Commons Chamber

Thursday 16th April 2026

(began 1 hour, 59 minutes ago)

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None Portrait Q5. What steps she is taking to support the BBC. (908571)
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This government believes strongly in the BBC. And recently I announced that the Society of
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None Portrait Q4. To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what steps the Church is taking to help protect Christian communities from extremism. (908596)
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>> Marsha de Cordova. >> Mr. Speaker, the church is
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None Portrait Q7. To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what recent discussions the Church of England has had with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on the future of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme. (908599)
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Daniel Francis thank you, Mr. Speaker. Question number seven. >> Marsha de Cordova Mr. Speaker, following the end of the existing listed place of worship scheme in listed place of worship scheme in January this year, and we are still awaiting details of the of the replacement scheme, and as I
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None Portrait Q8. To ask the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, representing the Restoration and Renewal Client Board, what discussions the Client Board has had with representatives of the events sector on the potential impact of the possible acquisition of the QEII Centre on that sector. (908600)
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Martin Rhodes. >> Question number eight. >> Mr Speaker Nick Smith. >> Mr. speaker, I'm delighted to give my hon. Friend the Church give my hon. Friend the Church Commissioner a short rest this
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None Portrait Q10. To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what steps the Church of England has taken to support small churches. (908602)
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>> Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Church of England supports more often rural churches through targeted grants, practical tools
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None Portrait Q11. To ask the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, representing the Restoration and Renewal Client Board, what recent progress the Client Board has made on its work. (908603)
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>> Mr. Speaker. >> Did he cut off. Nick Smith Nick
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Jesse Norman Portrait Rt Hon Jesse Norman MP (Hereford and South Herefordshire, Conservative)
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Just to. >> Just to. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. This, as you all know, and as the This, as you all know, and as the House will know, has been a week of sporting triumph. I think of the Lionesses World Cup qualifier one Lionesses World Cup qualifier one nil against the world champions, Italy, or as it were, the former world champions, Italy, I should say. Rory McIlroy, defending his Masters title. Another great moment. Whether or not you play watch or even like golf, it was an extraordinary, gripping achievement.

And from Northern Ireland to boot, an honest man facing his demons and triumphing. What a contrast with the Prime Minister's failure to answer, or even to engage with the question at Prime Minister's Questions. The last four Prime Minister's Questions, Mr. Speaker, have focussed on the Iran war, fuel duty, North Sea oil and gas and the defence review of the 24 responses given by the Prime Minister to the Leader of the Opposition, 23 have ignored the question and changed the subject.

Yesterday we even saw the Prime Minister hectoring you, Mr. Speaker, in your chair and on live television just for doing your job. That is a shameful record for which the Prime Minister should write to you and therefore, by implication to this House and apologise. This behaviour is contemptuous, Mr. Speaker, of you, of the Leader of the Opposition, but of us all as MPs now and in years gone by. Our job, however imperfectly we may do it, is to pursue the truth on behalf of those we represent.

If we give that up, then heaven help us. And it is the Prime Minister's job to answer and to hold himself accountable for those answers. No Prime Minister likes to do that, but those are the rules. If the Prime Minister doesn't like the rules, if he doesn't want to offer honest answers, if he is not up to it, then he should step back and let someone else do the job instead. So I thank you, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all of us, for maintaining the traditions of this House.

And I ask the leader, first of my three questions today, if he shares my view that this behaviour is wholly inappropriate by the Prime Minister and disrespectful of this House, but this is just part of a wider problem of accountability and disrespect for Parliament. Mr. speaker, my noble friend, the Lord Gilbert Parliamentary Question of 16th March, asked the government about authorised Budget briefings to the media. Lord Livermore replied on the government's behalf. Consistent with these principles, there are occasions where the government will trail and or announce policy ahead of a Budget to provide context and help the public understand major fiscal events.

Mr. speaker, this is nonsense. The rules are perfectly clear. Major events must be announced first to this House. To do otherwise is a breach of the rules of this House, a flagrant violation of the ministerial code and a contempt of Parliament. Previous governments, as we all know, have done this on occasion since 1997 at least, and previous Chancellors of the Exchequer have been fired for inadvertent briefings to the media before a Budget. But never before has it been a government's declared policy to ignore Parliament.

