Infected Blood Inquiry Update

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I thank the Paymaster General for providing an advance copy of his statement. I would like to begin by paying tribute to the brave victims and their families, who, while working through their own personal ill health, grief and trauma, have campaigned tirelessly for justice—without their strength, we would not have reached this stage—and of course to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), who has been a stalwart of the campaign.

The continued work of the infected blood inquiry is crucial to ensuring that victims’ voices are heard. I had the privilege of meeting victims of this scandal last month, and their stories will stay with me forever. No one should have to experience the pain and anguish they have faced and are still facing. Justice delayed and its continuing delay is justice denied. While we await the conclusion of the report and inquiry, those who were given contaminated blood products are dying at a rate of one every four days. Families have suffered decades of health issues, financial loss and stigma.

Victims—those affected and infected—will have watched the Minister’s statement today with heavy hearts, disappointment and some degree of anger. There seems to be no commitment from the Minister to respond to the second report until the final report is published in the autumn. The interim report was published so that the Government do not have to wait until the final report to take action. We all understand the complexities of this scandal, but I hope the Minister can see that many individuals directly affected still feel angry and unrecognised. Today’s statement does not provide any certainty for the families or children of victims.

To finish, I have five questions for the Minister. First, does he agree with Sir Brian’s statement in the interim report that

“Time without redress is harmful. No time must be wasted in delivering that redress”?

Can he confirm that the “intense focus” he talked about is to achieve the recommendation in the report that the scheme is

“set up now and…should begin work this year”?

Secondly, how can he provide more reassurance to family members of victims, including parents who lost children and children who were orphaned when their parents died?

Thirdly, the Paymaster General talked about work under way. If the Government plan to accept these interim findings, officials must start verifying and registering directly affected people and their families urgently to understand the size of the group and to speed up the payments. Can he confirm whether that is already taking place? Fourthly, will he commit to more regular updates on progress and the direction of travel on this issue ahead of the inquiry’s final report later this year? We should not have to keep squeezing this information out of the Government, because it compounds the pain of the victims.

Finally, will the Paymaster General agree to meet me and the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), so that we can work together to deliver the justice the victims deserve?

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks. She was right to pay tribute to many MPs in the House, including the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) who have campaigned tirelessly on this issue over a long time. I am grateful for the work of the all-party group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, and some members of the media have also been at the forefront of pushing this issue for a long time.

Above all, the hon. Lady is right to refer to the victims, and I am very conscious that there will be tens of thousands of people watching this statement who are desperate to see a resolution. Every time there is another iteration, or a cause for me to be in this place, it is a source of anxiety, concern and worry. I am sure that there is disappointment every time there is another statement and we do not have the final resolution, but we have travelled a long way. This inquiry was announced six years ago, and Sir Brian started work five years ago. I am very grateful to him for producing this interim report. A lot of it is similar to the report by Sir Robert Francis, but there are differences.

We do need to do the work, and on the points the hon. Lady raised, we have been focused on ensuring that at the conclusion of Sir Brian’s inquiry, we are able to come forward in the best place possible, but that does not preclude doing something earlier if we are able and have the means to do so. Registration is not as yet taking place, but I am mindful that whereas for the previous interim payment there was a defined set of people and bereaved partners, if this recommendation is to be taken forward it will require registration, and that inevitably takes time, as we are all aware.

Right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that this statement is no more than an update. I was keen to come to the House to hear the views of hon. Members, and I commit to doing so again as appropriate and as we continue through this process. Work will continue, and of course it would be a pleasure to meet the hon. Lady and the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if they would like to discuss this matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

We all know how distressing it was for the relatives of people who died from covid to read the former Health Secretary’s leaked WhatsApp messages. There were some dreadful revelations about life and death decisions that were made, and about how they were made. The outcomes of the covid inquiry will be vital for learning lessons to strengthen national resilience—there could be another covid tomorrow. Will the Secretary of State confirm that all evidence from Ministers and former Ministers held on official channels, private emails and WhatsApps has been provided to the independent covid inquiry so that no more delays are caused by the Government?

