UK-EU Common Understanding Negotiations

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I have a bit of bad news for the hon. Gentleman: it is a Labour win, I am afraid. On his second point, if he wants to discuss the customs union, a good starting point might be the workers at Jaguar Land Rover.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. As he will be aware, my constituency of Harlow has a lower than average number of young people going to university, which is something that I would like to see addressed. However, can he talk me through the benefits of the Erasmus+ scheme for young people in Harlow who do not go on to university education?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I spoke this morning, I had in my mind someone who wants to do some basketball coaching, or perhaps an engineer on an apprenticeship who has chosen not to go to university but who might well, none the less, want to go on a placement abroad. Those are just some examples of the wide range of benefits that I hope his constituents in Harlow will be able to benefit from.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Digital IDs have the potential to make life much easier for my constituents in Harlow. However, I have constituents who are concerned about data security. What reassurance can the Minister give them that their data will be safe with this new system?

[Ian Murray]

The data will be safe. It will be a fragmented system, and it will have the highest possible data security standards attached.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on increasing economic growth in Wales.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on increasing economic growth in Wales.

[Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)]

9. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on increasing economic growth in Wales.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Stevens]

The introduction of the Pride in Place programme has meant good news for Rochdale, as well as for Wales. A total of 14 communities across Wales are each benefiting from £20 million of long-term investment to enable the changes that they want to see in their neighbourhoods. This hyper-local programme will benefit areas that are doubly disadvantaged, having both the highest deprivation levels and the weakest social infrastructure. It is about investing for the long term, and creating safer, stronger and more resilient communities with the facilities and infrastructure that they need to thrive.

[Chris Vince]

It has been a momentous two weeks for my Welsh colleagues, with announcements of new AI growth zones in both north and south Wales, a fleet of small modular reactors, billions of pounds of investment and 11,000 new jobs. Does the Secretary of State agree that this shows that this Labour Government are determined to ensure that there will be growth across the UK, including in Wales?

[Jo Stevens]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This Labour Government have backed Welsh business and economic growth since day one, and the results speak for themselves; new nuclear at Wylfa and the two new AI growth zones will mean well over 11,500 new jobs. Add to that the best inward investment results for years, a 30% increase in jobs created, a 23% increase in projects landed, more jobs, wages rising faster than inflation, and more money in the pockets of people across Wales.

G20 and Ukraine

Chris Vince Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman’s constituents that we will absolutely fight for a just outcome and a lasting outcome. He can tell his constituents that we are working very, very closely with the Ukrainians on this, as we always have, and supporting them for as long as they may need that support.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement today, and for his continued leadership on a global scale, particularly in respect of Ukraine. I also welcome what he said about the investment that the Government will put into the Global Fund, because I recognise the importance of tackling HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. However, may I put in a personal plea for my constituent Anne Strike, a Paralympian and a polio victim, and ask that we continue to lead on the world stage in the eradication of polio? We are so close, but global conflicts such the one in Ukraine will obviously lead to more instances of polio in the future.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a proud champion for Harlow, and I am pleased that he has raised polio in that context, linking it to his constituency. We must not lose sight of the devastating impact of polio, HIV/AIDS and TB. They are having a devastating effect across the globe, and they will be a threat to us as well if we do not act.

Ministerial Code

Chris Vince Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Josh Simons]

To my mind, one cannot get away from the character of the Prime Minister and his or her relationship to that appointment. What matters is that if the post of adviser is vacant, it will not be allowed to remain so. Unlike under the previous Government, it will be appointed and the person will be respected. That is exactly what this Prime Minister has done and will always do because, in the end, the Prime Minister believes that restoring standards in public life and restoring trust in this House and in democracy is the most important mission for this Government.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, I thank you on behalf of the people of Harlow for allowing us Back Benchers to get a voice in Parliament on these issues. That is really important. Last month, the Government set up the Ethics and Integrity Commission, which I welcome. Could the Minister touch a little more on its scope and remit, to ensure that we avoid things like the partygate scandal in future?

[Josh Simons]

The Ethics and Integrity Commission was a vital part of our manifesto commitment to restoring trust in Government. Its scope has been set out clearly in the public domain and it will, over time, establish its reputation as a core driver of standards across the state, across Government and across the public sector. I look forward to the next series of publications that are coming later this year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kanishka Narayan]

The hon. Member’s campaign has been noticed and I would be very happy to meet her to discuss how we can work together to ensure that enforcement is robust on this question.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Sadly, the glamorisation on TV of drug taking is not a new phenomenon, but I particularly worry about the nature of the internet and social media, and about the short clips that people watch in which the true consequences of drug taking and drug culture are not really shown properly. What can the Minister do to use the internet and social media for good, and show young people in my constituency the dangers of drug taking and drug culture?