The deeper constitutional point is, of course, that in our representative government system of government, the people is Parliament and Parliament is the people. Nothing good can come out of the attempt to undermine the British Constitution by this means. So I ask the leader, secondly, to comment on this and to set out what he will do to get this policy of non announcement of major measures withdrawn and revoked. And finally, Lord Robertson, he spoke of corrosive complacency, of current political leadership, of putting our country at risk.

He said and I quote, we cannot defend this country with an ever expanding welfare Budget. No one has more experience and expertise in defence across the whole of Parliament. In both chambers. This man, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, was a political activist for Labour since 1961. Just think of that, Mr. Speaker. The last person one could imagine wanting to offer public criticism of a Labour Prime Minister, let alone in these terms, a man labour to his boots, but a patriot first, it's impossible to blame previous governments for this.

Mr. speaker, this government, this Prime Minister created the Defence review and they created the Defence Investment Plan. No one else. It is their choice and their decision. And it matters because in every constituency across this country, there are companies wanting to know what the government has decided, waiting for leadership. They need to know the numbers, they need to know the commitment. And of course, our adversaries need to know that we are serious in our resolve and see the measure of that seriousness and my great fear.

Perhaps it is also Lord Robertson's great fear is that the government will never publish this document, or they will do so in a completely insubstantial and lightweight way, and that ten months of delay will end in nothing. It will all have been a colossal waste of time and energy. So let me say finally, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister on this has been utterly hopeless. He told the Liaison Committee weeks ago the document was on his desk, yet nothing has happened. I leave it to colleagues to judge the truth of his remarks.

So I ask the leader, thirdly, if he will give this house a cast iron guarantee on behalf of the government, that defence investment plan will be published and not simply shelved and forgotten. The one year anniversary is in July.
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Alan Campbell Portrait Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)
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Thank you very much indeed, Mr. >> Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Speaker. And first of all, Mr. Speaker, may I say that my thoughts are with our servicemen and women currently serving in the Middle currently serving in the Middle East, and as the as the situation unfolds, our highest priorities. To ensure the safety of our people in the region. My thoughts are also, Mr. Speaker, with those affected by the terrible attempted attack on the Finchley Reform Synagogue, and I'm sure the House will join me in thanking the police and emergency services for their swift action.

And also, Mr. Speaker, this week has seen the 37th anniversary of the disaster at Hillsborough and my thoughts are with the family and friends of those who died and as the Prime Minister confirmed, reaffirmed yesterday, the government is committed to delivering legislation and introducing a duty of candour across all public services. Mr. speaker, I also want to pay tribute to Lord Jeremy Beecham. Lord Beecham was an incredibly influential and dedicated politician who was respected across the political divide, and his dedication to the City of Newcastle has changed the city into what it is today, and I know the whole House will join me in sending condolences to his family and friends.

Mr. speaker, during recess we published our plan to halve knife crime and at the core of that plan is prevention, providing safe spaces in communities and supporting schools and families to address root causes. And Mr. Speaker, this means giving an alternative path to young people and will in future literally save lives. In terms of other announcements, we've also announced our intention to invest £237 million to expand community diagnostic centres across England for CDC will open, 17 will be expanded and 15 will receive enhancements to boost diagnostic capacity and get patients seen quicker.

And this means that patients are able to get swifter results, which is really important, and also get them closer to home, which again is important. And also, Mr. Speaker, this week, over 500 new free breakfast clubs began to open their doors, helping parents with the cost of living and giving children a healthy start to the day. I want to turn now to the remarks of the shadow leader. And if I may, Mr. Speaker, I'll deal broadly with his first two questions together because he refers to the Prime Minister's the way in which the Prime Minister addressed the questions that were put to him yesterday, and also, secondly, announcements made by outside of this House and he.

And whether or not the. The House should be the first to hear. Let me address those two questions first and say that the hon. Gentleman has been here a very, very long time, and he cannot. Well, a long time put it that way. Not as long as me, but a long time. OK. He's been here a long time, and frankly, we've both been here long enough to know better than us the questions which he has been asking there, because I know why he's doing it.

