Oral Answers to Questions

James Frith Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester Withington) (Lab)]

10. What steps he plans to take to consult the public on the design of the digital ID scheme.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr James Frith)]

Public services should be there for us when we need them, but right now it is too hard for people to get what they need. The new, free-to-access digital ID intends to change that by supporting the personalising of public services, making everyday life easier for everyone. The consultation will be launched next week to ensure that the public can have their say on how we make digital ID work for them.

[Jeff Smith]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his well-deserved elevation to ministerial office.

Even though digital ID will make it easier for people to access public services and engage with public bodies, there is still an awful lot of disinformation, and frankly conspiracy theories, out there trying to undermine the case for it. Do the Government have any specific plans to try to counter those narratives as part of the consultation?

[Mr Frith]

I thank my hon. Friend for his well wishes; I am grateful for the opportunity to help to dispel any misinformation on this exciting programme of digital transformation of our public services. Let me be clear: this will not be compulsory, and there is no central pot of data. In my early conversations, I have already been assured of the security of data by design and the intentions of this plan to make digital ID not compulsory, but something that people deem for themselves to be a “must have”. It is for us to rise to this challenge in our design and delivery of it. More broadly, we want to have a national conversation. The upcoming consultation will clearly set out the Government’s position on this programme.

[Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

11. What estimate he has made of the cost of the civil service pensions recovery plan.

Ukraine

James Frith Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We will take the hon. Gentleman’s points into consideration. Obviously, the immediate situation confronting us is the question of how we settle the peace, but he is right to raise those other concerns.

[Mr James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

Can I add my voice to those around the country who have said how proud they are of our British Prime Minister, and how proud they are to be British? He has led from the front, and I hope very much that in the weeks and months to come, he will hold that in mind and strengthen his resolve as we move forward. He has already made reference to one of the priorities that Stefan Harhaj, the chair of Bury’s Ukrainian association, raised with me, which is the release of the 20,000 children who have been kidnapped and forcibly removed to Russia. Will my right hon. and learned Friend commit to securing their release and updating the House on a frequent basis on our achievements to this end?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, of course. That is a really important issue, and it should not be overlooked as we discuss the very many issues here. It is a moral outrage, and I think I speak for the whole House in saying that.

Ministerial Code: Policy Announcements

James Frith Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

As I have said, I have the deepest respect for this House and its Members. The coming days will be very important to debate the Budget in full. I am sure right hon. and hon. Members will forgive me if I have a degree of cynicism about the Conservative party’s new-found passion for parliamentary conventions, given the number of times it failed in its 14 years in office to update the House ahead of major announcements.

The truth is that Conservative Members are desperate to speak about anything other than the appalling mess in which they left our national finances. There are many groups of people who I would listen to on budget management, but certainly not Members of the party that crashed the economy. We would think they might have learned some lessons from attacking independent financial institutions, but they have not. The shadow Chancellor and the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury are attacking the Office for Budget Responsibility once again.

Families in my constituency and across the country are still paying higher rents and mortgage costs because of the mini-Budget two years ago that created and wreaked such havoc on our economy. Unlike the Conservative party, this Government will never play fast and loose with the nation’s finances. Tomorrow we will see a Budget focused on investment, to get the economy moving again. This Government will take the long-term decisions needed to rebuild Britain and fix our schools, hospitals and our broken roads. The Conservatives have not changed. All they offer is decline and more austerity, with working people paying the price.

[Mr James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

In Bury North, rents and mortgages are still sky high as a direct consequence of the economic legacy of the last Conservative Government. Does the Minister agree that it is no surprise that the Conservatives want to talk about anything other than their economic record?

Priorities for Government

James Frith Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is my intention for schools to get that extra cash as fast as it can be humanly expedited.

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

Some 80% of children excluded from mainstream schools have special educational needs and disabilities. It is not enough simply to fund new specialist schools; we need mainstream education to support special educational needs and disability. What is the Prime Minister’s plan for that? It ain’t just about cash.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

James Frith Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is not alone in failing us. The Government Back Benches are full of former Ministers who claimed, “I am the man who can!” The first Brexit Secretary said he could, but he could not. The former Foreign Secretary said he could, but he could not. The second Brexit Secretary said he could, but he could not. Now, they join the hardliners on their Benches who all say they can, but we know they cannot. It is not just the Prime Minister who has been let down by their mis-selling. The country has been misled, and now the plan has been mislaid. Ultimately though, this comes down to a failure of the Prime Minister—her leadership, her incapacity to build consensus or to hear what is said, and most alarming of all, her contempt for Parliament. This Parliament has been voted in more recently than the referendum. This Parliament is a more recently anointed authority than the referendum result. My town sent me here as someone who did not trigger article 50—many of my constituents did so because of that fact. We are a Parliament more representative of the changing picture we see.