[Kanishka Narayan]

My hon. Friend is a master of short clips in the Chamber, so I will take both his skill and his sincerity on this question to heart and work with him to ensure we robustly enforce the duties already placed on Ofcom under the Online Safety Act.

Official Secrets Act

Chris Vince Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

If I may say so, that is a very clever question from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I hope that the right hon. Lady will understand that, given that the decision was communicated this morning, the Department and the Government will be looking at it very closely. I am confident that the new National Security Act gives the Government—I genuinely pay tribute to the previous Government for their work in introducing that groundbreaking legislation—the tools we need, but I know she will understand that we will look very closely at the decision communicated this morning and satisfy ourselves that we have all the necessary powers and tools to guard against the nature of the threat we face.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. The first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe, and I know that he has a track record of doing just that. He also rightly recognises that politics is not just about MPs or Members of the other place; it is also about political staff, the Clerks, everybody who works in this place, and everybody in local government. What reassurances can he give my constituents and the greater population that he will ensure that we stop foreign influence over our democratic processes for everybody?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who raises an important point. I can give him and his constituents the assurances he seeks. The Government take these threats incredibly seriously and we will do everything we need to do to keep the public safe. On behalf of the Prime Minister, I chair the Defending Democracy taskforce. The Prime Minister recently renewed the mandate of that cross-departmental mechanism, which ensures that we are able to provide a whole-of-Government approach to the threats we face. The Government take these matters incredibly seriously. These are not party political issues. I have always believed that these are matters that should be a shared endeavour. I will want to work with him and Members right across the House to ensure that, collectively, we keep ourselves safe.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Chris Vince Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

This House sent the second Chamber a Bill that had a simple and direct objective outlined in this Government’s manifesto, but I have to report to the House that something very strange has happened since then. People said that the Conservatives were in some sort of hibernation since the general election, but it would appear they have found an issue that has awakened them from their slumber. On the order of their Whips, some hundreds of Conservative politicians, finally mustering the strength to make their mark in Parliament and ready to take action for what the 2025 Conservative party believes in, have found their crusade. What is it? Keeping hereditary Lords in the jobs they accessed by accident of birth. I have to say that it is a tale as old as time—the Tories blocking progress. Who knew it?

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is an opportune moment for me to mention my summer reading list and the first Labour Government in 1924. Even at that time, there was talk about reform of the House of Lords, so this is very much a tale as old as time itself. In fact, looking back in historical Hansard, it goes much further back than 1924, so is it not good that this Labour Government are finally getting on with dealing with it?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Whether we go back to 1924 or even further back—and I will during my speech—we find Conservatives in this House protecting their friends born into positions of power. This Bill will finally remove such an archaic right. Just as the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) —he is overseas at the moment, I understand—wants to send people, certainly in Wales, back down the coalmines, the Leader of the Opposition is stuck in the politics of the past.

Before I turn to the amendments sent back from the other place, I want to draw attention to comments made by the noble Lord Strathclyde. He said of this Bill that

“inevitably, there will be repercussions. They”—

the Government—

“are storing up huge problems for themselves.”

The Conservatives have not only complained that the Government are removing hereditary peers while offering “nothing in return”; more sinisterly, they have threatened to use delaying tactics on this Government’s agenda. We only have to look at their behaviour in debates in the upper House, to see that they have been trying to hold the Government hostage on the Football Governance Bill, the Employment Rights Bill and the Renters’ Rights Bill—all to protect the hereditary principle. We know that the Conservative party is in no fit state to take action on very much, but where is their energy being directed at present? It is being directed at the self-preservation of hereditary peers in the House of Lords. That is unacceptable and, frankly, it deserves to be highlighted.