[Oliver Dowden]

I can give the hon. Lady that assurance. There has been total and full transparency from Government, as we are required to do under the terms of the Act and the relevant legislation.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend and wholeheartedly agree with him. This framework provides a positive basis to move forward. It ensures that we respect the balance of all communities, and I look forward to working with him and other colleagues to ensure that we realise the full potential of what we have achieved today.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

This is certainly an entirely different definition of an “oven-ready” deal. Instead of being good to go, it has taken years, has to be eaten in instalments, and with an interim serving of, by the Prime Minister’s own admissions, a dog’s dinner. This deal is welcome, but Government actions have done serious damage to Britain’s reputation for upholding the rule of law. Looking forward, will the Prime Minister commit today to the Government never again asking Members of this House to vote on legislation that breaks international law?

[The Prime Minister]

The Windsor framework provides a legally sound sustainable basis on which to move forward. It brings enormous improvement to the situation in Northern Ireland. It safeguards Northern Ireland’s position in the Union, but it also ensures that it is in a framework of international law. The points made about the Vienna convention are important and are there in the political declaration. That allows businesses, families and communities in Northern Ireland to plan with certainty for the future, and for the brighter future that it can be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

The Government take any complaints of bullying and harassment very seriously. That is precisely why the Prime Minister appointed Adam Tolley to conduct this investigation. Opposition Members have constantly asked me when we are going to appoint an independent adviser so that we can have a proper process, and now that we have appointed one and we have a proper process, they say that we should perfunctorily sack the person. They cannot have it both ways.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Trust in politics matters, and Ministers have a responsibility to uphold standards. The list of Ministers’ interests on the website is currently 247 days old and has not been updated since last May. It is not even an accurate list of Ministers, by a long way. Can the Government not be bothered to update it, or is there something to hide? Does the Minister agree that there is absolutely no reason why Ministers’ interests should be less transparent than those of any other Member of Parliament?

[Oliver Dowden]

As the hon. Lady will have seen, the Prime Minister has appointed an independent adviser, who is going through those Ministers’ interests. I can assure her that before May they will be fully published, in accordance with the rules.

[Fleur Anderson]

I, like many others, was surprised to see that it took the head of the investigation into Richard Sharp’s appointment at the BBC a week to realise that there was a conflict of interest and recuse himself from the role. What will the Minister do to tackle this chumocracy around the Prime Minister? Is it not time he adopted our proposal for an independent integrity and ethics commission to finally restore the accountability and professionalism that the Government promised?

[Oliver Dowden]

I was involved in the appointment to which the hon. Lady refers, as the Secretary of State. We had a clear and transparent process, with independent selectors choosing that person. Indeed, the matter was looked into by the Select Committee, which found that it was an excellent appointment. The Government stand by the appointment, and Richard Sharp, as the chairman of the BBC, is doing an excellent job.

Draft Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Amendment of List of Responders) Order 2023

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 General Committees

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Twigg. I am pleased to be speaking to this statutory instrument.

Labour will be supporting the instrument; these two additions to the list of responders—the Coal Authority and the Met Office—are sensible and necessary. However, the legislation gives rise to more questions over the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and how ready we as a country are for the next major emergency. Two of the questions raised by the legislation are: why is it so late, and why are only two more organisations being added to the list?

The Civil Contingencies Act is an excellent piece of legislation and a Labour invention, introduced in 2004, but it is important to note that the Government at the time recognised that it would need to change and adapt over time. Between 2004 and 2010, the Government attempted to improve and develop it; sadly, since 2010 it has been left to gather dust and deprioritised by successive Conservative Governments. This is only the second SI introduced on the Act in the past 10 years, despite all the threats and dangers that we have faced and the learning from them, including the pandemic. The changes made on those occasions were piecemeal and fairly inconsequential.

It is not just the Opposition saying that. I have been speaking to experts for over a year now and finding out more and more about this interesting and necessary field of government. Those experts include members of the National Preparedness Commission, who are also concerned about the lack of proactive development of civil contingencies policy since 2010.

