Lord Mandelson

Debate between Andy McDonald and Simon Hoare

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop). I will return in a moment to a point that he was just making.

I have the great privilege of being the father of three wonderful teenage daughters. Any parent or relative will feel their stomach turn and churn at the thought of vulnerable young women being trafficked and used as playthings for the sexual gratification of warped and twisted minds who thought they were above the law, to whom the rules did not apply, and who thought they could get away with it because of who they were.

I suppose the surprise as it relates to Peter Mandelson is that we are surprised. He was a man who seemed magnetised to money like a moth to a flame, and who had caused considerable and significant embarrassment and discomfort to previous leaders of his party. The current Prime Minister decided that, in some way or another, it was only the extent of the relationship that should be the determining factor, whereas the existence of the relationship at all should have precluded Peter Mandelson from an appointment to be our ambassador in Washington.

I want to pick up on a point raised by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean, and to which I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) was also referring. My conscience—I do not say this particularly smugly—is a bit clearer than my hon. Friend’s, if she is referring to the same vote, because there was a vote in this place. Those on the Treasury Bench need to remember this, because there are certain votes and motions in Parliament that become a Thing, with a capital T. They become an event. They set the scene that makes the atmosphere for the coming months and weeks of a Government. I think that this issue, and how the Treasury Bench responds later, is one such Thing.

Owen Paterson was and is a friend of mine, as well as a former parliamentary colleague. We were asked to vote for something which effectively would have got him off a very painful hook. I, along with 12 other Conservative MPs, against a lot of whipping, voted against the then Government amendment to effectively, de facto, exonerate him. It was the most difficult vote I ever cast, as he was a friend both political and personal, but it was a vote that I have never regretted, because it was the right thing to do. When all the party allegiances, the to-ing and fro-ing and the whipping and everything else is over, at the end of the day—I hope this does not sound too folksy, Mr Speaker—we all need to be able to look in the mirror, and at our families, our friends and our constituents, and say, “I always tried to do the right thing. I may not always have done so, but I always tried.”

I think the right thing for the Government to do is to withdraw their amendment. The mood of the House is incredibly clear. We heard wise advice from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), a former Attorney General and a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee; I do not think anyone could refer to him as a partial politician in this place. His integrity speaks for itself—as does that of the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds).

Anybody with a partial hearing of political interpretation will have gleaned the mood of the House: while respecting national security and other issues, which is a perfectly legitimate concern of the Government, this House vests in the Intelligence and Security Committee, to be discharged by senior Members of this House and the other place—Privy Counsellors all—the duties that those of us who are not Privy Counsellors or on that Committee cannot do for potential security reasons. We vest our faith and trust in that Committee, and it has never leaked. The Government can therefore follow that path in good faith and with trust. I hope that a manuscript amendment will be both forthcoming and accepted by you, Mr Speaker.

The hon. Member for Forest of Dean mentioned party politicking on this issue, and I am afraid I disagree with him on that; I do not think there has been any. I agree far more with my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith). Take away the party tags, the labels and the rosettes, and this is something that, for the vast majority of our fellow citizens, speaks to the operation of the state, the effectiveness of this place and the reliance our fellow citizens can put upon us in this place to do the right thing in difficult times, even when it is difficult to do so. Members on the Government Benches should talk to their Whips, use the usual channels and ask the Government to withdraw their amendment.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

Given what the hon. Gentleman has said, does he agree that the amendment as drawn would, in effect, just throw a cloak over the very issues that many right hon. and hon. Members of this House want to see dealt with, and that the way to resolve those sensitive issues is simply to engage the Intelligence and Security Committee? Is that not the best way forward?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Why else would we have an Intelligence and Security Committee with that remit? It is not as if we are retrospectively trying to establish a Committee of the House to do a specific job. It exists to do this sort of job, among other things. I hope that those on the Treasury Bench have listened.

On Monday, in response to my question on his statement, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told the House that it would be much better to deal with the removal of Lord Mandelson’s title via the procedures and Standing Orders of the House of Lords than by legislation. He also told the House—in complete and utter sincerity at the time, I am sure—that it would require a complex hybrid Bill, which was not an analysis I shared. My understanding is that a simple Bill to amend section 1(2) of the Life Peerages Act 1958 to apply a cessation date to the honour of a life peerage would be all that was required. We have passed important legislation for Northern Ireland and other issues in a day’s sitting before when the mood of the House was clear.

I think the Prime Minister indicated today at Prime Minister’s questions that he had tasked his team—his officials—with drafting legislation. There is an appetite for urgency in this place, and allowing this issue to suppurate and drip will not be the answer. I ask the Minister in his summing up—or, if he wishes to intervene on me now—to give us a timetable as to when this House will see the Bill and to confirm that Government time will be found to take it through in a single day. That would be very helpful.

Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Debate between Andy McDonald and Simon Hoare

Committee of the whole House & 3rd reading
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Member makes a powerful point. We have to raise our heads and look at our brothers and sisters, who are actively and economically engaged in our country, and think about the contribution they make and the payments they make into the Treasury, through tax and national insurance. We must treat them with dignity and respect, rather than trying to other them at every opportunity.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The hon. Member makes an incredibly powerful and telling point about the disincentive of trying to get into work for people who have a varying and fluctuating condition, such as MS. That is an unanswerable point and I will listen with interest to what the Minister has to say in response. Does he agree with me that in conversations that the Minister has with what we are too lazily inclined to refer to as “the disabled community”, unless we are able to break down disabled groups into those who have a permanent condition and those who have a fluctuating condition, and to individually tailor responses to that, it will be a missed opportunity to get this right?

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Member makes an important point, and it is critical that that is reflected on the face of the Bill. With all sincerity, we cannot walk away from here thinking that guidance notes are enough. They may change fundamentally in further iterations and say something completely different from what this honourable and decent Minister is saying to us today. Policy for disabled people must be made with them, not imposed upon them.

If we are serious about ending austerity, we cannot keep balancing the books on the backs of the poorest. That means revisiting not just what we spend, but who we tax and how. We have heard about the party of millionaires making their case that this country has done so well by them—they are so privileged to have made a success of their lives and to have flourished—that they are looking at the opportunities they were given and saying, “Please, we can make a further contribution.” It is they who made the argument about a wealth tax that would raise £24 billion. Nigel Lawson, when he was Chancellor, thought that the differential between capital gains tax and income tax was an anathema, and he equalised it, so there are opportunities for us there.

The Employment Rights Bill also presents us with wonderful opportunities. If we could grasp the issue of “single status of worker” and deal with the issue of bogus self-employment, limb (b) employment, zero-hours contracts and the rest of it, that not only represents secure, well-paid, unionised work for people to give them a flourishing life; it also gives us the opportunity to collect currently uncollected tax and national insurance, to the tune of £10 billion per annum. That would also mean supporting people according to their needs. That is not Marx, but the Acts of the Apostles.

This is a moment of reckoning. The country expects better. If we are to lose our nerve now, we will lose more than a vote: we will lose the trust that brought us here. We must reflect that during our discussions about the Bill, each and every one of us has heard the response from our constituents and our offices that this has been a shambles—there is no other word to describe it. Now is the moment to stop the cuts and I implore the Government to rethink the Bill.