And at the heart of it, I understand exactly what the point is here. But all Prime Minister's deal with Prime Minister's Questions in their own way. But it isn't unusual. But it isn't unusual for any Prime Minister. It is not unusual for any Minister not to give the answer that the opposition want on a particular day. So let's let's let's let's not kid ourselves, Mr. Speaker, that we're entering a new chapter in this. And when he talks about announcements to the House, he actually said that the previous government on occasion made announcements outside of this on occasion.

I think it was on occasion that they actually made the announcements in this House. But the serious point here, and I will address this serious point here, I am absolutely clear, and I've said from this Dispatch Box before that announcements, serious announcements should be made at the earliest convenience in this House, and this should be made in this House. But we also understand that we do. Politics is done in a different environment to the way that it was done a decade or two decades before.

And to some extent, it's a it's a moving environment. And government is working in that environment too. But I do take his point, and I have said that announcements should be made in this House at the earliest opportunity. Let me now turn to the comments of Lord Robertson and say that the Prime Minister made his and the government's view clear on this. But the. The hon. Gentleman asks about the defence plan. The defence plan will be delivered and this House will have an opportunity to debate that plan.

I do accept that it has taken longer than perhaps any of us would have wished. And let me give you three reasons, Mr. Speaker. The House. Mr. Speaker, three reasons why that should be. So. The first is that we inherited a defence Budget, which was totally out of control and had been mismanaged for the past 14 years. It had been, in the words of a previous defence secretary, hollowed out. And that wasn't a previous Labour defence secretary. It was a previous conservative defence secretary.

So that's the first reason why this takes time to put right and turn around. The second reason is, and the hon. Gentleman, I think, knows this because he's a very distinguished member of the Defence Select Committee. The second point, Mr. Speaker, is that we inherited an economic mess. And if you're going to put defence right, you've got to have the money to put it right. And again, the hon. Gentleman understands this, Mr. Speaker, because he has admitted in in all but words in this place that he's a secret Keynesian at heart.

And he knows. He knows he's admitted it. It's. He's owned up to it. Don't worry. He's owned up to it. The point of this, Mr. Speaker, is that he understands, as most people understand, that our economic inheritance was absolutely appalling, and we have to get that right, too, before we can press ahead with our commitments to properly fund defence. And the third point, which is relevant here, is that the absolutely botched Brexit Brexit deal left us diplomatically isolated, Mr.

Speaker, and the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has invested personally, invested a great deal of his time and energy to build alliances with our allies, not least in Europe. And those alliances are important as we look at the question of defence in a moving international situation, as we look at where defence will be as we move forward and what I cannot accept, Mr. Speaker, is the analysis or the suggestion by the Leader of the Opposition that somehow at the election it was day zero, nothing happened before, which has any impact on the way in which this government is forced to face up to those difficult decisions.

So we will, Mr. Speaker, publish the plan. There will be an opportunity to debate it. And let me finish on this point. I do understand the point that he makes about companies, and obviously there needs to be some certainty. But let me just rid him of this suggestion that we are that everyone is waiting for announcements and nothing is happening. There are contracts being issued all of the time. And let me finish on this point, Mr. Speaker. More than 80% of those contracts in the last two years have gone to British companies, which is in stark contrast, Mr.

Speaker, to the performance of the last government.
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Wendy Chamberlain Portrait Wendy Chamberlain MP (North East Fife, Liberal Democrat)
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Wendy Chamberlain Liberal Democrat spokesperson. >> Much, Mr. Speaker. And can I start by wishing my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington all the best for his Wallington all the best for his parental leave. Sadly, I have no news, particularly for his wife to update the house with, but I hope to be able to do so in due course. Mr. speaker, I would like to draw particular attention to the House this week to the devastating civil war in Sudan, which sadly entered into its fourth year just yesterday.

This is the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with over 29 million Sudanese facing acute food insecurity now. Earlier in the parliamentary session, the Prime Minister, in response to a question on Sudan from my right hon. Friend, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said he does not think we discuss it enough in this House. So will the Leader of the House act in the spirit of those words and ask the Foreign Secretary to give a statement on the conflict next week and include an update to the House on her discussions at this week's Berlin conference, Mr.