The Minister highlighted the national resilience framework published by the Government just before Christmas, and there is also the post-implementation review of the Civil Contingencies Act that was carried out last year. Notwithstanding the fact that it was late, why is this just a framework? Why is it not a strategy, as originally promised? Where is the detail and the meat behind it? More to the point, why has it taken a deadly pandemic to force any kind of action or review of the Act? The whole point of civil contingencies is to continually plan ahead, think ahead and deliver ahead, but all the Government seem to do is react when it is too late.

I return to the purpose of the instrument. It is all well and good adding these two further organisations to the list of responders but, going ahead, a more fundamental issue needs to be addressed: communication between all these responders. As the National Preparedness Commission has pointed out in its review of the Act, the mechanism for effectively building relationships between the local resilience forums and the category 2 responders—all responders—that can work in a crisis is very weak. The Minister highlighted the often inconsistent and ad hoc nature of that. In fact, the report says that category 2 responders are seen as second-class citizens, which is eroding the sense of partnership on which resilience depends. Resilience depends entirely on partnerships that spring into action to prepare and deliver in an emergency. We saw that most acutely during the pandemic, with whole sectors brought into the covid-19 response on a scale never seen before.

I advocate a shift in the Government’s thinking towards investing more in improving the relationship between category 1 and category 2 responders, and supporting local resilience forums. We could add as many organisations as we wanted to the list, but if they were not ready and had little or no relationship with category 1 responders, it would all be pointless. On that point of adding more organisations, does the Minister plan to do that? Will we be back again next week and the week after?

The National Preparedness Commission has recommended adding several more organisations to the list, including the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Food Standards Agency, the internal drainage boards, operators of COMAH and REPPIR sites—under the control of major accident hazards, and the radiation emergency preparedness and public information regulations—the UK oil pipeline system, the Oil and Pipelines Agency, the Crown Estate, and St John Ambulance and other charitable ambulance services. It further recommended that the status of the British Red Cross as an auxiliary to the UK Government, with its particular and valuable capabilities in planning, needs assessment and humanitarian assistance for emergencies, should be recognised in statutory guidance.

Does the Minister intend to bring forward further instruments to add more agencies to that important list? What other reforms are being brought forward following the post-implementation review?

To summarise, we support the draft instrument, but it cannot end here. A lot more work needs to be done in this area, and we need to go further and deeper if we are to get an Act that delivers on its purpose of keeping all British residents and citizens safe. I will be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts on the questions I have asked.

House of Lords Reform

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) on securing this debate. I often say that a debate is timely, but this debate really is: we are at a crux of time in our country when we are looking at who we want to serve us. There is a real crisis of trust in our democratic institutions, so it is only right that we talk about this issue.

I am proud to be given this opportunity to speak about Labour’s plans to make our Parliament fit for the 21st century. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for his contribution and I agree with him. I speak as a democrat, proud to be part of a democracy but shocked to be part of only half a democracy at many times. There is a democratic deficit in an unelected Chamber belonging to a bygone era that undermines the value of the expertise that has been rightly pointed out by many Members in the debate. Change is needed.

I cannot continue without paying tribute to our tireless Labour peers. Time and again, they have stood up against the Government’s worst excesses, whether that is by blocking attempts to strip refugees of their rights and dignity in the Nationality and Borders Bill or by inflicting a record 14 defeats on the Government’s anti-protest clauses in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Many lords are expert and hardworking, and deserve the respect of us all on the Opposition Benches.

In the past year the House of Lords has considered 5,244 changes to 100 Bills. Members in the House of Lords raised concerns, pressed the Government for action, questioned decisions with debates, asked daily oral questions and tabled urgent questions, in more than 3,350 hours of business. We are not saying that the House of Lords does not do a lot of hard work or that lords are not, often, experts in their field; we are saying that the Lords could be far better with a democratic mandate.

The time has come for change. We need a Lords that is properly accountable, where the expertise is strengthened by that democratic mandate, and that is up to the task of rebuilding the whole of Britain after 13 years of Conservative failure. The next Labour Government will scrap the House of Lords and replace it with a new second Chamber that truly represents people across the UK.

