Direction of Government

Debate between Andy Burnham and Emily Thornberry

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Okay, Northern Ireland—[Interruption.] Scotland. My apologies. There are models elsewhere that we can follow.

Can anyone say, with water in England, that the money that is siphoned out in salaries and dividends is justifiable when the system could not provide a basic service to people this summer? When sewage spills out on to our beaches and into our lakes, can anyone justify that? I am surprised that there is not more recognition of that from the Conservative party. Thirty years of privatisation has not left the system in a good state.

Changing some of those big things will require the different approach that the right hon. Gentleman calls for. I was pleased that he came, while on his holiday, to the cross-party talks on social care. I give him a commitment that I will keep them going until Louise Casey reports next year with her options. I hope, even then, that we might be able to find a consensus option that we take forward. I do not want to leave this position without having put all my political capital into solving this issue. As Health Secretary 16 years ago, I could not defend leaving people to lose everything they had worked for, but often only getting in return care that was sub-standard and not good enough. I know from my own family experience that that cannot carry on any longer. Nor can we defend the poverty pay for those people who care for other people’s parents and give everything of themselves to those roles. We owe it to millions out there to fix that. This is a test for this Parliament—what remains of it—to see if we can do that. I will work with the right hon. Gentleman to do that.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion of a national commission, there is a democracy taskforce working out of the Cabinet Office and I could certainly involve him in the work that that is doing. I am interested in political reform. I am interested in looking at how we restore trust in politics. I am prepared to look at all those issues—alongside the voting system, too—and I think he knows that. I believe that this Parliament needs to be a circuit breaker for the country. I do not believe we can carry on as we are. We are losing the trust and faith of the public. We need to act together to turn it around, and I look forward to working with him, precisely on that theme.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is absolutely right: we must free our politics and bring back trust, and it seems to me that we could start doing it tomorrow. We could take foreign influence out of our politics by banning foreign money from our politics. I welcome the fact that the Government are going to amend the Representation of the People Act 1983 and cap such donations at £100,000, but given what has happened since the Rycroft review, I worry that the cap is not strong enough, and I think that the public agree with me. Given that this will probably be our last chance to protect our democracy before the next general election, will the Prime Minister give serious consideration to supporting my new clause 85, which would ban all foreign donations?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend and agree with her very strongly that we need to restore trust, particularly when it comes to foreign donations that seek to influence our politics. I am pleased she recognises the amendments that have been brought forward to the Representation of the People Act, which will be debated in this House later this week. I mentioned the defending democracy taskforce, which has been set up in the Cabinet Office. It needs to continue to look at these issues, and this will not be the last chance. We can come back to these issues in this Parliament, such is their importance.