Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Debate between Chris Bryant and Helen Morgan

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point.

[Chris Bryant]

I urge hon. Members not to speculate on what the police might or might not be investigating.

[Helen Morgan]

I thank the Minister for that reminder.

I have been astounded by the brilliance of the British media and the journalists who have sifted through thousands and thousands of documents from the Epstein files and, within a really short period, have uncovered a scandal that has rocked the British establishment to its heart, and that has got everybody in this place acting to try to uncover the appalling rot at the heart of the Epstein circle. Yet other jurisdictions have been sitting on those thousands of documents, potentially for decades, and have apparently had no curiosity whatever. That in itself speaks volumes.

The Polish Government have launched an investigation into Epstein’s links with Russia. His links with Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor must be causing enormous concern in the light of that development. It is therefore right that we seek transparency about the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to this role. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) said, this is not about one mistake that led to an individual being in an inappropriate position; it is about the fact that the entire establishment failed to exercise curiosity and undertake due diligence. People put aside what accountants call professional scepticism and carried on with the appointment regardless because an entitled person needed a role.

I am pleased that the Government have agreed to comply with the requests in the Humble Address by publishing the documents. That is really important, because the public need transparency. They need to understand quickly what happened and, crucially, what can be done in the future to prevent such an appointment from being made again. Their trust needs to be restored, including in this place. We need to show that we care enough to hold powerful people to account and ensure that we are always improving public life, not slipping backwards.

The Humble Address seeks answers about how a man with such a questionable reputation came to be appointed to represent the British state, but this debate has highlighted the impenetrable networks of privilege that for decades protected a paedophile and those who surrounded him, possibly for their own gain, and who totally disregarded the victims of his crimes and the wider public, to whom they were apparently indifferent.

When the Government came to power, they promised to clean up British politics, and they have a real opportunity to demonstrate that they are serious about that mission. I hope that they take the opportunity and do the job properly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Bryant and Helen Morgan

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I understand the disappointment for some people who want to get into the package, as it were. My hon. Friend has three organisations in his constituency that will receive in the region of £500,000 this year under the national portfolio system. The problem we have is that we are in the middle of a spending review that will affect the next four years and, on top of that, we are doing a review of Arts Council England. We need to have profound change in the Arts Council so that it really works for arts organisations up and down the country, and that is what we will do.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

T6. Market Drayton in my constituency has really poor grassroots sports facilities for a town that serves more than 12,500 people. Shropshire’s Conservatives will not allocate any of the community infrastructure levy money from the significant recent development there to improving those facilities, so will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can get proper funding in, in order to provide Market Drayton—Shropshire’s third largest town—with the sports facilities it deserves?

Copper Wire Telecoms

Debate between Chris Bryant and Helen Morgan

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I will come on to that point about the difference between inside and outside, which certainly applies to homes in the Rhondda. The point was also made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) was saying that the signal on the parliamentary estate was temperamental or that the MPs were—maybe it is a bit of both. The hon. Lady made other good points about the potential for criminality. This is not a point that I have heard elsewhere. The Minister may want to refer to it later.

One of the biggest problems with this debate is that the vast majority of people in this country would have absolutely no idea what we are talking about. In fact, I would guess that of the 650 MPs, barely 10% would know what we are talking about. That is a potential problem, because if the public does not know what we are talking about, there is a danger for other people to exploit that lack of understanding and knowledge. Several Members have referred to the fact that this is primarily an industry-led, rather than Government-led, project. They are quite right, but the Government have a significant responsibility in this area. Towards the end of my speech, I will come on to a few things that I think the Government may want to look at.

There are real, legitimate concerns. PSTN—if 650 MPs were asked to say what that acronym stood for, my guess is that we would be lucky if 10 of them knew the answer—stands for public switched telephone network, and I only know that because I am reading it out.

The complete lack of public understanding of the issue is significant. The industry is extremely diverse, with roughly 650 providers in England alone, let alone the rest of the UK. As has already been referred to, BT has decided to delay its digital voice roll-out, and instead of a national roll-out by the end of December 2025 there will be a region-by-region roll-out, which adds a degree of complexity to any kind of national understanding of this issue. Indeed, I would argue that there is even less clarity about what is happening now than there was back in 2022.

As has already been said, some devices rely on PSTN. Security alarms are one. I would guess that quite a few MPs have security alarms. I wonder how many of those alarms are reliant on PSTN; I have no idea.

[Helen Morgan]

I will just highlight that point by drawing on personal experience. New security alarms do not rely on the copper network, for that reason, but they are reliant on a mobile signal, so if there is no mobile signal, they will not work.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Indeed. That is a point I will come on to again later.

The hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland referred to telecare devices, with 1.7 million people in the UK relying on them. I am not quite sure what percentage of those devices are still on PSTN, but I would guess that it is a pretty high. One of the problems that plagues the debates on this issue is that we do not have reliable data and statistics, so the Government should try to ensure that we do.

A significant number of traffic lights rely on PSTN. There was a time in Russia when people in the Russian Federation thought that a red light meant that they should drive very fast, which was a bit of a problem. Then there was a problem because all the traffic lights in Russia went off at 10 o’clock at night, which led to other problems. I do not know whether the British Government know how many British traffic lights rely on PSTN, but maybe the Minister will be able to enlighten us later.

Then there is closed circuit television, or CCTV. There is a wide variety of different systems of CCTV up and down the country. Many of those systems will now have transitioned, but some have not.

I feel very old-fashioned in saying this, but fax machines are another thing. I saw a fax machine a couple of weeks ago in a hospital, and it is extraordinary that some of our public institutions still rely on fax machines because other forms of data interoperability simply do not exist.