Business of the House

Adam Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Campbell]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place. I look forward to working with him on a range of matters, not least modernisation of this place. I want to put on the record my thanks to his predecessor, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean), and wish him well in his new role.

Let me deal with the last point first. If Harry Kane has reached that point and it is felt that he should be recognised in that way, I am sure the usual channels—not in this place but elsewhere—will consider that for the future.

I turn to the main point about the ten-minute rule Bill, which has been introduced. As the Prime Minister said yesterday,

“We must move on from a decade of division”

and

“bring people back together”.—[Official Report, 11 November 2026; Vol. 793, c. 165.]

We will work in a cross-party way with the hon. Member for Eastbourne. With regard to the early-day motion, of course, not everyone shares that ambition for our country. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) is perfectly entitled to put down an early-day motion and put his side of this issue, if that is what he seeks to do. I do not think there is anything disorderly about that in any way, shape or form, but I have to say that people outside will judge him for that.

As for what will happen with the Bill, it would not be fair for the Government to give priority to this Bill because that would be unfair to other Bills in the process. We will have to see how it goes in the future, but what I would point out to the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon) is that this is an important beginning to a process. Sometimes these issues take quite a while to get there, but the Government are prepared, as he has said, to work as far as we can with the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) on these matters.

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

Eddie Bisknell is our Derbyshire local democracy reporter, and while he always gives me my fair share of robust scrutiny, I deeply value his enormous contribution to our community. You can imagine our horror then, Madam Deputy Speaker, when the Reform Derbyshire county council recently announced a refusal to engage with Eddie. While I understand that its engagement ban has now lifted after a large national backlash, will the Leader of the House join me in condemning Reform’s press bans and make time for a debate on press freedom in the local democracy reporting service?

[Sir Alan Campbell]

I want to put on record our recognition of the important contribution that local democracy reporters make in holding councils to account. The reality is that Reform UK in Derbyshire was running scared of basic scrutiny, and that tells us everything we need to know about its fitness—or rather, lack of fitness—for public office. The Government take these matters seriously, and my hon. Friend may wish to raise his concerns in the debate on the Nolan principles later today.