Public Office (Accountability) Bill

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Richard Burgon

2nd reading
Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The Bill before us stands as a testament to the decades of campaigning by the Hillsborough families. I want to pay special tribute to them and to other families I have been humbled to work with, including Grenfell families and the family of Zane Gbangbola, who are still fighting for justice. They have backed this Bill because they do not want to see others endure what they had to.

I want to commend the tireless work of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who as Member of Parliament for Leigh helped drive a Hillsborough law from inside this House. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne)—my close friend—for all he has done over the years, before becoming an MP and now, to fight to get us to where we are today. Thanks are also due to my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle) and Steve Rotheram, Liverpool metro mayor.

As shadow Justice Secretary in 2017, I was proud to commit that a future Labour Government would deliver a Hillsborough law. In fact, it is almost eight years ago to the day since around 90 Labour MPs signed a letter co-ordinated by myself and the then shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbott—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The hon. Member means to say the then shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hackney somewhere or other—apologies for not knowing.

[Richard Burgon]

She has been forgotten too many times in this place, but I will put that to one side.

The letter from the then shadow Home Secretary and I called on Theresa May to introduce a Hillsborough law in the aftermath of Grenfell. I commend this Labour Government for bringing forward this legislation. A duty of candour, new criminal offences for failing to uphold that duty, expanded legal aid and a parity of representation to end the David versus Goliath nature of inquiries—these are all big steps forward. There will be areas where the Bill can be strengthened, and I hope to play my part in ensuring that it is improved as it goes through this House, but fundamentally it is a good Bill and must remain so as it passes through the House.

On that point, I want to send a very clear message today to anyone hoping to water the Bill down as it passes through Parliament: do not try it. Far too often in this country politics has acted as a dam, holding justice back rather than helping it to flow. Class and power imbalances and, yes, racism have repeatedly denied people justice in the face of state abuses. We have seen the truth sacrificed to protect the powerful. Hillsborough, Stephen Lawrence, Grenfell, the Post Office scandal, Bloody Sunday, Orgreave—these are all examples of times when the state used its immense power not to deliver truth and justice but to block it year after year. In all those cases, the state was accused of a cover-up by those affected. Distrust was sown, and justice delayed and denied.

We know that there are forces who did not want this Bill to get this far and who do not want it to go forward in this form—forces who do not want the scales of justice tilted in favour of working-class people. I welcome the Prime Minister saying that there will be no watering-down of this Bill, but if any civil servants, Members of this House, those in opposition and in the House of Lords, those in the media or others within the machinery of the state attempt to dilute or derail this Bill, they will have the fight of their lives on their hands. We will use every power at our disposal, including naming and shaming under parliamentary privilege, if we hear of any attempts to water down this fundamentally important Bill.

Let this be a rare moment when the House delivers legislation that we can all be proud of. Martin Luther King once spoke of how

“the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.

It has not felt like that for so many families. Let us make sure it does by supporting this Bill and making it law. It has been too long, and today is an important day.

Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Richard Burgon

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I wish that we were not here today. We do not need to be here today. There is nothing special or magical about this Tuesday—nothing at all. The deadline we have been given is to solve a political problem. That is why so many of us on the Labour Benches have been pleading with the Government to pull the Bill, go back to the drawing board and work in partnership with disabled people and others, including with the Timms review, to ensure that we get a welfare system that works for disabled people and others. There is no need to ram the Bill through other than to save political face. There is no need to ram it through at Third Reading next Wednesday in Committee of the whole House so that disabled people cannot give evidence from their experiences in Bill Committee. There is no need to do that at all. We should be solving this problem, not solving a political problem.

We are being asked to vote on the principles of the Bill, and all hon. Friends should be clear about what those are. They are on the face of the Bill. It says,

“to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment.”

That is the purpose of the Bill. My colleagues and I did not come into Labour politics to restrict eligibility for personal independence payments. When I think about what we are being asked to vote for tonight, I think not just of my colleagues here, but of the disabled people who come to my constituency advice surgeries. I think of the disabled people who had hope in their hearts a year ago when a Labour Government were elected after 14 years.

Let’s be clear: this was not in our manifesto. The Labour party as a whole has not approved this, and the Bill has been rushed through. We need to be clear that if this were a free vote, it would be hard to find many Labour MPs at all voting for it. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said, this is a matter of conscience, and we need to be clear about what we are comparing here. When we decide how to vote tonight, we are not comparing the Bill as the Government intended with the Bill as is promised; we are comparing the situation of disabled people across the country as it is now with the situation that will come to pass if the Bill is passed.