[Anthony Mangnall]

May I ask for a bit of clarification? Is the hon. Lady saying that the Labour party is wholly committed to a wholly elected Chamber of the House of Lords? If she is, does that mean there will be a referendum, as has been promised on previous occasions when Labour policy has suggested large constitutional change?

[Fleur Anderson]

I do not think the hon. Member is alone in having questions about our policy, which is to have a conversation with the British people to decide what the future policies would be. I am not going to be outlining all the dotted i’s and crossed t’s of Labour party policy, because that would be wrong. We need to have further conversation about the result of our conversations. Later in my speech, I will go into what will underpin that.

The SNP has used this debate about the second Chamber for game playing, to undermine the strength of the Union, and has denied Scottish people a voice in the second Chamber by boycotting it—by just leaving it alone. It has no interest in making Westminster or devolution work. Labour will work with the Scottish people to give Scotland and other parts of the UK an even greater say in UK-wide legislation through a new second Chamber. Under a Labour Government, a second Chamber that is more representative will give Scottish people more of a mandate to deliver for Scotland and undo the damage caused by the SNP and the Conservatives.

There are three reasons why we need reform, the first of which is trust. Trust in Westminster is at an all-time low, and in many ways who can blame the public? Never before has the privilege of power been used and abused for personal gain so much and so frequently. The mantra of “It’s one rule for them and another for us” is said far too frequently; people should not feel like that about their elected bodies, and the Lords is a prime example.

Take the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). He recommended 87 new life peerages, but two of those people have not made maiden speeches, even though one was appointed in September 2019 and the other in July 2020. His brazen attempt to subvert democracy by rewarding donors, lackeys and friends makes him the latest in a long line of Conservative Prime Ministers who have gamed the system by installing a conveyor belt of their cronies into the House of Lords, undermining it as a result. Instead of rewarding Conservative donors, we should be rebuilding trust in politics.

[Kirsty Blackman]

How many peers did the most recent Labour Prime Minister recommend?

[Fleur Anderson]

I do not know, but we are talking about the system. It should not be the patronage of the Prime Minister that gets to recommend those who vote on our behalf; the people should decide who is going to make those decisions. That is the point I will be making, whichever party the Prime Minister comes from.

In the past seven years, every former Conservative party treasurer bar one has been offered a seat in the Lords, and 22 of the party’s biggest donors have been made lords since 2010. We cannot keep on sheepishly asking for the trust of the people: we need to show how things will be different. Reforming the second Chamber has to be part of that.

The second reason is democracy. Devolution was a major achievement of the last Labour Government, and the next Labour Government are committed to continuing that proud democratising tradition. We have shown that we will put our money where our mouth is when elected. We must go further than the devolution that has already taken place, which includes making the second Chamber of our Parliament fit for the 21st century. It must be more democratic and accountable, and therefore effective, and must accurately represent the people of our diverse regions and nations across the United Kingdom.

We need reform that retains expertise, yes, but the right expertise from throughout the country, not just expertise in knowing the right people. Consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers have ridden roughshod over the system of appointing people to the House of Lords. If things continue as they are, there will not be many experts left; instead, the House of Lords will be packed to the rafters with those who owe their place to favours and dodgy dealings rather than talent and expertise. For too many, a peerage is a fancy title or an Instagram photo opportunity, which undermines the work done by so many hard-working peers.

Hansard tells us all we need to know. There are 41 Members in the House of Lords who have only made one contribution since the beginning of the 1992-93 Session—one contribution in 30 years—yet those Members can claim more than £300 a day for attending and can vote on any issue, changing the lives of people up and down the country. They are not accountable; there is no check or balance. Those Members do not have to look into people’s eyes and be accountable for what they have done, how many times they have attended, what they have said and what they have voted on.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I think the hon. Lady mentioned 41 lords; could she help me with something, because it is important to be accurate? Of those 41, how many have claimed allowances, how many have actually voted and how many have attended the Chamber at any point? How many of them actually have parliamentary passes? I ask because we need to be clear about this matter; otherwise, someone can start setting a narrative that is not accurate about the important work that is done in the Lords.