On at least three occasions, in normal times the Prime Minister’s record would have cost her her job. Those three occasions were opportunities for her to change tack: to offer the UK a tonic, with a deal that united the country through unity in this House. We are told that Parliament needs to decide what it is for, but we have been given no chance to decide. We have pored over this, many of us spending time doing the heavy lifting to understand why the people felt so deprived of a say, so overlooked, that they pulled the leave cord in 2016 to stop the show.

We must extend article 50 and establish what we are for, through indicative votes and a process of gathering the way forward. Fill a deal with content that speaks to the support in this House for a deal—one with a customs union and a direction to deal with the world and the protection of our people and our planet. Then take this deal and seek further permission on it, not from the pomp in the Tory party but from the public. Go back and seek further instruction from the people. Let them hold it up to the light, for their final say. Let Britain have her last word—to stick or twist, to back it or keep what we have.

Britons voted to leave or remain in their millions, then this changed Parliament was ushered in. Division is still palpable, and all the doorstepping and polling in the country tells us that there is no magic healing number. Compromise is a must. So the content of a deal with the permission of the public marry this changed Parliament to the changing picture we see—and of course everyone reserves the right to vote the same way again. At that point, I will support a deal before arguing we don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Frith Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. Friend, perfectly properly, made reference to the 2017 Conservative manifesto, but I could also refer him to many, many statements made from this Dispatch Box and elsewhere by our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the same effect. I would say to him that, for the complex negotiations that would be needed to establish the detail of the future economic partnership between ourselves and the European Union, we need to have the implementation or transitional period that is specified in the withdrawal agreement. That is what businesses of all sizes in all sectors are asking us in this House to do, and that is why the House should come together and support a deal.

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

Q6. Will the Minister explain why councils such as Bury, with less availability of brownfield land, cannot use the most recent independent Office for National Statistics figures on household projections to determine local housing need, thus saving more of our precious green belt from development?

[Mr Lidington]

Of course, new tests of housing need have recently been introduced. They are designed to reflect the fact that under successive Governments of all political parties, we as a country have been building far fewer new homes than our country and particularly our younger generation now need. I can say to the hon. Gentleman that, representing one part of the country with some of the fastest housebuilding rates anywhere in England, I think this is a social justice challenge that we have to face up to, but the national planning policy contains within it very strong tests to protect against inappropriate development in the green belt, and the Government will stand by that approach.

European Council

James Frith Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

A number of things were said on both sides of the campaign during the referendum on the European Union. The task we have before us is not to relive that referendum, but to get on with the job of delivering on it.

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

I talked to both sides in my constituency on Saturday. The Prime Minister knows about her Brexit-supporting MPs’ change of heart in her, but my constituents are wondering why she will not ask Bury for its conclusion on her botched deal. Does she regret spending so long appeasing the 1922 instead of building a deal that works for the 48 and the 52?

[The Prime Minister]

I think I am right in saying that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency voted to leave the European Union in the referendum. Those people who voted to leave will want the Government to deliver on that.

Exiting the European Union: Meaningful Vote

James Frith Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

I made it clear to my constituents that I would not be supporting the Prime Minister’s deal. The deal locks us into purgatory, and a few added pages in the appendix will not change that. Whether we said yes or no to Brexit, nobody voted for this.

How can we believe anything this Government say? Yesterday played out the Prime Minister’s contempt for Parliament and for the people we represent. It is their Parliament she smothers and ignores. Her humiliation now risks becoming the country’s humiliation. In what possible scenario do her latest actions help us negotiate a better deal, as we step closer to a no deal? But I fear a more cynical move in the Government’s motives. After running the clock down, and two years of excluding the country from making a deal together, the Prime Minister refuses to express the realities of Brexit compared with its rhetoric and will not say when the meaningful vote will be—or, indeed, whether it will be either meaningful or a vote. Threatening no deal if it is not her deal is a confection. Such an approach is straight out of a mis-selling scandal; it is, “Take this now or lose everything. Now or nothing. No other choice”, but it will not wash.