This Bill, which was brought—whatever the narrative—to save billions of pounds, with these concessions still cuts billions of pounds from disability support. No Government and no Labour Government should seek to balance the books on the backs of disabled people. That is not what any of us in the Labour family, left, centre or right of the party, came into politics to do, and that is why so many people are uneasy about this.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) spoke clearly from her experience. She regretted not voting against the Conservatives’ welfare Bill back in 2015. I urge all colleagues to listen carefully to what she said because the truth is this matter does not end when the voting Lobbies close tonight; this matter will come back to haunt Labour MPs in their constituency surgeries Friday after Friday up to and including the day of the next general election. People will ask, “Why on earth did you vote for these cuts?” or “Why on earth did you sit on your hands?”

It is notable that 138 disabled people’s organisations are pleading with Labour MPs to vote for the reasoned amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central and vote against this Bill. I know the Whips and those on the Front Bench can make compelling arguments, but for me, the real compelling argument has been made outside this Chamber by those 138 disabled people’s organisations. It was very telling that, when asked yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) to name one disabled persons’ organisation that supports this disability benefit cuts Bill, the Secretary of State could not name one, because there is not one.

I honestly believe that for any Labour MP who votes for this Bill tonight or sits on their hands, that vote will hang like an albatross around their necks. I understand that some colleagues will feel they have to vote for disability benefit cuts out of party loyalty, but there are other types of loyalty in addition to that: loyalty to our consciences; loyalty to our party’s values; loyalty to our disabled constituents; loyalty to those who are really struggling and come to see their MP—people like me, on about £90,000 a year—and ask them for help. I do not want to be in my constituency advice surgery saying to those people, “You know how you’ve got a problem and you’re in a really difficult situation? Well, that’s because of the way I voted.”

I urge MPs to have the democratic dignity that comes today by voting with their conscience and voting to give disabled people outside this place what they have been denied for too long: dignity, respect, a voice in this House and a vote in the Lobby—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order.

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Richard Burgon

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his eminently reasonable and common-sense approach to this debate and on amendment 11. Does it seem to him, as it seems to me, that this legislation takes place in a wider context? Along with the proposed tightening of eligibility for personal independence payment, it moves us towards a hostile environment for benefit claimants, particularly disabled benefit claimants. We will end up treating them as suspects automatically. Does he agree that it was right for us to oppose this measure when the Conservatives wanted to do it? I tabled an early-day motion, signed by nearly 50 MPs, to that effect. We have to oppose this measure now. The best way to resolve it is by the Government accepting his eminently reasonable—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. That was a very long intervention. Perhaps we would be better off going back to Neil Duncan-Jordan.

Middle East

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Richard Burgon

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I urge Members to make their questions short, or we will simply not get everybody in.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Ind)]

We all hope that the ceasefire happens and that it holds, and we all resolve that if it does, never again—never again by anyone. For the most part, that means accountability, which is where the ICC and ICJ come in. Journalists, forensic experts and rescue teams must be guaranteed unrestricted access to investigate mass graves, locate the missing and document the atrocity crimes committed by Israel, so will the Foreign Secretary commit to supporting this? Otherwise impunity, not accountability, will reign, which will prevent us from making sure that what we have seen does not happen again.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Richard Burgon

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon]

The shadow Secretary of State is making a case from her ideological point of view, although she denies it. Running through her speech is a deep suspicion of the public sector. Suddenly she is suspicious about the quality of service for passengers. Suddenly she is suspicious about the quality of service provided, and the amount of money being spent on it. If only those suspicions and that scrutiny had been applied by the shadow Secretary of State and her colleagues while they were in government to the disastrous privatised railway service. Is she really trying to convince this House that privatisation of the railways was in any way a success? It seems to me that she is trying to stand as a barrier to public opinion and the Bill’s progress, because the majority of people in this country support public ownership of the railways and the Labour Government were elected with that as a clear manifesto pledge.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is about to finish.

[Richard Burgon]

I am, thank you. I will bring my remarks to a close by asking, is it not the case that the shadow Secretary of State is being deeply ideological and is only interested in the privatised model and the pursuit of profit, regardless of the effect on the public?