[Fleur Anderson]

The fact is that they have the right to come and vote if they want to, the right to attend and the right to take the money for their daily attendance, no matter what happens. It is just a job for life. They have the notoriety and the title, which gives them some credibility, yet they are not doing the work that should accompany their position. They should be accountable. If they are not attending, not taking the money and not voting, they should do the right thing and resign their positions.

YouGov polling from August last year shows that the public have had enough. Only 6% of British people favoured a House of Lords that is mostly appointed, whereas 48% supported a House of Lords that is mostly elected. Our plans are not just democracy for democracy’s sake, though, even though that would be reason enough. That brings me to the third reason for why reforms are vital. We cannot fix the economy without fixing our institutions and we cannot bring about the social change that we need in this country without fixing our institutions. They are fundamental to our decision making. Inclusive growth must go hand in hand with inclusive governance. A second Chamber packed with the mates of former Conservative Prime Ministers, all of whom have given up on the levelling-up agenda as far as I can see, will not deliver equal growth and opportunity for all nations and regions.

Labour will consult members of the public from throughout the UK to determine the exact size and make-up of the new second Chamber. We launched the commission on the UK’s future, which was chaired by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and involved people from throughout the country, including people from academia, local government, the legal profession and trade unions. As a result, we have articulated three clear principles that will underlie our vision of reform. First, Members of any new Chamber should be elected by voters rather than being appointed by politicians; secondly, it should be truly representative of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom and play an important role in safeguarding the devolution settlement; and thirdly, it must remain a second and secondary Chamber and continue to have a role complementary to the work of the Commons. It will not replace the Commons.

We have to earn back trust. That will happen only with a Labour Government. Only Labour has the ideas and the credibility to fix our politics as well as our economy, and we are the only party that sees the intrinsic connection between the two and that will make the change that is needed.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

I call the Minister and remind him to leave a couple of minutes for Patrick Grady to speak at the end.

Illegal Immigration

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. A big part of that difference is how we are treating Albania. That will be changed as a result of our new guidance and deal. More broadly, one of the changes that we have made today is to increase the threshold that someone has to meet to be considered a modern slave. It was based on simply a suspicion that someone may be; we are changing that to make sure that there is objective evidence that they are. That change will help us to close down some of those grant rates, but there is more work to do and that is what our legislation will deliver.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

The white list of countries designated safe is not new, and Albania has been on that list since 2014, so there is nothing new about this announcement. I welcome the clearing of the backlog. The Prime Minister just said that he knew that workers would be employed within the next nine to 12 months, and the whole backlog would be cleared from the current 100,000—it was 3,000 when Labour was in power—in the same 12 months. So without the immigration workers there, how will this circle be squared and how will be the backlog be cleared?

[The Prime Minister]

I urge the hon. Lady to go and check her figures. It was certainly a lot higher than that under the last Labour Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) said, we are currently rejecting only 45% of Albanian asylum seekers, compared to all European countries, which reject more like 98% to 100%. The changes we have made today will ensure that our rate increases up to the levels that we see elsewhere. That is as a result of the new deal that we have negotiated with Albania, which will give more comfort to our caseworkers. Combined with the new guidance that will be issued, that will mean that we should, as we want to, return the vast majority of Albanian migrants when they come here. They should not be here; Albania is a safe and prosperous country and they should go back there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to shadow Minister.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

During the winter, severe weather or any emergency, the British people rely on the Government to be more prepared and better ready to respond than they were for covid. The national resilience strategy was promised in last year’s integrated review and then promised again for the autumn. Then we had the summer of ministerial chaos. Autumn is over, winter is definitely here, and the Minister has just promised a new approach on emergencies. Can he tell us when to expect this very important strategy?

[Oliver Dowden]

The short answer to the hon. Lady’s question is imminently. I have cleared the framework and it is receiving cross-Government agreement. I hope to publish it very shortly. I would, however, like to reassure her that that is not the only thing we are doing. We have already completed three out of the seven initial deliverables. I will chair the first meeting of the UK resilience forum early in the new year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

We have seen in eye-watering detail this week the price the taxpayer pays when the Government lose control of procurement during a crisis and panic: billions spent on unusable personal protective equipment written off; millions spent on storing that PPE; and millions pocketed by greedy shell companies that failed to deliver. The Government have a responsibility to uphold basic standards and, especially in an emergency, to restore normal controls as soon as possible, so can the Minister explain why the Procurement Bill hands Ministers more power over direct awards than ever before?

