Business of the House

Andrew Lewin Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I know the whole House will be following the unfolding events in the middle east carefully and with a great deal of concern. I assure the House that the Government are working with our partners to urge de-escalation and diplomacy, as well as continuing to engage very closely on the situation in Gaza, for aid to get in and for a sustainable ceasefire.

This week was the ninth anniversary of the murder of my and many other Members’ dear friend Jo Cox. This week we remember everything that Jo stood for—her values, her passion, and her commitment to building bridges and resolving conflict, and to international development. I send my thoughts, and I am sure the thoughts of the whole House, to Brendan, Cuillin, Lejla, Jean and Gordon, and of course to Jo’s dear younger sister, my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), who I know Jo would have been incredibly proud of, especially in recent weeks.

It is a pleasure to be joined once again by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), who I have a great deal of respect for and enjoy working with. I am sure that she and I are happy to take whatever plaudits we can for the exchanges that we have at business questions, because I know that the Prime Minister and many others follow them incredibly closely. Her contribution is certainly an improvement on the normal exchanges that I have with the shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who is not in his place today.

I accept the hon. Lady’s invitation to say a little bit about child exploitation, but I do not accept her characterisation of there being any kind of U-turn. I thank her for her tone, which is really important in these debates, because in the midst of such unforgiveable injustices, it is essential that we come together across the House to lower the temperature, and to put victims and their experiences at the centre. As a Government, we have always said that we would leave no stone unturned to uncover the truth, get justice for victims and lock up the perpetrators, which is why the Prime Minister commissioned Baroness Casey’s review in the first place.

We never ruled out returning to the issue of a national inquiry; we have always been guided by what would be the most effective way of getting the action, truth, justice and accountability in the most effective way possible. Some of those measures, including implementing the recommendations in the Jay inquiry around mandatory reporting and the introduction of new aggravated offences for grooming offenders, were included in the Crime and Policing Bill that we voted on last night. I was surprised to see Conservative Members voting against the Bill, which strengthens those measures, so perhaps they can reflect on that next time they criticise the Government.

The hon. Lady raises job creation and the economy— I happy to debate that subject with her. She did not mention the three unprecedented trade deals that we have secured. The Conservatives were once the party of the trade deal and free trade, but they seem to have set themselves against the trade deals that are already securing jobs and investment. Since we came into government, economic activity has reached a record high; we have created half a million new jobs, moving people into employment; and real wages have grown more in the 10 months since last July than they did in the 10 years of the Conservative Government, so we are happy to stand by our record on job creation and the economy.

The hon. Lady talked about the Employment Rights Bill, which is absolutely not something that this Government will be U-turning on. We are incredibly proud of giving the biggest boost in a generation to workers in this country, and it is about time too. We are giving them rights on sick pay, abolishing exploitative zero-hours contracts for the first time, as called for by many Members for a long time, and introducing fair pay agreements and many other things. in a Bill that we are incredibly proud to be delivering for this country.

Finally, in this week of all weeks, Parliament has found itself at the centre of the national debate—a place where we should always find ourselves. There are big issues at stake, globally and here at home, which Members of Parliament from all parties have been grappling with and taking decisions on to the best of their abilities, whether about the conflict in the middle east, the publication of the Casey audit, or votes on abortion and assisted dying, among many other issues. I put on record my thanks to all those across the House who have approached those issues with the respectful, non-partisan tone that they deserve.

We are all elected to this place to make hard decisions, to represent our constituents with integrity and to work in their best interests. I know that every single Member of this House takes that job incredibly seriously. However, we also have a duty not to slide into personalised, over-politicised, clickbait attacks on each other which, if we are not careful, undermine us all and democracy as a whole, and threaten the safety of individuals. I was disappointed to see that members of the shadow Cabinet were doing just that this week, and I hope they will reflect and withdraw some of the dangerous attacks that they launched, particularly as we remember Jo Cox. We have a responsibility to take the heat out of the political debate—[Interruption.] Personalised political attack lines—exactly. We have a responsibility to approach these difficult challenges with the thought, respect and humility that they deserve, and I think the whole House will want to do its job without fear or favour.

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

When I visited my Ukrainian Saturday school in Welwyn Garden City, many of the parents impressed on me the importance of having the option for Ukrainian children to study a GCSE in the Ukrainian language. As it stands, somebody can study Russian, but not Ukrainian, and I have promised to take up the cause. I have written to all the national exam boards, with some mixed responses, but I am determined to stay on the case. Does the Leader of the House agree that that would be a fantastic subject for further debate in this place?

[Lucy Powell]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that with me. He will know that GCSE subject decisions are taken by the independent exam boards, but he may be interested to know that the Education Secretary has recently written to the exam boards asking them to consider introducing a GCSE in Ukrainian. I hope my hon. Friend will continue that campaign, and I am sure that it will get wide support from across the House.