Speaker. We also continue to reel from news emerging from the Oval Office, and I must confess that I did not have the president of the United States labelling the Pope as weak on crime on my 2026 bingo card. But given recent events, perhaps I should have done. And his latest AI image released last night of him embracing Jesus Christ, reminded me of the immortal words of Brenda from Bristol in April 2017. Not another one. But in all seriousness, Mr. Speaker, Trump's chaos is having real impacts here in the UK and in my own constituency of North East Fife, his reckless war in the Middle East is hitting families up and down the country, in the pocket and at the fuel pumps.

So will the Leader of the House schedule a debate in government time on the economic impact of Trump's war, and include a consideration of Liberal Democrat proposals for a £0.10 fuel duty cut. Other countries are providing that certainty on fuel duty now. Isn't it time that the government did likewise?
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Alan Campbell Portrait Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Tynemouth, Labour)
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Leader Mr. speaker, may I join my hon. Friend in wishing well to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Walton, and we do await news with Walton, and we do await news with bated breath. At least he might get the nursery finished by the time of the arrival. She makes a serious point about the Sudan Civil War and the. The government is doing everything that we can, not just to help to address the humanitarian situation, but also to try to get an end to that war.

We have committed £146 million in aid to Sudan. We have sanctioned RSF commanders. We are doing everything that we can, but I join her in hoping that the conflict ends soon and we're not shy of updating the House on this matter, and we will continue to do so. And I will draw her attention to the Foreign Secretary in terms of I'm not going to comment on in terms of the president of the United States comments and the effect that it's having, because I think we can see that play out, not just in her constituency, but elsewhere as well.

The the real answer from the government is that we are absolutely focussed on doing everything that we can in the national interest, to see if we can ensure that the ceasefire continues, but also to bring an end to the conflict too. And she's right to point out that this is a very serious an economic situation, too, possibly the most serious energy crisis in the last half century. And the economic impact may well be felt beginning to be felt and may continue for some time.

Again, there are lots of suggestions about what might do. The government is absolutely focussed on on this. We're not going to rush to judgement about action that we need to take now. We've already taken some targeted measures, not least on, on, on heating oil, but we're absolutely focussed on that and be reassured that we will continue to do so. We're looking at all of that. And I'm sure, again, because we're not shy of doing this, that when the opportunity arises that there will be an opportunity for further statements on these matters, and I hope that the House can come together not just to ensure that we have a firm view on going forward in the international situation, but also how we can combat the economic issues that are going on, I am afraid, are likely to continue for some time.
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Bob Blackman Portrait Bob Blackman MP (Harrow East, Conservative)
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And we'll fly the flag for Staffordshire Bob Blackman share the Backbench Committee. >> Bring back Middlesex, I say. >> On behalf of the Backbench Business Committee, can I remind Business Committee, can I remind the leader that there's the promised motion which we await on changing standing. Orders for the election of the Backbench Business Committee for the new session. In addition to the business announced by the leader next Thursday, there'll be a Select Committee, statements from the Environmental Audit Committee and the housing communities and local government committees in the chamber on the business in Westminster Hall Tuesday, the 21st will see a debate on the Independent, the need for an independent National Review body overseeing wheelchair provision.

On Thursday the 23rd, there will be a debate on access to education and training for young adult carers, followed by a debate on gambling advertising. On Tuesday the 28th. There will be a debate on government support for park home owners. Now, Mr. Speaker, I managed to get a private member's bill through this place, namely the Supported Housing Regulatory Oversight Act 2023. We are still awaiting the implementation of that act, and that means that vulnerable people are being exploited by rogue landlords.

I understand from the department. They've now completed the consultation on the regulations to implement the act, but it's likely we're not going to see the implementation till 2027. So could the leader arrange for a statement in this place sometime next week on what exactly the government's doing on implementing this act, which is across Party Act, which we've introduced. And if there's no statement, Mr. Speaker, can I urge you to allow me an adjournment debate on the subject?
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