[Alex Burghart]

The Bill sets out a new paradigm for public services to procure in this country. It will move us away from “most economically advantageous” tender to “most advantageous” tender. That means we will be able to take account of things such as transparency, social responsibility and fairness in a way that was not possible under EU legislation.

G20

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely will do that. May I also congratulate my hon. Friend on his reappointment as a trade envoy to Indonesia? It is a region that he knows particularly well. He has done fantastic work in deepening our bilateral relationship with that country, which will play an increasingly important role in the global economy as the third largest democracy, one of the largest Muslim countries in the world, and soon to be a top-five economy. It is right that we have deep relationships within Indonesia, and I thank him for his part in making sure that that is happening.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Water and sanitation are a major global crisis, causing conflict, migration, inequality for women and girls, and poor health outcomes that are easily preventable. Can the Prime Minister confirm whether he had conversations with other G20 members about the water and sanitation crisis, and will he reverse the 80% cuts made by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to water and sanitation projects?

[The Prime Minister]

The conversations I had with other leaders were incredibly appreciative of the role that the United Kingdom is playing in helping to tackle suffering, poverty and poor sanitation around the world. What was highlighted in particular was our recent commitment of £1 billion to the Global Fund, as well as our track record of supporting countries to alleviate famine. Those are things that everyone in this House should be proud of and this Government will continue to champion them.

Papers Relating to the Home Secretary

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I am extremely pleased to close this debate on an important motion. It is important to my constituents in Putney, Southfields and Roehampton, who have stopped me on the tube recently and said, “What is going on?” They are perplexed about what is being allowed to happen and especially about the issues around the recent reshuffle and its returns.

[Lee Anderson]

rose—

[Fleur Anderson]

I am just starting off.

The public look to the Home Office to keep them, their families and their communities safe, but the Prime Minister’s decision to reappoint the Home Secretary against advice just six days after she broke the ministerial code and had to resign, and in the light of the further reports about security and code breaches, is shockingly irresponsible. We have heard a full, detailed list of questions that we still do not have answers to. I hope to hear answers to them in the Minister’s closing speech.

We heard powerful speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), who listed several serious questions that need to answered, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton), who outlined the serious concerns raised by her constituents that need to be addressed, and my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), who raised the questionable decisions made by the Home Secretary—that is what is underneath this whole debate today—and the need to appoint an ethics adviser. Perhaps we will hear about that from the Minister later.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) gave a forensic analysis of the current Home Secretary’s history of leaking being investigated, and the discrepancies in the timeline: when she reported the mistaken email, the selective information given in the letter to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), and the deficiencies in those letters. That letter and the deficiencies in it are one of the reasons why the Opposition called for this debate and for the documents to be made public.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) underlined the importance of trust and the need to rebuild the trust of our constituents in the Government after recent months—years even—of the Conservative Government. We need to rebuild trust and that is why we need to see the documents. The judgment of the Prime Minister is being called into question, as my hon. Friend outlined, and the country deserves high standards.

Let me be clear: these are serious questions for the Prime Minister. This month’s Prime Minister promised

“integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”,

but the unravelling of the Home Secretary’s story throws all three of those into doubt. There are serious discrepancies in the letter to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, which I think releasing the documents would help to show. The written ministerial statement leaked by the Home Secretary, which is central to these allegations and issues, was sent on purpose to a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and, by mistake, to someone else. That surely throws up lots of questions about what else the Home Secretary is sending out and to whom.