Far from taking back control, the Prime Minister stands in the way of control. Britain said yes and no to Brexit. Some 3,000 leavers and remainers in my constituency have taken my Brexit survey, with an 80% combined view that the public or Parliament should have a final say on the deal, compared with just 11% for the Prime Minister. I understand sentiments such as, “Why aren’t we there yet?” or, “Get on with it”, but this is too important to lose patience with. It is too important to be told, “Time’s up, everyone out.” The Prime Minister has not united the country because she cannot unite it with the approach she has taken on the one job she had. She should bring her deal back to Parliament next week, conclude the vote and have Parliament decide what is next, including whether we should ask for further instruction from the people. If she cannot sell her deal, it is not worth buying, but all efforts now must be to activate this place, our Parliament, to protect against a no deal.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Frith Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. I understand that a new co-ordination centre is being set up to ensure that the work on county lines that the National Crime Agency has been leading is properly integrated with the work of the forces involved. I am pleased to say that we saw a recent case in Birmingham in which an individual was sentenced to 14 years for having effectively enslaved three children to sell drugs for them as part of this county lines approach after having pleaded guilty to charges of modern slavery. We recognise that the problem is growing, and the Home Office is taking action.

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

Nearly 70% of all children excluded from school have special educational needs or a disability, and the reason cited for the exclusion of a fifth of all excluded children is “other”—a category for which no further information is held. Does the Prime Minister agree that this unfolding national crisis is totally unacceptable? Will she commit to stopping the use of that category, which encourages off-rolling in our schools? Will she press Ofsted to ensure that its new framework supports and encourages inclusive schools and an education for all our children?

[The Prime Minister]

We want to ensure that every child is in the right school setting for them. For many children with special educational needs that will mean a mainstream school, but for others that will be in a special school. I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point about exclusion, about which we do have concerns. That is why a review of exclusions is being undertaken by my former colleague the previous Member for Crewe and Nantwich, who took a particular interest in this area as Children’s Minister, and we will look carefully at the results of the review.

Leaving the EU: Customs

James Frith Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

Releasing this information is part of the job: this is about scrutiny, not mutiny.

As I have said in the House and in my constituency, I want a Brexit that is the best for Bury and Britain, not the confines and machinations of hard-liners among Government Members sitting on their protected bit of green-belt land, not a stand-off in Government two years in, and not a Prime Minister in a spin, announcing ideas, but admitting that they all still need work. And we have not even left yet. The serious point is that current jobs, our future prospects and just-in-time manufacturing rely on getting this right, and peace in Northern Ireland relies on us getting this right. This is detail on which millions of jobs, lives and livelihoods depend, and detail that our real economic growers need sight of.

It is said that the hard-Brexit ideologues are prepared to sacrifice themselves to get what they want on this point, but there is no heroism here. It is not heroic to put a company out of business from the comfort of their places on the Green Benches. It is not heroic to put jobs at risk as they nod with their accomplices across the table at the latest Brexit dinner. No hero takes risks with others’ lives when only they will live without the consequences of failure.

In Bury, we have businesses of all persuasions, ambitions and origins. Each of them tells me about their careful consideration of the implications, threats and, possibly, opportunities posed by leaving the EU, but they all want a customs union. As they weigh up their next moves, they should be enabled to do so with the best information—good and bad—that is available. Giving them such information will better prepare us all, because away from here, the prism through which Brexit is seen is that of communities, families, homes, jobs and prospects. That must also be our approach to Brexit: not deals in the dark, but information brought to light. Sharing the information from these Cabinet discussions is part of doing so.

A customs union is an economically literate plan that is supported by the CBI, as well as employers providing local jobs in Bury and elsewhere. It accepts the result of the referendum, allows us to move away from the stalled state of things as they are and lets us quickly get plans for a post-Brexit Britain. We need a transformation agenda to bring back to Labour the wards and communities in which people voted to leave because they felt left behind; and we need a modern vision for a country dealing with the world. The Government must stop wilfully adhering to threats made by a tiny rump of ideologues and do what is right by this country.