As I say, the Bill has returned to the House amended by the other place. Most of the amendments serve to undermine the core purpose of the Bill, or go well beyond the Bill’s intended remit. Lords amendment 1 has to be read with its consequential amendment—Lords amendment 8. It seeks to end the system of hereditary peer by-elections while retaining the current cohort of hereditary peers. The Government cannot endorse those amendments, which fundamentally undermine the core purpose of the Bill. The Government have a manifesto commitment to bring about an immediate reform by removing the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Lords amendment 1 would allow existing hereditary peers, the youngest of whom is 39, to remain in the other place for decades to come. That therefore blocks an immediate reform.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She speaks powerfully about her constituents, and I want my constituents in Blaenavon, Pontypool and Cwmbran to be able to aspire to be Members of Parliament, including in the upper House, and that places are not reserved for people through accident of birth—[Interruption.] The shadow Minister chunters from a sedentary position. If he is in favour of the hereditary position, let him tell us, instead of hiding behind the smokescreen of pretending he is in favour of full reform. Let us hear him say from the Dispatch Box that he believes in the hereditary principle, if he does.

We have said from the outset that we wanted this Bill on the statute book before turning to the next phase of reform. Delaying this legislation means delaying the establishment of the Select Committee and delaying further reforms. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) mentioned, the reality is that since we last reformed the Lords, the outside world has changed. Our Parliament should always be a place where talents are recognised and merit counts. It should never be a gallery of old boys’ networks, nor a place where titles, many of which were handed out centuries ago, hold veto power over the will of the people.

[Chris Vince]

Does the Minister recognise the irony that, given these issues were discussed in 1924, we are probably now discussing the hereditary peers who are the grandchildren of the hereditary peers they were talking about getting rid of 100 years ago?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is right. One would think that the 1924 debate about bloodlines and pedigree as a basis for participation would no longer have any advocates, but it appears that a number of such advocates are left, a century later.

From the Parliament Act 1911 to the House of Lords Act 1999, the history of Lords reform is littered with examples of individual Members straining every sinew and making every different argument to try to resist reform. In 1911, Lord Curzon coined the term “the ditchers”—the Unionist peers who were to fight into the last ditch over the then Parliament Bill and whose efforts have acted as an effective block on further change. Today’s ditchers all sit on the Opposition Benches—

Infected Blood Inquiry: Additional Report

Chris Vince Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I just give my hon. Friend the reassurance that the Government have said that they will pay what it takes to fund the scheme. We will then update the forecast costs at the autumn Budget this year.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Paymaster General for his statement. I think the hearts of all of us across the House go out to the victims of this terrible scandal and their families. As somebody who saw a family member die of AIDS, I know how incredibly difficult that must have been for many of them. Does the Minister agree that the common thread in the infected blood scandal, the Post Office scandal, Hillsborough and the pelvic mesh scandal—the one that comes across my desk the most—is that victims were not listened to? He mentioned the need to consult on the recommendations. How will he go about that consultation? Can he assure me that it will be thorough?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend speaks very powerfully about his own personal experience. He is entirely right about a consistent failure on behalf of the state over many decades on many scandals that have been debated in this House and on which we have listened to victims. Getting the consultation right and ensuring that we hear the voices of victims and the community is crucial to the Government.

G7 and NATO Summits

Chris Vince Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. I have visited Blackpool many times, as he knows. I know first hand just how important it is for those young people to see money going into their economy, with jobs in Blackpool for them. I profoundly remember asking a group of 17-year-olds, I think, at a sixth-form college in Blackpool how many were proud to be from Blackpool. They all put their hands up. When I asked them how many thought that their future jobs would be in Blackpool, only one put their hand up; the rest all thought they would have to leave Blackpool to get the jobs they wanted. We need to turn that around. This gives us an opportunity to start doing that.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement today. From a personal point of view, I thank him for his recent visit to Harlow and Downs primary school, which recently received an excellent Ofsted report.

Does the Prime Minister agree that to achieve the sustainable and long-term peace that we all so desperately want—in the middle east, in Gaza, in Ukraine and in Sudan—we must work together with one voice and with all our NATO allies? That is why his leadership on a global level is so important and why it is so important that he attends all these events to represent our proud nation.

[The Prime Minister]

My most recent visit to the primary school was to roll out our free school meals policy. I was happy to do that by serving school meals myself—if all else fails, I’ve got a back-up.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At a time like this, the House usually comes together and speaks with one voice, and we are the more powerful for it. President Zelensky has told me on a number of occasions how much that means for his people. In fairness to the Conservative party, it has always been resolute on Ukraine. The Leader of the Opposition needs to look again at her approach. At a time like this, the sooner we get back to the kind of cross-party unity that we had, the better. Our adversaries know that when they see unity here, that is much more of a problem for them than when they see unserious division.

Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) (No. 2) Bill

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 56), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Question put forthwith, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.