Did the Prime Minister know that the Home Secretary had previously used her personal email on six other occasions when he made this appointment? Did the Prime Minister know about the review into her use of personal and Government IT, and was he presented with the findings before he reappointed her? Did he know about the very serious allegations that the Home Secretary was repeatedly leaking sensitive information when she was Attorney General? Did he know of any other breaches that are not currently in the public domain? Has he seen the contents of the Cabinet Office leak inquiry report? Has he been advised of any further breaches of the ministerial code over the handling of events at Manston? Why has the Prime Minister appointed someone with such a cavalier approach to the security of documents and such a history of leaking, to such an important position for national security? All those questions could be answered right now by the Minister without making any personal information about appointments public. They could just be answered right now and I think that would go a long way to restoring trust. The Prime Minister has an opportunity today to definitively prove he has nothing to hide, or he can Whip those on the Government Benches to vote against this motion. We would then have to assume that there is something to hide.

This is a narrow debate, as has been said many times, and specifically so. It asks only that certain papers be laid before the House within 10 sitting days, so that the decision to reappoint the Home Secretary just six days after resigning can be made fully transparent. We are asking to see only the risk assessment, the documents about security breaches and any leak inquiries, submissions made or advice relating to the appointment, and that if redactions need to be made, understandably so, any unredacted materials are made available to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

In his opening remarks, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) said that sharing appointment documents would undermine the appointment system. We are not asking for all documents in all cases to be shared. This is a very exceptional and unusual appointment just six days after a ministerial resignation, so the process is already undermined. The allegations will continue to dog the Home Secretary unless we can fully find out what has been going on. I hope that those documents would restore the trust that has been lost.

It is not just the Opposition who are asking serious questions. The Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), also wrote to the Cabinet Secretary on 3 November to ask many questions about the reappointment of the Home Secretary and about many procedural issues. He has written a list of six serious questions that I hope will be answered soon.

Amid all the chaos, it is timely to remind ourselves that there is still no ethics adviser in post. The Prime Minister said that one of the first things that he would do was to appoint a new ethics adviser. The previous Prime Minister said that she did not even need one, but no one believed that. A Cabinet Office Minister also promised me in a Westminster Hall debate on Monday 17 October that an ethics adviser would be appointed very shortly. The Prime Minister has so far not appointed one, but has instead appointed a Home Secretary who resigned over security breaches and an Immigration Minister who admitted acting unlawfully in office. The Minister at the centre of all these allegations remains on the Government Front Bench—it is just “Carry on Conservatives”. Where is the promised new ethics adviser? Why the delay when we are again seeing breaches of the ministerial code left, right and centre? Has the position been offered to anyone or to a succession of people who have said, “No, the work load is too much. We can’t take this on”? Will the Minister update the House today?

The Conservative Government have instead relegated national security to an afterthought, at times an inconvenience and something to be worked around. The Opposition have secured this debate not only because the allegations are very serious in their own right and we need to know more, but because the Home Secretary’s actions and appointment indicate a pattern of behaviour by the Prime Minister in the way that he is making decisions.

There have been allegations that the former Prime Minister used her personal phone for Government business. There are now revelations about the actions of the Cabinet Minister—the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson)—and that is relevant to this motion, because that pattern of behaviour cannot become normal. We have to draw a line.

[Robin Millar]

Have we not just heard the real reason for this motion? It is nothing to do with the Home Secretary or even immigration; it is all to do with trying to establish a pattern of behaviour in the Prime Minister, because the Labour party is playing political games.

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, because we are absolutely seeking to establish whether there is a pattern of behaviour by the Prime Minister in appointing people to the Cabinet who should not be there because of their history of leaks and misbehaviour. That cannot be acceptable. It undermines integrity, which the Prime Minister was talking about. Let me remind colleagues, including the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar), that the Prime Minister has reappointed to Cabinet the man who, in 2019, was sacked as Secretary of State for Defence after a leak investigation. That pattern of behaviour cannot be allowed to continue.

What does this pattern of behaviour show? It appears to indicate that there is no sin too serious, no leak too large and no text too ill-tempered for a Tory to find their way back to the Cabinet table. That is no way to run a country. Is there just a chronic shortage of talent in the Conservative party? Do those who seem to find their way back know where the skeletons are buried? The public will ask those questions unless the documents are made public, and we need to hear them. Unless we see the papers and have reassurance about national security concerns, the public will be left fearing the worst. It is time for the truth. I challenge Government Members to vote for the motion, make the documents public and prove that the Prime Minister has nothing to hide.