. That will improve the tourist economy and the experience of the tapestry being here.
More generally, 2027 marks 1,000 years since the birth of William the Conqueror. The region of Normandy is marking that with a wide-ranging series of activities, including on an international level. That will involve Scandinavia, where the Normans originally came from, and areas that their influence reached, such as Ireland, Sicily and the south of Italy, and, of course, our country. This is a unique opportunity to deepen and engage the public in the UK-France relationship. That will happen alongside wider work on the Year of the Normans and the strength of our cultural partnerships, such as those between the British Film Institute and the French Centre National du Cinéma, and between the national heritage bodies of both countries.
Furthermore, in 2027, the Grand Départs of both the Tour de France and the Tour de Frances Femmes will be in the UK, with one being in Edinburgh. That is another demonstration of the close links between the UK and France. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye mentioned potholes in her constituency—I hope ours are filled in by the time the cyclists come to Edinburgh. That is a challenge for the local authority in Scotland.
In this increasingly polarised and divided world, the links that culture and sport can create are more important than ever, especially with our close neighbours, with whom we share so much history. However, I wish no luck whatsoever to the French rugby union team, which is coming to Murrayfield a week on Saturday for the six nations. Those cultural and sporting links are important to us all.
Of course, the battle of Hastings is not the only historic event represented in the tapestry. It starts by showing Harold swearing a solemn oath in Normandy in 1064 after being shipwrecked there. The oath is widely assumed to be in support of William’s claim to the throne of England. The tapestry then shows King Edward the Confessor’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, after which Harold claims the throne. It then depicts ships being built in Normandy, as William prepares an invasion after Harold is crowned King of England, before moving on to events in England before the battle, but after William and his army landed at Pevensey Bay in East Sussex, where William ordered a castle to be built.
The battle of Hastings itself is then depicted. At one point, William raises his helmet to show his troops that he is still alive. That is followed by the famous scene that seems to show King Harold being killed by an arrow in his eye. The tapestry gives an account of how William the Conqueror came to power in England. As it was likely to have been made on the orders of William’s half-brother, Bishop Odo, it is obviously an account written—or rather, embroidered—by the victors.
This is a national event, so many other Members of the House will have a keen interest in the tapestry coming here and in the legacy of the Normans, as it is felt throughout the United Kingdom. That said, the Hastings and Battle area, and 1066 country more generally, has a fantastic tourist offer that will never be more relevant than this year and the next. I encourage the British Museum to strengthen its work with the 1066 country tourism board. I should note that the British Museum will host a briefing in Parliament on Wednesday 22 April to update all parliamentarians on the loan, the exhibition and the museum’s national programme of education and engagement. I encourage all interested colleagues to attend that, and to engage with the museum and with Lord Ricketts in the other place.
I very much look forward to seeing the tapestry in the British Museum. I hope that as many of the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye as possible are able to see it, in particular schoolchildren, so that they can learn about the history of this country through this exceptional work and be inspired for the future. I urge visitors to the exhibition to follow their visit by going to see where it all happened in 1066 country, so that they see not only the tapestry, but the places themselves. I commend my hon. Friend for bringing this debate to the Chamber.
Question put and agreed to.